Open Mic

Last night was my first round of hosting open mic night at the Crooked Creek. I think it went alright. I had fun anyway and I think the response was good.

I opened up the night solo and played five songs. I've heard the complaint that the host often plays half the night and no one else gets to play enough, so I was sure to keep my solo set short. I opened the open mic with Fuller's "5:00 in the Morning." It was the best tune I could think of to start the whole thing. Then I played one of my own songs called "Dorothy," then Bowie's "Major Tom," then "Step Inside this House," and finished with "Lawyers, Guns and Money."

Diogo and Travis played next and I joined them on bass. Towards the end of that set, a woman put a note on the stage. The note offered Diogo a gig at Deno's Pizza in Winter Park, so I think he was happy about that.

Next Andy Irvine played guitar with Greg Travis on drums. I played bass again--actually I played bass most of the night. We played all blues songs and Matty Brown and Kay sat in and sang some words. "Stormy Monday" was fun.

Next Matty led a set of some of his originals and some more old timey stuff. Andy Straus sat in on mandolin. Then Andy took the lead and Greg played washboard. That's when the gig started to sound a lot like a Hunker Down gig, only with me on bass and Andy Irvine in on electric guitar. Some guys from Denver were there, and I think they're going to come out to our Denver Hunker Down shows next week.

Inbetween a few of the sets, a local older guy named Al got up and performed some poems he had written. One was about someone he knew who died in Iraq and he got very emotional. Apparently he's doing a full two hour poetry show tonight at coffee shop in Fraser.

At the very end of the night, Matt Petty played a short solo set. He actually has a great voice. He closed the night very well.

All in all it was a good first shot. It flowed pretty well, and there were enough performers to fill the night. I don't think that anyone felt like they didn't get to play long enough. Only people I knew came to play, besides Al the poet. Some people who I thought would come didn't, but hopefully they will in the future. It was a fairly solid night. One thing I'm not going to do again is bring so much gear. I had three car loads of stuff including Greg's drum kit. I'm definitely going to simplify the rig. In fact, I need to go over to the Crooked Creek right now and pick up the remaining speakers I stashed in back.