There are three ways to send an open mic audience into a fever of excitement. The best way to illustrate these methods are to be seen and heard in the three videos below, which were made last night at the Galway Pub in Paris, by the Seine River.
1) The first method is that exemplified by Les DeShane: Make sure the audience has drunk enough alcohol and then take an old standard pop song that the entire audience knows and sing it fabulously, milking the crowd at every moment. Check out his style in the first video below, and note the arrival of new listeners from the street, and jolly making dancers in the pub.
2) The second method is that exemplified by Stephen “Danger” Prescott: Make sure the audience has drunk enough alcohol and then take a song that no one knows but that the entire audience thinks they know and sing it with great fun and gusto without an instrument, milking the crowd at every moment as they try to sing lyrics they do not even know but think they are getting the hang of, or think they should know. Check out his style in the last video below.
3) The third method is that exemplified by Brad Spurgeon: Make sure the audience has drunk enough alcohol and then take an old standard pop song that the entire audience knows and screw it up entirely, inadvertently milking the crowd at every moment as they try to sing for you. Check out his style in the last video below.
(I have to add here that Stephen just surprises me EVERY time at the Galway. The song he sings here is written by Stan Rogers, a Canadian folk musician from the east coast who died in a burning aircraft in Cincinnati in 1983, and the song is obscure on the international scene, and even in Canada. But Stephen came out with it. I have it on one of only four or five of my remaining LPs, two of which are Stan Rogers. I actually saw Rogers perform in a bar in Ottawa a year or two before he died. A wonderful voice, this man.)