I have missed a few nights recently at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic in Paris due to problems of a lingering cold, a late start, or various other things. But I returned last night and did not regret it, especially thanks to the return of someone else – Ollie Fury, the man who started the whole thing maybe two years ago….
Ollie has been away in another country – like Stephen Prescott of the Galway open mic – lately but returned to delight us with his extraordinary voice and cool guitar fingerpicking.
There were some other interesting musicians as well, including one very adept at beat box stuff, an Italian rap thingy, and some new voices from elsewhere that I had not seen before.
My own personal set was done with a terrible feeling of how small my repertoire is and the knowledge that any of my songs I do there will have been heard several times before. That is the advantage of my worldwide travels to open mics where I play only once a year or never before – people are not hearing me do the same songs over and over again. But I find it difficult to take time off to close myself up in my apartment and learn, say, 10 new songs. Especially given that my memory is one of my weakest functioning traits…. Another weak trait is rambling on and on with little to say. So I will stop that right now!