Last night I got a bit of a taste of what it is like to MC an open mic at one of the long-lasting, mainstay open mic venues in Paris, and all I can say to those who do it all the time is: Respect! I had some experience doing this myself at my Mecano Sunday brunches for around six months a year or so ago. But taking over a regular venue for one night gives a whole new look at things.
I have to thank all my musician friends who showed up to play and help me, as without them I’d have had to play all night myself. Okay, what I really meant to say, was, without them, it would have been a somewhat barren affair, given that it was the beginning of the July holidays in France, and the day after a major soccer match. So lots of people stayed home.
But I had lots of performers, and I would have been able to do even more videos had I not been working out the sound feedback, musician monitor and other technical glitches that I came slightly unprepared for. I had actually been prepared by a photo taken of the soundboard on my iPhone the previous week – but after the iPhone was stolen over the weekend, I lost my crutch.
Thanks to Thomas Arlo and Brislee Adams for helping me out of that. And especial thanks to Joe Cady for turning up with his violin, to play along with me and several other musicians – and for taking that little video of me on his iPhone as I sang my song, “Except Her Heart.” Oh, and boy, there was this really cool trio that arrived for the first time, and it was their first gig together – and that was really, really exciting from the point of view of running the open mic. Check out the videos I did manage to do of them….
Next week Romain returns to do the job he has been doing so well…