Two Open Mics Carry Me Away

It was an unexpected situation last night at the Coolin and the Galway as two of my favorite three open mics on Mondays in Paris kind of swept me away with music and mirth. I mean, I had to show up early at the Coolin to sign up on the list, and I ended up there late and found myself 13 on the list of performers, and it was already 9:50 PM. So that gave me time to head off to the Galway to perform first. Just as I was trying to figure out should I stay or should I go now, my friend Joe Cady arrived at the Coolin with his violin, and so we decided to head off together to the Galway to perform together there, before returning to the Coolin to perform in my No. 13 slot.

But arriving at the Galway, I found that the evening although not jam packed with performers had a healthy number of performers, and an even healthier sudden offering of a Polish woman classical guitarist to go up on stage after my set and play the guitar while I sing and Joe plays fiddle – fiddling around, as it were. The MC, Romain, after a two-week absence, was completely open to the idea of the sudden, impromptu performance by the Pole, and we set about massacring the Eric Clapton song I least like to hear, because it is just so sad. I had to sing it… that thing about if you see me in heaven….

Then the Pole played the Girl from Ipanema and Joe tried to play along and I tried to sing along, and made an even worse massacre of that. But I did get some of it on video on the stage while “performing.”

All of this unexpected happening on stage meant that by the time we left and returned to the Coolin, I had missed my unlucky No. 13 slot by about 30 seconds. No matter, the nice MC there, Timothée Gobé, who was replacing Etienne Belin, allowed me to go up on stage right after the performer behind the mic as we entered. So it was that Joe and I went through a couple of the songs we had already warmed up on at the Galway, “Mad World,” and my pretty new song “If I Only Had You.” Joe then played a song and so did some other unexpected performers who suddenly decided they wanted to play, and the evening went on later, and its high point was the stupendous singing a cappella of Frederic, who sings lyric in a conservatory. You have to check out THAT video!

All in all, then, the evening was full of unexpected singers and events and I barely held onto it all as it zipped along….