Going Live: Getting over stage fright one Open Mic at a time

Saturday night was my penultimate open mic of the January challenge. I bailed on the one I’d planned for last night (Sunday). It would have been my fourth this week - a last ditch burst of enthusiasm that I might make up for missing one in week two. But in the end, I decided to take the night off to avoid open-mic-burn-out ;). Especially since I’m actually doing one on Tuesday (1st Feb) - there’s a monthly one I missed in January I’m super-keen to try out! - so if I’d done Sunday that would have been four nights in a row, which is a lot! I also needed the time yesterday for some long-overdue recording of vocals which I owe to someone (watch this space for when we release his epic track!). There are hardly any open mics on Saturday nights. They tend to be mostly Monday-Thursdays. So thought it’d be interesting to try out the only Saturday one I’d found - which is in the Hercules Pillars pub in Covent Garden. Also the only super-central one I’d tried, and I was intrigued to see how it wo...

Welcome to my ‘mega catch-up’ post! I’m three open mics behind on the blog, and with more imminent I gotta get up to date! My best laid plans to write each post the day after I played didn’t quite manifest as I’d originally hoped (as with so many things in my life - but that’s a tangent we don’t want to go on today ;)).  You may also have spotted the blog’s a little out of order in terms of timelines.   So here's a reminder of the full list in the order I played them, with links to the posts I've written about them. The Journey So Far Week One Monday 3rd: The Junction, Herne Hill Tuesday 4th: The Magic Garden, Battersea Sunday 9th: The White Horse, Richmond Week Two Thursday 13th: Café Cairo, Clapham North (VENUE CLOSED) Friday 14th: Escape Bar, Dalston Sunday 16th: Joined Kieran’s gig for one song at the Spice of Life Week Three Monday 17th: Bread & Roses, Clapham Thursday 20th: Bishops, Fulham Sunday 23rd: Bucks Head, Camden (CANCELLED) Zoom Week Four Monday 24th: The ...

Last Sunday I'd planned to go to an open mic in Camden with a friend - but we discovered a couple of days before that it was cancelled (the host had Covid). I had a back-up plan - and emailed the host on Saturday to ask for a slot. I thought that would be completely fine, as open mic nights typically accept walk-ins on the night, and it wasn't very central. Frustratingly though, on Sunday afternoon I heard back that it had been fully booked since mid-week! So it must be a popular one. I'll find out in a couple of days' time as I've booked for this week instead. I was a bit stuck though last Sunday. I'd done two open mics in the week so far, so I needed this third one. I particularly wanted to achieve my target so it wouldn't be the second week in a row of only fitting in two. So I called on my trusty friend google to help me track down another Sunday open mic which had slots free, and which I hadn't been to before in my challenge. But Google let me down!...

Many years ago, I lived in a remote village in Tanzania for a few months, with the wonderful Allie. Our flat was pretty basic, and we cheered it up with a mural, drawing a map of Africa and writing out song lyrics in chalk on the walls.   The song we chose was from one of the limited selection of albums we had with us (this was before streaming!). We picked a song called “ You Belong to Me ”, from the Ally McBeal soundtrack, a compilation of covers by Vonda Shepherd, the singer in the show. The lyrics felt meaningful to us, as they talked about seeing the world while staying loyal to your partner back at home - and we both had boyfriends in England who we were missing. I went digging through my old photos to see if I could find one which showed that wall - unfortunately I could only find one with me in standing in front of it (looking about 12 - I was actually 18!). You can just about make out the lyrics if you look closely! Nice story, but how is this not a massive tange...

Still playing catch-up from last week - with this week’s open mics coming thick and fast - but bear with me. Last Friday I went to the open mic at Escape Bar Dalston . It’s a fabulous and friendly venue that I’ve been to many times as a lot of my friends have played there, but I’d never done their open mic, so I was looking forward to it! And rightly so, it was a great night with a mix of styles. Not sure if this was the norm, or just how it played out on the night I went (<- see what I did there? ;)), but the start of the night was mostly performers playing live guitar, while later in the evening more artists used backing tracks (typically originals where the artist had pre-recorded the arrangement - rather than ‘glorified karaoke’). My slot was relatively early at 8:30 (and was one I was able to pre-book online , which was nice). It went pretty well I think - I did make one brief mistake, but it was rather beautifully timed to coincide with the lyric “you’ve fucked it up this time...

I’m playing catch-up writing my blog, but never fear, I’m still on it with the open mics! I’ve done three performances since my last post. Friday (at The Escape Bar, Dalston ) happened as planned, and I did something a little bit different on Sunday night - which I’ll tell you about in a future post (I like to keep you on tenterhooks :)). That means I ticked off two performances last week - and as they say two out of three ain’t bad - and am on track to do 3 this week, all being well.   For this post though, I want to talk about Monday’s open mic (at the Bread and Roses in Clapham) while it’s fresh in my mind. This has been a quite difficult and strange post to write, for reasons that will become apparent - and I have some trepidation about publishing it. Feels a bit like exposing my soft underbelly for all the world to see - and showcasing both my musical failings and personality flaws (such as overthinking and dwelling on things)! But I'm gonna be brave and publish it anyway! Pa...

No doubt my army of eager fans have been wondering why I haven’t posted in a while ;). The last update was last Sunday’s open mic, the third of ‘week one’ - so what’s happened to the three for this week? I’m afraid I have a sad tale to tell - and I’m now on track for two rather than three. It’d technically still be possible to fit in a third, but I don’t plan to, for reasons I’ll explain below. The first week of this challenge was exhausting, I'll admit. It would have pretty intense regardless, but of course I was also under the weather. That took its toll on my energy levels, so at the start of this week I also needed to play catch up on my work to do list and life admin! I therefore planned to backload the open mics for the week ahead. So the plan was to do Thursday, Friday and Sunday this week.  That meant the first one of the week was meant to be last night - and I planned to head to Cafe Cairo in Clapham. I duly prepared my set and headed out, and even remembered to take my g...

Yesterday’s scheduled open mic was at the White Horse in Richmond . That's a 45 minute cycle from home, not unusual, but felt like a long way when I was still really quite zombified from having been ill - especially with an icy bite in the air last night. I’d definitely have bailed if I hadn’t set myself this challenge. And honestly, a big part of me was regretting my life choices as I was persuading myself to go! Not to be defeated though, I conjured up the energy and packed my guitar into its case ready to head off. I then (literally) got on my bike... leaving said guitar resting gently against the dining room table. As I cycled I listened to the songs I planned to play, mentally rehearsing them and focussing on the parts I had a habit of messing up. For the first half an hour of cycling I was very much in the zone, cycling on autopilot with my mind on the music. Ten minutes or so from the venue it dawned on me that I felt a little light - and that knowing the fingering wasn'...