Foiled! But onwards

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 guitar with me. But this is what I found when I got there - bars on the doors, and no sign of life.

I’m kicking myself a little because I hadn't had a reply when I'd emailed them to check if I could reserve a slot, so it might have been wise to have found an alternative. But their website had it listed - a specific event for Thursday 13th January, not just ‘Open Mic every Thursday’ (top image). The website gave a time for sign-up on the night, so I just assumed they’d not replied because they didn’t do advance bookings.

In a bid to still do an open mic last night, I scrabbled around on my phone for a while looking for alternatives that weren’t a million miles away. It was late enough in the evening that if I had to travel far I'd probably miss the sign-up time. The open mic listings you can find on Google are pretty unreliable in a post-covid world, as a lot has changed, so I didn’t have much success. I did know of one open mic that was definitely on that night - at The Guitar Social’s venue, On Vyner - but it's a long cycle to get there and would have been pretty late by the time I’d lugged myself across town. It’s also one of the very few open mics I’d played before I started this challenge, as I already knew the community (which I think I’ve mentioned in a previous post). So the end I decided I’d go home with my tail between my legs.

Of course, there are still three days left before the end of the week. So I could feasibly still manage three open mics, if I did one on Saturday as well. BUT, there is something very important happening on Saturday - my amazing friend Brittney (artist name Pisgah) is playing a gig in Escape Bar Dalston - and I wouldn’t miss that for the world! Seriously, if you have a spare moment, please listen to her music - you won’t regret it. Or of course come and join me at the gig on Saturday evening :).

So will I make up for this week by squeezing a fourth performance into another week? I’m not sure to be honest. My aim was to get in the habit of performing but I am starting to thing I might have gone a bit overboard (as if that wasn’t kinda predictable!). It’s been difficult to find the time to fully prepare for all of them, and to add to that it’s obviously quite stressful - considering the energy to fit them in, the worry about feeling underprepared and whether I can find enough time to practice, and of course the nerves of the performance itself. Added to that, I’ve committed to play guitar in a friend’s band - with an impending gig and warm-up open mic to prepare - and am overdue sending vocals for another friend’s song we’re collaborating on. So overall, two a week at most might have been a more sensible ambition! 

I’ll still aim to do the three a week I’ve planned for the rest of January, but if something goes wrong again I won’t stress myself out trying to make up for it. And longer term, I will definitely aim to carry on doing open mics, but probably no more than one a week, or maybe even every other week. That will give me a chance to be much more confident that I'm prepared and to really nail down a great performance - rather than the slightly frantic process I feel I'm doing during this challenge.

Anyway, it’s now time to pack up my guitar and leave for tonight’s open mic! Wish me luck, and I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow :).