The fine art of dying on stage (Pub life Telford Oakengates Open Mic night)

With months off work sitting on my arse, I decided on Thursday to take part in the monthly Open Mic Session at my local watering hole.

Before I go further I should clarify, this isn’t the cacophony of noise that alludes to being the weekly jamming session. This is a bon-fide Open Mic session hosted by the Francis and Clare who supply all the kit, speakers, leads, PA system and musicians from all over Shropshire clamour to get their 20 minute slot, wherein you can play anything you like during your 20 minutes of fame.

However, I wasn’t expecting to put my foot through my beloved crafter guitar the week before. And so there I was one week later, the opening act, with a cheap second hand lefter in my sweaty paws: the sort tat that wouldn’t be amiss at a car boot sale.

Now I haven’t played for a bit but I had practiced and was reasonably confident I would do ok. But try as he might, Howard couldn’t get any decent sound out of the thing in the sound check. After a few pregnant pauses, we decided the only option was to place a mic right up in front of the guitar in the hope of getting something. Despite my growing concerns, I decided to have a go.

First song to blow out the cobwebs and settle myself…..bit crap but hey, I got through it….second song….and that’s where things begun to slowly unravel. The sound kept fading in and out as I moved about on the stool and I begun to lose my place….. A few tricky chords later and I started to slip out of control. I lurched from one disastrous chord to the next…. The empathetic audience felt my pain and gave me a sympathetic clap between songs but their gaping mouths confirmed for me that this was car-crash telly and I was the star! My face was burning up like Sputnik on re-entry but I gamefully played on, slowly morphing into the quasi- Lampwick/Donkey dude from the storybook Pinocchio, wildly wind-milling the strings with my cloven hooves in a frenzy of sweat and hair and bellowing out jumbled lyrics…’Hee-haw! .... Hee-haw! .... HEE-HAW!!....’

If the arse of Beelzebub himself was to have opened up in front of me at that very moment, I’d have gladly dived straight in. The end came swiftly… mercifully…when I simultaneously lost any sound from the guitar and my place in the song. Bereft of any dignity, I just stopped, right in the middle of a line, as abruptly as one hears when simply lifting the needle off a record. “I should have quit 2 songs before” I muttered to myself, as I guiltily quaffed the free pint John the landlord gives to performers…

The stage was perfectly set for the next guy, following someone who’d just crashed and burned. However, performers at Open Mic do share a genuine camaraderie. No performer relishes the prospect of following someone who has just wowed the pub with some incredible guitar but equally no-one would wish someone to flunk his set. They share you pain when you flunk because they’ve been there before and know how it feels to play a bad-un.

So what did Grasshopper learn in today’s lesson?

Good at home, unplugged, does not necessarily mean good when you amp up.
I need a new guitar.
The key to any success is to evaluate what has happened and apply you have learned.


Editor’s note: The Francis-Bell duo do a great job providing the staging and equipment for the monthly Open Mic nights which are normally the last Thursday in any month. The atmosphere is friendly and Howard and Clare make you feel most welcome. The crown audience too is incredibly forgiving (as demonstrated in this blog entry)

So if you fancy having a go, contact Francis-Bell at www.francis-bell.com to get a slot. Demand for these slots is fierce. You need to book early to get a slot. And it’s always busy. Go on give it a go, if you fall flat on your arse the worst that will happen is you will land on top of me….