Bay Area Open Mic Calendar - Blog

Man, I’ve been so behind on posting these things here. I have an excellent excuse, though: wifey and I had a new baby boy this past Saturday.

Onto the open mic post! I attend a lot of these events and take photos of performers, but I realized that I hardly ever snap a shot of the hard-working staff behind the bar! The folks on shift at Mission Coffee Roasting were good enough to snap that totally candid, non-posed photograph you see above there. What a humorless, serious bunch of folks, eh?

Mission Coffees is such a chilled-out venue. There was the usual crowd of regulars in and a few new folks as well this month. I was surprised - in a good way - to see some hip-hop artists take the stage. One masterfully handled the crowd, getting the audience off their feet, waving their hands in the air: a impressive feat for this suburban coffee shop venue! I was a little disappointed when the act began, however, to hear the artist singing in exact unison with a pre-recorded song. Not just backing tracks, this guy was chanting the EXACT SAME THING as what was playing in the CD player. That’s not even karaoke, that’s just singing along!

I was even less impressed when the CD player skipped and the performer stopped mid-lyric and, mic help limply at his side, waited silently for the track to start again. It almost looked like he didn’t know the words unless he was singing along - it was such a let down after his confident, boastful intro. I was taught that one of the first rules of getting onstage is NEVER GIVE UP. Don’t let accidents or mistakes phase you; work through them, work with them, whatever you have to do - and the audience will stay with you. Not everyone can do it, but that’s what separates great performers from the rest - after this artist’s bombastic beginning and talk of his professional touring schedule, I guess I expected more.

At the end of the night, for example, a one of the youngest performers I’ve seen at an open mic (pictured left) got up to perform a Beatles song. Halfway through he forgot the words, structure - everything. Instead of giving up he started making up words about how he forgot the words, didn’t stop even when he bungled the chords and the audience applauded feverishly when he finished. “Good job!” I said to him as he got offstage. “Nah, I blew it,” he replied. “Hey,” I said, grinning, “blowing it is when you give up. You didn’t, you kept going. Not everyone can do that: well done.”