Cafe Musique Open Mic 21/10/21

Most of those who know me, know I lead a kind of zen SL. I generally just take things at they are, without much concern for plans or tomorrow, or even really yesterday. The one thing I have found myself planning on attending for some months now, is the Café Musique Friday Open Mic. Yes.. THAT Café Musique. Laya Sugarplum's tour d' force of a musical smorgasbord. This Open Mic starts promptly (well.. Sort of promptly, depending on who played on the stage before) at 6 PM on Fridays. After that last show, some of the crowd will meander back to the camp fire and find cosy seats in the deck chairs, or perhaps on a blanket, or one of the logs. The campfire, really an awesome bonfire, sits in front of a quaint little, seldom used, stage. The whole think looks out over on a fantastic bay. Its really great when residents from one of the amazing rentals stop by to see what's going on and wind up staying for the evening. Midnight is preferable, sunset works too.

The format is pretty typical Open Mic, with a couple of unique additions. These two additions are the fantastic, indomitable Brienanne Sweetbrier, Café Musique's ubiquitous hostess with the mostess, and the Mistress of Ceremonies, the ever lovely Krisie Snowdrop. Krisie is the prime encourager to get singers to sign up for the board (you just touch it there on the lower left) and helps people in general. She usually graciously starts us off. The only order is the order in which singers sign up. Typically, artists will provide their own streams and the board will handle switching them out.

Like all Open Mics in SL, any Friday at Café Musique is like a box of chocolates. This week was generally well attended with a great mix of regulars, semi-regulars and new singers and residents who don’t sing regularly in SL, but enjoy sharing their love of music. This past Friday was an exceptionally fantastic show (warranting a blog entry) and every singer got 3 songs per turn. Our MC, Krisie, led off with 2 new (to her) songs, Carly Simon's "Its Too Late" and the Little River Band "Reminiscing" and one of the staples from her fantastic live shows, "Hit The Road Jack". Following Krisie was Star Twilighton with Styx "The Best of Times", a powerful rendition of Journey's tribute to SL "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'". Her mesmerizing turn ended with Damn Yankees' "High Enough"

After Star, Bud Acuto entertained us with solid delivery of "I Need A Lover", Al Wilson's "The Snake" and "Your Love Amazes Me". After a quick stream change, Dan The Man made me think I was standing on a sawdust covered floor in Luckenbach, Texas, with his raspy (and spot on) versions of x, "God Is Great, Beer Is Good, People Are Crazy" and finished his first set with "Mr. Lonely" by Midland. Another quick stream change and the smooth voice of Wes West led us through John Lennon's "Imagine", Neil Diamond's "Play Me" and an incredibly beautiful rendition of Don McLean's "Vincent"

We all enjoyed just a moment of stillness and quiet after Wes passed the mic over to Augusto Napoli, who used his acoustic guitar skills to bring us back to the moment we were sharing. One great thing about open mics, is, depending the number of singers, there might be turns. This time, Krisie jumped into a vacant slot and sang three more songs, followed by Buddy and Dan The Man. By the time Dan had finished his second set, Catdanc was on the board and enthralled us with her stunning versions of The Mystics "Sunday Kind of Love", Irish poet (yes, I know he can sing too) Van Morrisons' "Someone Like You" and the Zac Brown Band's "Colder Weather", which our fire will definitely keep away. Jesika Wirefly was the last artist I heard on this amazing evening delivering a powerful rendition of Ingrid Michaelson's "The Way I Am" and Jess Stone's ode to half the audience, "You're A Dirty Man".

In a typical blog, this is the part of the story where I give you the artists bio. What I would say, is to get to know these, and other artists, in a fun and informal setting, (and maybe hear some great songs you're not likely to hear in shows!), stop by the fire on a Friday evening. Grab a seat, set your light to Midnight and enjoy of the best entertainment SL has to offer.

Using my special "GIMP" camera, I was able to grab a group shot of our artists. From left to right, DanTheMan, Bud, Jesika (seated), Augusto, Star, Catdanc, Wes and Krisie.