(excuse the photo...taken on my phone)
Saturday night we hosted PieLab's second Open Mic Night with a packed house and delicious spread of potluck goodies. I couldn't quit grinning the whole night at how great it was to see so many people coming together over music and at how much amazing talent we had in here. There was a whole slue of folks to entertain us for the night: a local 18 year old, Aaron, with his guitar, Jeff with magic tricks and dancing, Mrs. Burroughs sharing about her heritage, and for the majority of the night, Miko, Kevin, and Beau jamming some 12 bar blues. After they jammed a while, two other locals, Jamie and John Allen got up to play some country which led to some more blues. That got 'em all going! Kevin about exploded in amazement of John Allen's blues skills and you'd have thought they were about to have a revival right there because of the hoopin' and hollerin'. This led to all of them rocking out together with Willie on the bucket (drums...). Awesome. Hilarious. Just perfect. People crossing barriers, coming together, sharing talent, and finding stuff in common.
Beau came in on Friday as well to check out the scene and he ended up giving me some blues lessons. I now have a huge blister on my thumb and feel like I've got a lot to learn! He was patient while I fumbled around and kept making me feel like I was actually good when it was really just going back and forth between two notes that I wasn't even catching on to. All that strumming through the years meant that I never learned to pick. He even got his hair done for the night and told me if he was going to bathe for this then I was going to have to play with him. I appreciated the persistence. You never know what's gonna happen down here...and that's why I love it.