Every night should be open mic night

As anyone with a social media account knows there are more than enough people complaining about how terrible everything is but I am of the opinion that there is enough negativity in the world, especially in the small corner of the world that I inhabit (Waterford City) that I have decided to try my utmost not to add to it. Yes we're all broke and sometimes bored and so on but there's plenty to see and do in this city without breaking the bank.

One excellent example of this is the open mic night that Central arts have started running on Monday once a month. For just €2 you can have a lovely cup of tea or coffee with a bickie and then sit yourself down to be wowed by more talent than you could shake a stick at (if you were so inclined). I am slowly realising that Waterford as a county is absolutely brimming with talent and you can barely walk two steps without meeting someone who is going to wow you in some way or another. If you would like to see how many talented people it is possible to squash in one room then Central arts on a open mic night is a good place to start. 

As I am sure everyone,that hasn't been living under a rock knows, Central arts is fast becoming a hub for artists in Waterford. Art exhibitions, plays,workshops and gigs galore. And I have been going to most of it except we have agreed that I probably wont go to any of the dance or techno type ones again because it's not really my kind of music and apparently its rude to read a book at any type of gig. Well why do they have couches then ? ahem anyway, Last night I popped in for my second ever open mic night. The last one had absolutely blown me away so no pressure to the performers but I was expecting big things. Luckily I was not left disappointed. I will admit I had been toying with the idea of getting up myself and reading a poem or two and its easy to feel brave from the comfort of my couch but the quality of the writing that makes it up on to that stage is what stops me from stepping forward. I don't feel my writing is quite up to standard yet but if it miraculously improves in the near future, you will hear all about it. There may also be a totally unconnected blog post about a time I get so nervous that I vomit on stage. 

Some of the faces were familiar to me from the last open mic and some were new both in terms of audience members and performers and its great to see new talent because it gives me hope that Open Mic will keep on going for a long time to come. Now I didn't actually get the names of the performers as they went on or at least I didn't get to write them down and I have a head like a sieve. So I can't go through each performance. That's not necessarily a bad thing because I was generally left absolutely speechless there's obviously going to be one or two acts that I was less excited about and I would worry that it would come across. I heard so many fantastic voices and musicians. I did carefully select some of my highlights in the collage above. Such fantastic songwriting was in evidence and there was also plenty of stunning covers. 
 There was also plenty of laughter as Kieran 'ruffles' walsh and Sean Murphy took the stage. As it happens I worked with ruffles very briefly a few years ago in a call centre and I don't remember him being quite so funny so clearly he spent the years inbetween cultivating that talent because I nearly fell out of my seat laughing.
As it happens the guys are part of a group called half cut comedy  and they will be performing in Downes pub this Wednesday at 9 as part of a fundraising effort for the Ballybeg community. 

I also got a chuckle out of Darren Skelton's piece, he was practising for his one man show, ' a view for the blue' coming to Central arts in April, but he will forever be remembered as the man who mimed taking a poo while on stage. Then there was Belly dancing that absolutely blew me away, its not every night you get to witness something like that. We were all completely mesmerized by the dancing. It was beautiful to watch and she was incredibly brave to get up on stage and dance like that. I would love to do something like that but I don't exactly have great coordination and at the moment my chocolate consumption means my belly does a little dance just from me getting off the couch. 
The night was finished off with some incredibly raw poetry set to techno, it was a jarring experience but the power of the words certainly came through. I left for the night feeling incredibly inspired and maybe a bit jealous. I can't wait to see what the next night offers. Waterford certainly has a whole lot of talent the world is only waiting to see.