For the past year, I’ve been attending as many open mics in Boulder as possible. The Tuesday Micrawl (open-mic-pub-crawl) is my favorite. The plan is to meet around 5 pm, head over to Twisted Pine Brewery for a 15’ set that starts at 6:15, rush to Oskar Blues Boulder Taproom to get on Dani’s list before 7, then run across the street and around the corner to get on the list for The Attic’s Open Mic that opens at 7:30. This is an unofficial event I invite friends too but plan to make it into an official thing soon.
Best Tuesday Open Mics in Boulder
My first open mic ever was at Twisted Pine. Aside from that, I had only played a few times for a group of people. Once at the end of Family Camp, in 2016, and once at Bhakti Yoga Shala, exactly a week and five years ago. You can thank Facebook memories for that stat.
It was on that first open mic at Twisted Pine that I met Jim Herlihy from Augustus Band and Ryan Spiralupcat from The Cabin Way Far Up Magnolia Rd. Ryan and I have been playing together on and off for the past year. He is the first musician to learn my songs and play them on stage with me. Much gratitude for that. Jim has been running the open mic at Twisted Pine for a long time. He is an outstanding MC (best I ever met), great musician, and excellent music teacher, he has helped me a ton with understanding the guitar, composition and how to form a band. Big shout-out to Jim for hooking me up with the 6:15 set at Twisted Pine, so I can finish in time to for Dani’s sign up opening ceremony.
My open mic set times at Oskar Blues and The Attic change from week to week. They are both very popular open mics, but the one at Oskar Blues tends to be packed with musicians and the list is always full. Most of the times Dani will have to leave some people out of the list, but he always clarifies that, if you don’t get on the list this week, you will get in on the next. Dani chooses the order of the performers to balance the different styles of music performed. I love how he runs the Oskar Blues’ open mic, it brings about a nice sense of community.
The open mics at The Attic are equally awesome and the list fills up quickly as well. However, the times there is more fluid. The sign-up list might be available at 7:30, or 8. You may sign up for the 8:45 slot and play at 9:15, and sometimes you may end up doing 2 songs instead of 3, to make sure everyone on the list gets to play. It’s a great atmosphere, the crowd is very attentive and like to participate with the performers. Tom and Lauren do a great job running that open mic, I’ve gotten both of them to play with me on stage, great musicians!
Squeezing the Juice from Boulder’s Open Mics
I feel lucky that there are back to back to back open mics in Boulder. The Tuesday Micrawl has been one of my favorite things to do here. I haven’t been perfectly consistent with it. Maybe I attended every other week for the past year, without including the three months I took off to write songs and chase powder. =D
The Micrawl is very efficient, though it not always works out. It can be draining too. To me, it is the perfect way to be social, interact with other musicians, gain experience, grow my confidence and have an awesome time. It’s sad to rush out of places where I am having a connection and sometimes it would be nice to stay in one place for the whole evening, but I tend to do that on my single-location open mic days.
For example, Mondays at 8 pm there is an open mic at License #1, in downtown Boulder. That is a lovely space to spend the evening. Wednesday’s Vision Quest Brewery has an open mic organized by StarWater. It goes from 7 pm to midnight. They also have a new open mic on Fridays, sign up at 7, show starts at 7:30.
Thursday’s open mic in Boulder is at Outback Salon. I went there on my very first attempt to open mic. Got earlier than the sign-up time, but then got distracted and ended outside the list. It would be great to come back and check it out. There is also an open mic in Longmont on Thursdays, at a place called Dicken’s Opera House. Doors open at 7 pm.
It would be awesome to attend all of these regularly, and maybe one day I will. For now, I am happy with my every other week on Tuesday Micrawl and the irregular visits to the other open mics in Boulder.
Soon I’ll start playing on Pearl St. My new house-mates and I have been talking about it and after Last Nights Amazing Jam Session it seems unavoidable.
The force is strong on this one.
