Carrboro Music Festival Tries Out Something New; The First Open Mic In Carrboro Music Festival History

By Alys Traylor

This year, the Music Festival did something new; hosting their first ever Open Mic during the festival Kickoff on Saturday, Sept. 28. The Kickoff included shows at Cat’s Cradle and the Open Mic at the Carrboro Town Commons from 2pm to 4pm.

Galen Poythress, the Rec Supervisor of the Town of Carrboro, was in charge of the event. “This is the first open mic of the Carrboro Music Festival’s history, I believe,” Poythress said in his opening remarks for the Open Mic, “We are trying to experiment if you will, have a really fun open mic today, on this Saturday, the day before the main event.”

The open mic was open to all and allowed sign-ups to perform anything from songs and spoken word and poetry pieces, to comedic performances and instrumental pieces. For songwriters, singers and musicians, there was a limit of three songs. Only seven artists signed up and they all played original music. Most of them were songwriters and acoustic guitar players, but The King Teen was a comedic songwriter and performer and a lovely lady by the name of Donna was a fingerstyle guitarist.

The crowd was small, no more than 20 people at a time, but they all seemed to enjoy it; nodding their heads along with the rhythms, clapping and yelling enthusiastically after every song, and the loud rounds of applause after each musician completed their set. People brought pets and kids, seeing the day as a fun opportunity to get out of the house, enjoy the nice weather of the day, and enjoy some live music.

Open mics are great opportunities to showcase talents of all sorts and try out new musical and spoken material.

Sam Thorn, the first performer of the afternoon, was excited to get to showcase his music. “This is fun. I mean, I don’t know if it is yet,” Thorn said, “I haven’t started yet, but I think it will be fun.” Thorn played two original songs; Cassandra and Indecision.

Given the enthusiastic response from the crowd and the fun had by the performers, hopefully the open mic will enter the books as an annual part of the Carrboro Music Festival.