Open Mic Night in Paris

So while we were enjoying our Jedi Burgers (more on that later) at Quick, we got a text from our friend Chelsea. She was going to see Troy and Simon play at an open mic night, and asked if we wanted to join. We figured we weren't that far away, and we were looking for something fun that night, so we set out on a journey, hoping we could make it there on foot.

First, there are a lot of roundabouts in Paris. Second, it's difficult to tell one from another on the map, especially when they're close together. Needless to say, while we didn't get lost, we did get confused, and it took a lot longer than we thought it would to get there.

An interesting piece of graffiti art we saw on the way.
They're popping up all over the city now.

We did find the bar eventually though, and quickly headed inside to warm up. It was a really charming little place. When we first got there, we thought we had the wrong place because it looked too small for any kind of open mic night. As the instruments were unpacked, we found that, in fact, it was too small, but no one seemed to care, and a good majority of the audience picked up an instrument at some point in the evening to jump into the fray.

He was the first performer, and the MC.

Simon's friend joined in on guitar for a few numbers.

Even the one of the bartenders joined in the fun. We left right after she sang, but she was fantastic. She did a lot of American jazz and blues, and sounded like Madeleine Peyroux, who I thoroughly enjoy.

This was a French song that involved quite a bit of clapping. We were lost,
but joined everyone else in singing and clapping along anyway.

I also re-learned the ever important lesson that autofocus is not infallible. In fact, in this particular situation, it seemed as if every meter and automated feature on my camera was useless. Thank goodness shooting digital means I could take photos until I got it right, but I was also running out of space (I had been throughout the city with my camera that day). So I had to salvage some less than fantastic photos. This is one of them.

Simon rocking out on the bass guitar. Unfortunately, the
exposure and noise is a little out of control...

It was a really awesome experience, and I got to meet and interact with a lot of French people. I also got into the swing of candid portraits again, even if I was autofocus and light meter-less. I guess I've gotten too used to the niceties of Phillip. Maybe I'll shoot some film here soon.

I feel like this photo sums up our group, and the evening, pretty well.

That might be it for my blitz blogging. For tonight at least. Tomorrow there should be some more, as well as some photos fresh off the camera (since I'm now almost out of backlog. Yay!)