May 17th, 2005.

Last night we ended up at the open mic at the Rusty Nail. I miss that place – our first introduction to Wilmington, I feel sort of bad that we didn’t have a gig booked there for this time around. In any case, the open mic was (like everything down south this time around) running late and Heather and I sat in the bar watching Animal Planet shows while waiting for things to get rolling. The bartender recognized us and asked us if we wanted to kick off the night (I probably should’ve asked to see if we could’ve gotten any money out of the deal) but I think Heather and I were pretty content to see puppies and camels being birthed, and if nothing else, there was a puppy behind the bar, too, that I really enjoyed playing with.

The open mic was ok. Loved the hosts (they’ve switched formats AGAIN, and I’ve sort of given up on my open mics pages for the moment) but the guy who came up after us was a bit much for my traditional folk oriented nerves… younger crowd there than normal… not sure what to chalk that up to. Was school out? Were we there on a different night? Has the clientele just shifted? Je ne sais pas. Initially, we were pretty hopeful that a younger crowd might respond to us better, but it became pretty clear pretty quick that they were pretty frat, most of them, and perhaps more interested in “the girl with the big jugs” (their words, not mine!) than in our music.