Solo at Black River Barn

Went down by myself for the open mic; brought the DX-7 and Hartke Kickback-12, intending probably to just jam with others rather than do my solo thing. There was no signup sheet, and the house band wasn't ready untl after 10. Very informal. I approached them and asked to join the house band for awhile and they assented. Band was way too loud! (Probably because of the guitarist). I knew most of the numbers they did and was able to follow the others because they were only 4 or 5 chord songs. The crowd did not seem to mind the volume level. I did; I had to turn my amp up way past the point where it colors the sound too much, and I wished I had better hearing protection. I always use cotton; here I would have needed gun muffs or those compressable foam things. After about 6 songs, they started inviting singles up to sing. It appeared that they were all regulars. The first woman to get up couldn't sing and wasn't pretty, so they let her do one tune only. The best performer I saw was a woman who did an excellent job belting out "Like the way I do" (and she was pretty). Not sure if this venue would work for my acoustic trio, but the house band assured me it would be fine. Of course, they're just trying to build a crowd.