Wasted a night at the Ringside Pub in Caldwell

The band decided to check out the open mic at the Ringside Pub in Caldwell, NJ. I went despite the bad review someone had posted about it in openmics.org. The review, although over a year old, turned out to be exactly right: it was a waste of time. Although I liked the pub itself, and the stage and acoustics seemed good, the open mic is not happening. We were the only act that showed up to play, besides the house act. I took the DX-7 and Tenor recorder. Even though our drummer was there, we did four songs without drums. It's an "acoustic" open mic, which meant that there was no drum set. We would have been much better off going up to Hansil's so the drummer could play. Reaction from the crowd was nonexistent; they were having a great time playing pool but weren't paying attention to the music. They are probably conditioned not to pay attention because the house band, which opened up, is not worth listening to. I wondered why the format was "acoustic". Seems to me if no one is showing up you need to broaden the appeal a bit. But maybe in that location it attracts the wrong kind of people.