400 Main St.
Metuchen, NJ
Tuesdays @ 8
Food: Yes
Bar: Yes
In a word: Familiar
Format: 3 songs
You can usually tell who is a regular at an open mic, especially if you surf open mics like I do. With Hailey's mic, there are a lot of regulars, and the mic reflected that.
There was no formal beginning to the mic. The MC began doing a sound check, and one of his friends played some guitar to get some levels, and then suddenly a woman came up to sing with them, and we were on our way.
The mic consisted mostly of jams on songs dear to the mostly gen X crowd there with regulars joining each others' sets. I was one of two people I saw that played original music.
I don't know if it's like this every Tuesday, but the bar crowd mostly didn't seem like it was there to enjoy the mic. The applause was mostly limited to other mic participants which was fine because there were quite a few of us.
In general, I did not feel like my act (costume, originals, political) was well received and mostly didn't fit with the 80s and 90s cover songs being played by most of the other acts.
If you're looking for a middle aged music community, you can find it in Metuchen at Hailey's Harp & Pub. Also the reuben was pretty good.