A Night of ‘Road-Weary Poetry’: The Bebop’s Country Music Open Mic Night

On a sleeting Tuesday night, six musicians rotated on and off the stage at The Bebop’s weekly Country Open Mic, performing a mix of country standards and original songs. Hosted by Nico Welsh at The Bebop, an Irish pub and music venue in Boston, the routine open mic night invites musicians to sign up on The Bebop’s website and perform to a crowd of diners, bar-goers, and country music fans filtering in and out of the venue.

With strings of shamrock lights tinging The Bebop green, Welsh set up the small stage at the front of the venue. He fiddled with speaker controls on top of a piano, picked at his acoustic guitar, and tested the microphones. The open mic night was previously hosted by Drury Anderson of Mountain Grass Unit, but now Welsh takes on the hosting responsibilities.

“[Anderson] hosted it last year, and I would come every week and hang with him and play, and then he left — Last year he graduated — and I was like, can I have it?” Welsh said in an interview with the Crimson. A Berklee College of Music student from Seattle, Welsh studies songwriting. He plays around Boston in his band, Nico Welsh’s Electro Western Experience.

“I brand myself as alt-country, mainly because I just feel like it has a lot of freedom in the genre, like there’s not a lot of rules to what you have to do,” he said.

Welsh moved from his hosting responsibilities to being the first performer of the night, starting out with “Hands on the Wheel” by Willie Nelson. He told the crowd he has been a big fan of Nelson lately, as he performed two of his songs consecutively. As his six-song set went on, Nick Ortolani joined Welsh on stage. The duo strummed along to “Act Naturally” by Buck Owens, and patrons sitting around the bar started to join in, including a man who mouthed the lyrics as he signed his bill.

The night had just begun as Welsh stepped off stage and made room for Ortolani to begin his set. Ortolani added an electric guitar from his suede guitar case and played Sturgill Simpson’s “Life of Sin.”

“It draws in a really interesting but well-rounded crowd,” said Ella Dunn, a regular fan who watches the mic every week.

Another fan, Phoenix Campagmuolo, even joins in on the jams some nights, bringing along his bass guitar. “It’s always a fun atmosphere at The Bebop,” he said.

Though just an audience member for the night, Campagmuolo said, “I hadn’t had anything to eat, so I decided to come for dinner and a show.”

As Ortolani’s set continued, Welsh stepped up to play one of his originals with Ortolani, titled “Colorado Cowgirl.” The song came out last September and is available on all major streaming platforms.

“I write about whatever happens in my life,” Welsh said. “Something might go wrong, and then that usually makes a pretty good song.”

The six musicians throughout the night played a mix of originals and covers: Tom Petty, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, and Johnny Cash, among others, all made appearances on the setlists. No singer performed alone for long before another musician stepped up to duet or play guitar.

Ortolani, a musician based in Somerville, performs every week. He first arrived at the Country Open Mic as a stand-up comic when The Bebop used to host a comedy mic on the same night.

“While all the other comics kind of dispersed to go do other open mics, I would just stay and listen to songs,” Ortolani said.

In late 2023, Ortolani’s parents, both musicians, became sick before eventually passing. This experience brought him back to playing music, which he had previously stepped away from.

“Then, when they passed away I started coming to the country music open mic here as a way of, kind of, like keeping their memory with me,” Ortolani said.

Remembrance evolved into something more for Ortolani, creating an environment for him to explore his artistry.

“After a while, I just started writing my own songs and doing them here, and I just kind of fell into a very, very welcoming community of people who are a lot younger than me.”

The open mic provides a space for musicians to try out new songs or begin their performing journey. With the mix of original songs and covers, the mic passed through several genres and subjects of country music.

“I’ve seen other people who, they want to try. They’re songwriters, they want to play their songs, they’ve never really done it, or they haven’t performed in years, and they’re trying to get back into it.” Campagmuolo said.

Campagmuolo emphasized the relaxed, open space the open mic provides. “If you’re interested in music, I would come hang and, if you want, you can play as well,” he said.

For Welsh, the country music played at the open mic provides a community found in live music. “I think right now, especially in the climate, there’s a lot of anxiousness, and a lot of angst going on,” he said.

Welsh continued, expressing the outlets that live performance can provide:

“There’s two ways to go about dealing with that: You can either make really angry protest music, which I think has a really good purpose, and I think there’s a lot of people who do it really well; or you can do the opposite where you just make songs about love and life experience, and things like that, which I think is a good release for people, because sometimes you go to a concert and you just want to escape and just be invested in what’s going on.”

At the end of the preset six singer lineup, the musicians started taking requests, and took turns on the stage as the clock wound closer to 10. The last song rolled around, where Welsh and Ortolani closed out the night by playing Jason Isbell’s “Cover Me Up.”

With a smile, Welsh ended the open mic. Afterwards, he and Ortolani sat down at the bar and caught up with the other musicians and audience members, commonly talking about the songs they performed.

“I think some of the best country songs out there are songs that the lyrics sound like something someone could just confess to you at a bar, but with just enough poetry in it, just enough like road-weary poetry in it,” Ortolani said.

At the end of the night, Dunn stopped and talked with Ortolani before leaving The Bebop.

“I’ve been coming since like October, and was just very impressed by the level of professionalism and skill that all of these people had,” Dunn said about the open mic and the group of musicians.

“Anyway, I’ll see you next week,” she said to Ortolani, walking out of the bar.