Open Mic Night at Aubrey's, Cape Vincent NY

There was another open mic night tonightn at Aubrey's in Cape Vincent. Hosted by Phil Dumond. So I went down and played a few tunes. Basically I think I sucked. Well, not really, not in the big scheme of things,but I was not satisfied with my performance. I have been working up some new pieces and would have liked to tried them out, but my confidence failed me. Why? Well, once again I will balme it partly on my sound. We had a tough time getting the volume up where I would like it. There was a lot of room noise to play over. The place was full of people. Anyhow, I recently bought an LR Baggs pre-amp which I thought would solve the volume problem. And it did EXCEPT there was an annoying hum coming through the system. If  I held the pre amp in my hand it was OK. When I set it down the hum would manifest. After some screwing around I simply played with a less than ideal sound. It was annoying and distracting. Other performers this evening didn't seem to have this problem. I do not experience this trouble when I play through my Fishman SoloAmp 220.
Let's size things up. I can play the guitar. I have the technique. For the most part I know my songs.I think my biggest problem is concentration. Distraction. I distract myself with my goofy thoughts as much as getting distracted by equipment/sound problems.