Well my daughter finally talked me into going to her place of employment to do Karaoke. I know I make it sound like a really big deal, but it didn't take much prodding from her as she invited me to come and do Karaoke 80's style. I was there with bells on.
There is a very unique (shall we say) atmosphere whenever people gather to do Karaoke. There are the bar regulars who don't sing unless they are completely wasted. There are the Karaoke/Bar regulars who are first in line to get their books and slips all scrambling back to their seats to make out their requests and hopefully be the first ones to be called.
And then there is me ;)
Having had several years experience with singing and vocal training my demeanor is pretty much calm on the outside and thrilled as hell on the inside, mainly because I know I'm only going to do what I know I can sing. Plain and simple. I know Karaoke is only for fun and the whole point is to enjoy yourself, but I personally think there are limits to how much fun one is actually having while screeching Total Eclipse of the Heart at the top of their lungs whilst somewhere in midst of the darkness outside you can hear several dogs howling in unison.
I know I'm coming off like I'm all that, I'm really not, I do okay for what it is. There are some people however that get intimidated by people who come to Karaoke with a musical background, you can usually spot them after you do your first song and when you walk past them they give you a dirty look. I've actually been booed before and the Karaoke Host was heckled for "Hiring Professional Singers" An insult and a compliment in the same sentence, how very :)
But all in all, I did pretty good this time, for not having sung publicly for about 2 years. I opened with Sweet Dreams (are made of this) my signature song and a good warm up as well. I did Too Shy next, which I hadn't done in a while, but I want to put on my cover album, so it was great practice. I did two songs I'd never sung before, Sister Christian by Night Ranger and Back on the Chain Gang by The Pretenders. Those were fun. I had a couple of drinks in me before I did Sister Christian (i suffer from minor stage fright) so it came out virtually flawless. I received a big round of applause for that one, that made me happy.
My daughter then suggested we do a song together, which is something we rarely do, and I agreed mainly because well I was drunk and thought I knew the song. Apparently I don't know Come On Eileen as well as I thought I did and much to my daughter's surprise, neither did she. So needless to say there was a lot of blah blah blahs thrown in there for good measure, coupled with a few "you don't know this song? I thought you knew this song?" from my darling girl. On a up note (guffaw) she did however do a fabulous rendition of If I Could Turn Back Time by Cher and one of my all time faves Maneater by Hall and Oates.
All in all, it was a great night and I had a wonderful time. Made some new friends, heard some excellent songs and quite a few really bad ones but I'm sure they were having a great time, and really that's what its all about. Next time I do Karaoke? I might just learn the words to Come On Eileen. Don't hold your breath though...:)
Ciao For Now!
