Heh. My Pulp number is usually Disco 2000. Not too difficult, and I found more people sung along with it.
Flipping the question, my worst ever moment was when I tried to do Kiss by Prince, in falsetto. The missus still shivers if you mention it now.
Shivers? Yeah…Women are great at faking orgasms, but they can’t hide the real ones. I think you should do that song every night!
My wife and I had our ‘wedding’ in Cuba. The night before the wedding day was Karaoke night. My wife and I got stitched up with Whitney Houston’s I will always love you, which was an unitmigated disaster.
A couple of other ‘performers’ did their turn and then up steps my best man. Will Smith’s Wild Wild West was unleashed, lyrically perfect and everybody loved it.
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Liked, despite obvious Will Smith reference.
The person who did this probably can’t even remember but I was in a pub and some might say was being sung, he was just about to get into the standing at the station bit but did not see the end of the stage and went flying of it onto the table with beer and food on it, 20 years ago and I’m laughing as I type as it was honestly a very funny moment but I guess you had to have been there, I off now…
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My 1st Karaoke was at the old Boat House in Salisbury. I got stitched up and actually did a passably only bad version of New York New York.
Couple of weeks later they had a qualifying round for Karaoke singer of the year. I was not supposed to be in it as I was sh1t so I had about 6 pints of 6X, then some guys hadn’t turned up & they called me up to sing instead.
First word of NY NY is START. So trying to put on a show I sang the word and slammed my left arm out straight. And caught some geezer on the chin (by accident) who went down like a sack of potatoes throwing 2 glasses of beer all over the audience. I carried on unseeing.
Then some bloke is trying to get me to do the Frankie high kicking thing, so I do and catch him square in the nuts.
End of 1st verse and two punters out cold on the floor…
I won the competition (because 50% of the marks were entertainment value) & the prize was to go to the Winter Gardens in Bompey for the grand final + a Golden Microphone. Luckily the landlady realised that would be stupid and the judges agreed to give me a bottle of Bacardi instead and sent a proper singer down to Bompey.
I vowed to stop singing that night. (And kept that up until I hit Dubai). I have never sang any Sinatra since though.
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I lived in Northern Ireland for three years. Didn’t really go out much over the long haul, but in my first few weeks there, I went to a bar of somewhat ill-repute, got a bit squiify and banged out some numbers in a Karaoke competition, which I ended up winning. I gave half the money to a woman who had been singing all night, largely because she’d been going on about how she expected to win all night and had a dangerous looking boyfriend. Money well spent, I reckon.
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Another belter was a karaoke competiton sponsored by scorpian lager back in the mid 90’s, the winner of the competiton of our local was a lad who honestly thought he should have been in a boyband anyway the Final was at Sterns and he gets up to sing his song whatever shite that was (the pub was only there at the landlord secured 20 bottles of this fucking woeful lager) and says
“This goes out to the kids of Dunblane!”
It was the most sureal and bizzarre moments of my life and I’ll remember it until the day I die, the day karaoke rememebered.
Karaoke in the UK was always about 20 bored people in a pub and a bunch of 10 or so pissheads making a racket. Then I hit Dubai.
This town has a long running tradition of “The Friday Brunch” namely our day off, when we have all you can eat & drink buffets all over town. The best was always a Brit Stronghold called The Lodge - once voted Top Nightclub in Asia by MTV it was huge with 3 different “stages” and a Brit Pub _+ Thai Restaurant. On club night it would have 2 or 3000 people there & used to be open until 7am Where they would serve full English breakfast then we’d go back to work midweek.
On a Friday they did the original Brunch. About 300 people & everything you could wish to eat form Full English through Roasts to Asian. Lots of grups of pals but lots of families as well.
About 4:30 they “kicked the kids out” and then started a crazy happy hour of all the world’s worst sing a long stuff - from Benny Hill to Roy Orbison to Metallica, it was carnage. THEN they had a karaoke competition with 100 quid first prize. There would always be 2-300 pissed up peeps wanting to party and so again it was always sing a long stuff but much more International/US songs as we had some 40 or 50 nationalities there (but always only English language songs apart from one night when two air hosteses did a memorable version of J’etaime and promptly got arrested & deported)
Time moved on & brunches spread, The Lodge closed and karaoke moved to a big expat pub called Rock Bottom. (Home of the legendary Bullfrog) It became the best night out in town, as the quality of the singers was astonishing. Quite a few lads went on to become full time singers from it all. It always had 2-300 people there. Ronan Keating sang one night, Danny Dyer did a turn not too long ago.
One Xmas eve we heard of a new Heavy Metal Bar that had opened and went & checked it out. Not as good as the legendary Seaview (another story another day) but the Filipino band sure hit all the right spots. We were then told of a small karaoke “Supper Club” upstairs. We went, it was empty and cheap as chips & sang all night. It had 3 fit chicks who would sing with you or fill in the gaps. It became our local, we sang every song in the book and flirted with the girls like bad boys.
One night the Metal Bar had The Proclaimers in a warm up for Glasto. Yes we got them to come upstairs for an after party and seeing the lads trying to sing Ah-ha Take on Me was a magical moment of ROFL’ing. My mates could sing, I couldn’t but we never gave a damn. You simply had a table & a book and cheap beer, and every 40 minutes or so the girls brought the mike over and you sat at the table & murdered a song.
The Manageress was Polish and fit but I was married so I blocked her for 3 years. Then the Divorce came through and she called me up and now she’s Mrs D_P.
Our first Xmas she bought me a present that comprosed 3 ENORMOUS Cardboard boxes. When I opened it I found a MEDIACOM system.
MEDIACOM is an Asian company that makes Home Karaoke systems with a playlist of some 8,000 songs, 75% are US hits. The device plugs into your TV & Home Theatre. It costs 150 Quid.
That night all my pals came round, then my youngest (21) at the time got all his friends round, then the neighbours nocked on the door to complain about the noise so they came round. The oldies did Ballads & stuff the lads did Blink 182 & Death Metal. We were still going at 8:30am Boxing Day morning.
Some 10 different friends have since come by and all said “We’re not doing that *&%%@^ karaoke machine” and everyone of them went out the next day bought one and took it home. For a summer party or BBQ it is a priceless piece of kit.
My favourites from it are GooGoo Dolls, Muse, David Gray and Maroon 5.
Every home should have one. It’s not even proper karaoke more a very bad synth copy of the tunes and often the lyrics are wrong BUT at the end of each song it gives you a score out of 100. (Randomly I am sure) which adds to the hysterics
http://www.mediacom-me.com/3-karaoke
Probably totally illegal in EU but for private use who gives a stuff if it costs inside your Duty Free Allowance
I have a story about Karaoke. A woman. An Orgasm. On Stage. After you get down a pub and report back that you have tried out a song I will tell the very true story