Live Band Karaoke

[desertangel]

There's a blues bar here in town that has live band karaoke on Wednesday nights. I went tonight for the first time. My main gripe about most karaoke joints is the suck-a** sound systems they put in those joints. So the idea of a live band sounded good to me. The drawback being they don't have the "bouncing ball" monitor with the lyrics scrolling across. Better know the song really well. Some folks that got up and sang were really, really good... no surprise there. My friend performed her signature song and brought the house down. She wanted to perform a second song but the band's playlist barely filled one side of an 8x11 piece of paper. Rhiannon and Dreams were listed so I suggested she try Rhiannon. She didn't do too well because she's not like ME... totally obsessed with all of Stevie's songs. So her voice came out a little weenie, like mine would have had I mustered the courage to try it. She said she could barely hear her own voice. So we talked to the guy running sound and asked if it would be possible to raise the level on the monitors. The stage is real small, so of course, he said he would try but it's kind of hard without getting feedback. They use SM 58s for mics which are supposed to be really good and very popular. I don't care for them myself, but that's just me. I use an Audix knock off of an SM 58 because it's brighter. The guy also said to try the other mic they had on stage which is a condensor mic and not a uni-directional. ICK.

Anyway, I don't know that I would ever have the confidence to get up there and try Dreams or Rhiannon or any other song for that matter. The setup just seemed to be a bit lacking for someone without a lot of confidence and experience, like myself. There was one person who got up and did House of the Rising Sun at a level that I probably could have matched. Nobody booed her off stage, but still. I had my hopes up that this live band thing would have been better than these other karaoke joints in town. I'm not giving up hope and will start practicing, then maybe give it a try in a month or so. One good thing you can do with a live band karaoke is ad lib a lot. A few people did that during their performances and it was really cool!

Okay, so that's my rambling for today. Has anyone else had a live band karaoke experience you'd like to share? Just curious.

Laura