My girlfriend is visiting from Seattle. One of her favourite passtimes is drunk dive-bar karaoke. On Friday we went out and did exactly that. It was a night full of unlikely surprises. The first was that I enjoyed myself (I sing very poorly but I have learned to shout-sing an old punk song – it only has five notes in the entire vocal melody, there are long gaps to breathe, and it's forgiving of poor tuning, poor tempo, and poor annunciation). Bewildering surprise number two was "competitive karaoke". We weren't allowed to sing for an hour while there was a competition taking place, but we weren't too worried because my girlfriend is a professional musician and the two women we were with are skilled singers who rehearse and perform together in choirs and bands. Bewildering surprise number three was a crazy old local nutter in a smock, dreadlock wig, and slippers singing faux African chants. Number four was a crazy old lady singing very poorly and threatening to take her clothes off. Number five was a video clip of the same crazy old lady doing exactly the same thing on The X Factor. Number six was that the worst our table had to offer was considerably better than the best of the "competition". Seven was the woman who got up without a backing track and sang Japanese opera.
My favourite bit of the evening was the DJ roundly taking the piss out of Wonkey Eye for being too good and too earnest. At least the girls had the decency to sing popular songs that they barely knew and to make a few mistakes.
Richard "reflected glory" B
No comments:
Post a Comment