Behind the Microphones at Karaoke Night
By MaryAlice Bitts
SN, Lancaster, PA
August 14, 2005
Jim Nolan has hit his stride. One verse into Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man,” Nolan points a forefinger at the audience, then cocks his thumb, shooting the imaginary gun with James Bond-like debonair. And the audience, predictably, laps it up.
“It’s a non-chemical high,” he later recalls. “You just get up there and have a good time.”
Nolan is describing the after-effects of the “empty orchestra,” or karaoke, that distinctly extroverted brand of entertainment that encourages amateur singers of all walks of life to perform popular songs to pre-recorded music.
If you thought that trend went out in the ‘90s, take a second look. Gone are the days when seemingly every bar and party vibrated with karaoke versions of YMCA, Margaritaville and I’ve Got You, Babe. But in this era of increasingly interactive entertainment, karaoke remains, and even thrives. Each Thursday night, a modest, yet wildly enthusiastic crowd proves that point, during the Italian Villa East’s weekly colorful karaoke extravaganza.
“It’s addictive,” says longtime karaoke singer Terry Urban, noting that he had attended each week, so far. “You can tell a story without boring people. If you’re mellow, you can go for a ballad. If you’re mad, you can sing I Shot The Sheriff.”
Held on the restaurant’s cornfield-framed deck through September, and inside the adjoining comedy club in the fall and winter, the all-ages show is headed up by Gary Evans, a 16-year karaoke specialist and Weird Al Yankovic impersonator whose upbeat routine features videocassettes of individual performances, and a location-appropriate rendition of Yankovic’s 1996 hit, “Amish Paradise,” complete with a black coat and straw hat.
“When I’m in the mood, I’ll also do [Yankovic’s] Like a Surgeon, and Eat It,” says Evans. “I have an igniter that makes flames that shoot out of the guitar during my guitar solo.”
His style gets results. On the night of this review, the pace was brisk; the participation rate was high, and the mood was convivial: The audience cheered, supportively, for each performer, and sometimes clapped along.
“I don’t pressure people to sing,” says Evans, who ran a 30-person karaoke business in Delaware for 11 years. “I suggest songs, and I sing with them, if they want. They can even sing at the table, if they’re really shy.
“Once they try it, they’ll see it’s really fun, and really easy.”
One of the audience’s self-professed shy persons, Richard Waite, can attest to that. A competition-winning karaoke champ, Waite says he began performing in high school, as a way to overcome his shyness. That training led to musicals, and then a short stint with a band.
“All they wanted to do was go into the garage and practice,” he remembers of the band. “Whereas I like actually getting in front of people.”
The solution was karaoke. Over the past five years, Waite has sung in bars, bowling alleys and theme parks in his home state of Virginia, in Washington, DC, Maryland and Pennsylvania. He says he didn’t think he’d get to sing while in Lancaster for a convention, but when he heard the familiar strains of karaoke accompaniment from a restaurant parking lot, he “just had to come over.”
“There’s so much energy when you get up there. It isn’t like American Idol, where the judges pull the performers apart. People are cheering and singing along, and dancing in the back – it’s so positive,” he describes.
Ranalli’s wife, Fran – who opened the evening with an energetic “Me and Bobby McGee” -- encapsulated that generally positive atmosphere when she cheerfully tried to get two audience members who had yet to perform to join her onstage. “You guys come up, too,” she called to Chris and Sheila Jones, who had yet to perform. “It’s fun! Come on!
“Once we have the mike in our hands, we don’t want to let it go.”
That kind of merriment was enough to inspire newbies, such as 17-year-old Justin Loretto to take the stage for the first time. And it was also enough to keep diehard karaoke fans, like Nolan, coming back.
“It will bring the extrovert out of you,” promises Nolan, “but it isn’t a rock star thing – it’s not about hearing yourself sing. It’s just unpretentious fun.”
“After a while, it’s like a family,” adds Urban, a fellow diehard who owns his own karaoke machine, and brought a case of karaoke CDs along with him. “You see people every week, and you develop friendships. You don’t care if you mess up. Nobody cares. Nobody is paying to hear you sing.”
In fact, says Waite, a little gaffe can be a good thing. “It’s the people who aren’t singing perfectly who get the most applause, because we all know what it took for them to get up there,” observes Waite.
Even so, there are plenty of folks out there who, like the Joneses, would much rather stay in the audience all evening. And, according to Waite, that’s perfectly all right. “It’s like improvisational theater,” summarizes Waite. “Everybody comes together to make it a great night.”
Go to the Top
SN, Lancaster, PA
August 14, 2005
Jim Nolan has hit his stride. One verse into Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man,” Nolan points a forefinger at the audience, then cocks his thumb, shooting the imaginary gun with James Bond-like debonair. And the audience, predictably, laps it up.
“It’s a non-chemical high,” he later recalls. “You just get up there and have a good time.”
Nolan is describing the after-effects of the “empty orchestra,” or karaoke, that distinctly extroverted brand of entertainment that encourages amateur singers of all walks of life to perform popular songs to pre-recorded music.
If you thought that trend went out in the ‘90s, take a second look. Gone are the days when seemingly every bar and party vibrated with karaoke versions of YMCA, Margaritaville and I’ve Got You, Babe. But in this era of increasingly interactive entertainment, karaoke remains, and even thrives. Each Thursday night, a modest, yet wildly enthusiastic crowd proves that point, during the Italian Villa East’s weekly colorful karaoke extravaganza.
“It’s addictive,” says longtime karaoke singer Terry Urban, noting that he had attended each week, so far. “You can tell a story without boring people. If you’re mellow, you can go for a ballad. If you’re mad, you can sing I Shot The Sheriff.”
Held on the restaurant’s cornfield-framed deck through September, and inside the adjoining comedy club in the fall and winter, the all-ages show is headed up by Gary Evans, a 16-year karaoke specialist and Weird Al Yankovic impersonator whose upbeat routine features videocassettes of individual performances, and a location-appropriate rendition of Yankovic’s 1996 hit, “Amish Paradise,” complete with a black coat and straw hat.
“When I’m in the mood, I’ll also do [Yankovic’s] Like a Surgeon, and Eat It,” says Evans. “I have an igniter that makes flames that shoot out of the guitar during my guitar solo.”
His style gets results. On the night of this review, the pace was brisk; the participation rate was high, and the mood was convivial: The audience cheered, supportively, for each performer, and sometimes clapped along.
“I don’t pressure people to sing,” says Evans, who ran a 30-person karaoke business in Delaware for 11 years. “I suggest songs, and I sing with them, if they want. They can even sing at the table, if they’re really shy.
“Once they try it, they’ll see it’s really fun, and really easy.”
One of the audience’s self-professed shy persons, Richard Waite, can attest to that. A competition-winning karaoke champ, Waite says he began performing in high school, as a way to overcome his shyness. That training led to musicals, and then a short stint with a band.
“All they wanted to do was go into the garage and practice,” he remembers of the band. “Whereas I like actually getting in front of people.”
The solution was karaoke. Over the past five years, Waite has sung in bars, bowling alleys and theme parks in his home state of Virginia, in Washington, DC, Maryland and Pennsylvania. He says he didn’t think he’d get to sing while in Lancaster for a convention, but when he heard the familiar strains of karaoke accompaniment from a restaurant parking lot, he “just had to come over.”
“There’s so much energy when you get up there. It isn’t like American Idol, where the judges pull the performers apart. People are cheering and singing along, and dancing in the back – it’s so positive,” he describes.
Ranalli’s wife, Fran – who opened the evening with an energetic “Me and Bobby McGee” -- encapsulated that generally positive atmosphere when she cheerfully tried to get two audience members who had yet to perform to join her onstage. “You guys come up, too,” she called to Chris and Sheila Jones, who had yet to perform. “It’s fun! Come on!
“Once we have the mike in our hands, we don’t want to let it go.”
That kind of merriment was enough to inspire newbies, such as 17-year-old Justin Loretto to take the stage for the first time. And it was also enough to keep diehard karaoke fans, like Nolan, coming back.
“It will bring the extrovert out of you,” promises Nolan, “but it isn’t a rock star thing – it’s not about hearing yourself sing. It’s just unpretentious fun.”
“After a while, it’s like a family,” adds Urban, a fellow diehard who owns his own karaoke machine, and brought a case of karaoke CDs along with him. “You see people every week, and you develop friendships. You don’t care if you mess up. Nobody cares. Nobody is paying to hear you sing.”
In fact, says Waite, a little gaffe can be a good thing. “It’s the people who aren’t singing perfectly who get the most applause, because we all know what it took for them to get up there,” observes Waite.
Even so, there are plenty of folks out there who, like the Joneses, would much rather stay in the audience all evening. And, according to Waite, that’s perfectly all right. “It’s like improvisational theater,” summarizes Waite. “Everybody comes together to make it a great night.”
Go to the Top
Labels: karaoke, mary alice bitts, MaryAlice Bitts, weird al yankovic
posted by MaryAlice Bitts at 9:13 AM
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