First Aussie Karaoke

Last night, I finally went to my first Aussie karaoke. This has been long due. In the states, I was hitting up karaoke two times a week. It was my primary social outing. Broken Hill has karaoke once a month, always on the first Saturday. It is impossible for me to avoid work on Saturdays, but now that I work at the Royal and get off at 9:30, I was able to swing it.

Aussies take their karaoke much less seriously, which is very refreshing. Karaoke in the states can often be an unofficial American Idol practice. I try to do well, but most of the time, I'm just going to have fun. No song is off limits, whether it is in my range or even if I know it. If I get the bug to sing something, I just do it. Most of the time it works out, but I hit a dud ever once in a while. There were some great singers there, but most people weren't concerned with singing well; they just wanted to have some fun.

I sang my old stand-by joke song, "With Arms Wide Open" by Creed, complete with excessive gravel and mumbled lyrics. Scott Stapp is my official least favorite singer in the whole world. He can't actually sing, instead, he resonates every note off the side of his mouth to create the sound of a powerful deep voice. I honestly think that one day, he was sitting around getting stoned with his buddies and listening to Pearl Jam. He started making fun of Eddie Vedder and just didn't stop. His buddies then started poking him to do his Eddie Vedder at parties. Eventually, it went to his head that maybe he can sing. So, he started a terrible band with his Eddie Vedder impersonation. The sad part is, he took a dump on Eddie Vedder who can actually sing. When I do my thing with this song in the states, typically I get the whole crowd laughing. The joke was lost on the Aussies. After I was done, the host was complimenting my voice. Random people were approaching me and telling me how I'm an amazing singer. This made it especially funny to me cause I was just ripping Scott Stapp apart and singing out of my cheek! Thankfully, I have the good sense to not start a terrible band with my pseudo-Scott Stapp voice.

It was a good time. I went alone, but was adopted by a group of Aussie tourists. That is one great thing about Australia. If you are sitting by yourself someplace, somebody always approaches you to talk. It makes going out solo much less intimidating.