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A meander through the mind of a Karaoke Veteran
Being a seasoned veteran of the karaoke scene for almost 15 years now, there have been some memorable moments that I have experienced & would like to take this opportunity to share them with you.Competitions:
My strongest memory of a competition was round about 1992 and it was being held at “The Albion” in South Norwood. I had offered to be one of 3 Judges. Halfway through the evening a young girl got up to sing Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you” & blew everybody away. Unfortunately, the KJ forgot to tell the audience what he had told the judges, more of that in a mo,. When the winner was announced there was pandemonium because the young girl was not the winner. It was the closest to fisticuffs I have ever known without actually being so. It all calmed down when I grabbed the mic & explained that the young girl did not win because she was only 14 years ob=ld & therefore not allowed to enter the competition. The young girls 1st name was BIANCA & about 2 or 3 years later released a record, under that name, which got into the charts but unfortunately she faded off the scene shortly after that.
My favourite memory.
When you try a new song & it goes down well you get such a buzz from it don’t you? My biggest ever buzz came about after I noticed a song in the book that I had just learnt to sing & play the guitar as an accompaniment, by the way I consider myself as a guitar dabbler rather than a guitar player lol. The song in question was “Before the next teardrop falls” by Freddie Fender. I usually like to practice a song for a while before I sing it, but as I had learnt the words & worked out the chords for the guitar, I thought I could handle it so I wrote out the ticket & handed it over to the KJ. While I was waiting to be called up I suddenly realised that the songs can come up in a different key to the record & that the record was a bit high for me, which is why I had trouble working out the chords. Panic started to set in now, as I had to drop the key from G to D in order to sing it on the guitar. I knew the KJ wouldn’t let me change it & it was too early to do a runner out the door, so I stuck it out & waited to be called up. When my name was called I decided to gamble & ask for the key to be dropped down by 1. During the intro, quickly singing the 1st line in my head, I thought” good choice”, then I suddenly remembered that the 2nd verse was in Spanish & I had only sung what sounded like the actual words. Oh well, too late now the 1st line is about to change colour, start singing boyo.
When the song finished, I thought, “I nailed that bugger good” and with my chest swelling, not to mention my head, I replaced the mike back in the stand. That was when I noticed the singer’s worst nightmare, SILENCE. “God was it that bad then” I thought. I started to step off the stage, chest & head rapidly deflating, face turning crimson & silently vowing never to do the song again. Suddenly, the biggest cheer I have ever heard for one of my renditions. Went up & nearly lifted the roof of the pub. Safe to say there was a definite swagger in my step when I got back to my pint on the bar.
Watching people grow in confidence.
I have always found it fascinating to watch people’s confidence grow & their talent develop over a period of time, but the most dramatic change I have ever seen was a couple of years ago in a competition held by Mandy @ the Duke Of Gloucester. There were 10 of us through to the final & I knew I would have to sing my “socks” off if I was going to be able to claim 3rd or 4th place. My personal prediction was 1st, Nikki (Nikkitha). 2nd a great singer called Karen (a regular) & 3rd place was up for grabs. Mike Farley Greenwood was another finalist, but, as he was a very nervous singer that showed it, I thought I had the better of him (arrogant or what?). Come the night of the final, he was called up to sing & my mouth dropped to the floor. His confidence had grown enormously & it was no surprise that he was awarded 3rd place. I have asked him what happened to make his confidence grow so rapidly, but he couldn’t offer an explanation for it other than that he just felt relaxed as he had nothing to lose. He has been singing in that vein ever since.
Chris Vaatstra (Krissywissy)
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