Okay, so sometimes we are a Karaoke Band.
(And that's how we make our sustaining money)
MY FAVORITE BAND of all time has enough of a fanatic fan following, and plenty of people who know the songs well enough to fake it. So we go around hosting, and although I like to perform plenty myself, that's not the goal.
My job during these nights is to act as host (and general rabble-rouser) to the crowd. The set list is confined to what we have in the karaoke machine (and our iPods, etc.). People sign up (online too) and do their song. Some people come prepared and some do it on the spur of the moment. We get all kinds.
My best friend is in control of getting the songs, coordinating the projection screen so we can see all the words and she has a program where she can adjust the key up or down to fit the singer's range. (Sometimes they know ahead of time, sometimes we have a separate setup in another room where they can play with it themselves and try it out). She also "mans" ("girls"?) the control board, and can bring up the volume on the music or the mic, depending on the singer's adherence to pitch.
The singer's particular talents don't matter so much. We encourage everyone to sing along to every song. (It helps that these songs have been ingrained in our brains from early childhood). We make sure that lyric sheets are available and we bring extra music and sell songbooks so people can go home and practice.
We used to call ourselves a "tribute band", and had lots of weird gigs at the beginning. Some were fun and we worked out some really great songs into an act. They stand on their own and now we pull them out whenever the crowd needs some energy.
It took us a while to figure out what was so weird about the energy at the early shows. We would always get a MUCH bigger response when we asked the audience to sing along. And then we realized the key; the people who love MY FAVORITE BAND are not coming to see pretty girls singing music originally sung by THEIR FAVORITE BAND. They want to participate. If we can get up and make fools out of ourselves, then they can do it too.
And it turns out that we ALL have fun.
OUR FAVORITE BAND actually used to do a version of this. They'd do their biggest hit and ask the audience to sing the chorus. We'd all be singing along together, and then they'd take out the music and they would listen to us. As if they were bootstrapping us, helping us to get to the point where we could perform too. And we sounded amazing.
When one of the members died (the guy who SANG that song), things got bleak. OUR FAVORITE BAND tried to pull one person up on stage at a time to sing the song all by herself. It didn't work. Sometimes, she'd be too scared, or would sing off key. Worst of all, everyone else at the concert HATED her. For being The One chosen by THEM.
And so, these Karaoke Nights developed. We're trying to develop a following by playing in the towns where OUR FAVORITE BAND played. And sometimes, we play in the same town where our Current Band is going to play. To get the audience hyped up.
Because someone in our Current Band was a member of OUR FAVORITE BAND.
More on that later. (He doesn't always like to talk about it)
(And that's how we make our sustaining money)
MY FAVORITE BAND of all time has enough of a fanatic fan following, and plenty of people who know the songs well enough to fake it. So we go around hosting, and although I like to perform plenty myself, that's not the goal.
My job during these nights is to act as host (and general rabble-rouser) to the crowd. The set list is confined to what we have in the karaoke machine (and our iPods, etc.). People sign up (online too) and do their song. Some people come prepared and some do it on the spur of the moment. We get all kinds.
My best friend is in control of getting the songs, coordinating the projection screen so we can see all the words and she has a program where she can adjust the key up or down to fit the singer's range. (Sometimes they know ahead of time, sometimes we have a separate setup in another room where they can play with it themselves and try it out). She also "mans" ("girls"?) the control board, and can bring up the volume on the music or the mic, depending on the singer's adherence to pitch.
The singer's particular talents don't matter so much. We encourage everyone to sing along to every song. (It helps that these songs have been ingrained in our brains from early childhood). We make sure that lyric sheets are available and we bring extra music and sell songbooks so people can go home and practice.
We used to call ourselves a "tribute band", and had lots of weird gigs at the beginning. Some were fun and we worked out some really great songs into an act. They stand on their own and now we pull them out whenever the crowd needs some energy.
It took us a while to figure out what was so weird about the energy at the early shows. We would always get a MUCH bigger response when we asked the audience to sing along. And then we realized the key; the people who love MY FAVORITE BAND are not coming to see pretty girls singing music originally sung by THEIR FAVORITE BAND. They want to participate. If we can get up and make fools out of ourselves, then they can do it too.
And it turns out that we ALL have fun.
OUR FAVORITE BAND actually used to do a version of this. They'd do their biggest hit and ask the audience to sing the chorus. We'd all be singing along together, and then they'd take out the music and they would listen to us. As if they were bootstrapping us, helping us to get to the point where we could perform too. And we sounded amazing.
When one of the members died (the guy who SANG that song), things got bleak. OUR FAVORITE BAND tried to pull one person up on stage at a time to sing the song all by herself. It didn't work. Sometimes, she'd be too scared, or would sing off key. Worst of all, everyone else at the concert HATED her. For being The One chosen by THEM.
And so, these Karaoke Nights developed. We're trying to develop a following by playing in the towns where OUR FAVORITE BAND played. And sometimes, we play in the same town where our Current Band is going to play. To get the audience hyped up.
Because someone in our Current Band was a member of OUR FAVORITE BAND.
More on that later. (He doesn't always like to talk about it)
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