boston idol
Dec. 18th, 2004 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swingchickiei think there are few situations in life as sad and desperate as a karaoke bar with only two people in it. except if there's three people, and i'm the third one.
i was looking for a little bit of adventure tonight. i wanted to get out for a bit, but i didn't want to go swing dancing, and wasn't up for a movie. all my friends had plans already with their significant others. then i remembered that a new club had just opened up in boston, limelight. limelight is an all-karaoke club that also has private recording studios for demos and such. i get a kick out of karaoke, and it's certainly a social enough thing that i could go by myself... so i showered and got gussied up, and took the T into the city to get my sing on. as i rode in, i had images of what the night would hold: a room packed with people, all singing, laughing, having a drink or two and totally having a blast. i imagined having like 100 new friends by the end of the evening. i found the address, heard music coming from inside, and threw open the door...
...to find 2 people and the DJ standing around in an empty room. huh? i checked my watch: 9pm. where were all the people? i almost turned and went back home, but since i'd come this far, i figured i'd stay for a few minutes and see what the deal was. and literally, besides the DJ, there were 2 people: T, a late-20s metal aficionado who was dressed like mid-eighties michael jackson (white button-down shirt unbottoned one too many, black pants, white socks, black loafers, wavy mullet), and B, a middle-aged, rather slow working-class guy in a plaid shirt with the strongest bAAAAAAAston accent i have ever heard. as soon as i walked in the door, they were on me like cult members on an unpopular college kid... they were so thrilled to have new blood there, since the place hadn't built up a crowd yet. they were actually very nice for all their quirks, and took me under their wing(s) to show me around the place.
limelight, for being empty, is actually a neat little club. it's modeled after the karaoke clubs you find in japan -- a big open general room with a professional karaoke setup, and then several private rooms in the back for small parties and recording sessions. the main room looks like i designed it... bright-colored walls, small tables clustered in the middle of the room, and big black leather sofas all around the outskirts... cube-shaped cocktail tables that light up... a low stage up front with a big projection screen behind it, that plays video footage of flames and clouds and stuff behind whoever's singing (think the video stuff behind the contestants on "american idol"). the 5,000 songs, instead of in books, are all catalogued on two touch-screens in the back of the room. you do a search on the computer, write your song down, and the DJ (sorry, KJ) calls it up on his computer. pretty high-tech. oh, and the drink i ordered rocked my world... not because of the taste, but because all their mixed drinks come with one of those light-up fake ice cubes in the glass! so my drink was all cool and glowy.
anyway, it was an odd night. T and B kept going up and doing song after song, since we were the only ones there... T warbled out some metal tunes, and B butchered "allentown" by billy joel. the KJ begged me to sing something to break it up a bit, so i told him i'd go back and look at the catalogue. i figured i'd find the code number for "criminal" by fiona apple, my favorite song to sing. but as i bent over the touch-screen, the opening notes of "criminal" filled the room... and the cocktail waitress belted out my song into the emptiness. great. so i found another song to do ("just a girl" by no doubt), cranked it out, and then sat back down on my leather sofa as a crowd of people came in the door. it was a birthday party for a young (college-age) girl, i'm guessing they were emerson college students because 1. emerson is right across the street, and 2. emerson has a big musical theatre program and all these kids sang very broadway-y. i sat and watched, amused, as they sang everything from boy band stuff to cake tunes to "paradise by the dashboard light" (worst karaoke song ever. no-one can ever get the timing right on that damn thing). there was an amusing moment when 2 girls got up to sing "come on eileen", and T, the karaoke expert, was horrified... apparently, "come on eileen" is known in karaoke circles as something you save for the end of the evening. he kept saying, for everyone to hear, "that's a closer! they can't do that song this early! it's a closing song!!!" i inched away from him on the sofa, so people wouldn't think i was with him. *sigh*. the girls were actually pretty good, and funny as hell... one of them was indian and was totally mugging for the crowd. i've always thought of indian girls as rather subdued, but she was up there dancing her ass off, doing the roger rabbit and all sorts of MC Hammer moves in between lyrics... until she got over-zealous and kicked the power cord to the whole computerized karaoke system, shutting it down. they had to reboot the computer and reset stuff, then the girls did their song again to thunderous applause (not by T, who was still pissed that the song was being done so early).
i left around 10:30pm, and the place was actually pretty full. every seat was taken, and people were standing in the back... but the energy just wasn't there. i hope things pick up for them, because it's a bold business move to have a karaoke-only place in boston... but for now, i'm going to stick to holding my own karaoke parties at dance weekends.
i was looking for a little bit of adventure tonight. i wanted to get out for a bit, but i didn't want to go swing dancing, and wasn't up for a movie. all my friends had plans already with their significant others. then i remembered that a new club had just opened up in boston, limelight. limelight is an all-karaoke club that also has private recording studios for demos and such. i get a kick out of karaoke, and it's certainly a social enough thing that i could go by myself... so i showered and got gussied up, and took the T into the city to get my sing on. as i rode in, i had images of what the night would hold: a room packed with people, all singing, laughing, having a drink or two and totally having a blast. i imagined having like 100 new friends by the end of the evening. i found the address, heard music coming from inside, and threw open the door...
...to find 2 people and the DJ standing around in an empty room. huh? i checked my watch: 9pm. where were all the people? i almost turned and went back home, but since i'd come this far, i figured i'd stay for a few minutes and see what the deal was. and literally, besides the DJ, there were 2 people: T, a late-20s metal aficionado who was dressed like mid-eighties michael jackson (white button-down shirt unbottoned one too many, black pants, white socks, black loafers, wavy mullet), and B, a middle-aged, rather slow working-class guy in a plaid shirt with the strongest bAAAAAAAston accent i have ever heard. as soon as i walked in the door, they were on me like cult members on an unpopular college kid... they were so thrilled to have new blood there, since the place hadn't built up a crowd yet. they were actually very nice for all their quirks, and took me under their wing(s) to show me around the place.
limelight, for being empty, is actually a neat little club. it's modeled after the karaoke clubs you find in japan -- a big open general room with a professional karaoke setup, and then several private rooms in the back for small parties and recording sessions. the main room looks like i designed it... bright-colored walls, small tables clustered in the middle of the room, and big black leather sofas all around the outskirts... cube-shaped cocktail tables that light up... a low stage up front with a big projection screen behind it, that plays video footage of flames and clouds and stuff behind whoever's singing (think the video stuff behind the contestants on "american idol"). the 5,000 songs, instead of in books, are all catalogued on two touch-screens in the back of the room. you do a search on the computer, write your song down, and the DJ (sorry, KJ) calls it up on his computer. pretty high-tech. oh, and the drink i ordered rocked my world... not because of the taste, but because all their mixed drinks come with one of those light-up fake ice cubes in the glass! so my drink was all cool and glowy.
anyway, it was an odd night. T and B kept going up and doing song after song, since we were the only ones there... T warbled out some metal tunes, and B butchered "allentown" by billy joel. the KJ begged me to sing something to break it up a bit, so i told him i'd go back and look at the catalogue. i figured i'd find the code number for "criminal" by fiona apple, my favorite song to sing. but as i bent over the touch-screen, the opening notes of "criminal" filled the room... and the cocktail waitress belted out my song into the emptiness. great. so i found another song to do ("just a girl" by no doubt), cranked it out, and then sat back down on my leather sofa as a crowd of people came in the door. it was a birthday party for a young (college-age) girl, i'm guessing they were emerson college students because 1. emerson is right across the street, and 2. emerson has a big musical theatre program and all these kids sang very broadway-y. i sat and watched, amused, as they sang everything from boy band stuff to cake tunes to "paradise by the dashboard light" (worst karaoke song ever. no-one can ever get the timing right on that damn thing). there was an amusing moment when 2 girls got up to sing "come on eileen", and T, the karaoke expert, was horrified... apparently, "come on eileen" is known in karaoke circles as something you save for the end of the evening. he kept saying, for everyone to hear, "that's a closer! they can't do that song this early! it's a closing song!!!" i inched away from him on the sofa, so people wouldn't think i was with him. *sigh*. the girls were actually pretty good, and funny as hell... one of them was indian and was totally mugging for the crowd. i've always thought of indian girls as rather subdued, but she was up there dancing her ass off, doing the roger rabbit and all sorts of MC Hammer moves in between lyrics... until she got over-zealous and kicked the power cord to the whole computerized karaoke system, shutting it down. they had to reboot the computer and reset stuff, then the girls did their song again to thunderous applause (not by T, who was still pissed that the song was being done so early).
i left around 10:30pm, and the place was actually pretty full. every seat was taken, and people were standing in the back... but the energy just wasn't there. i hope things pick up for them, because it's a bold business move to have a karaoke-only place in boston... but for now, i'm going to stick to holding my own karaoke parties at dance weekends.
