Last Wednesday, Sept. 2, from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. in the
evening, Tech Rec hosted their first Karaoke Night of the semester. In conjunction with Ladies’ Night, which is held the first Wednesday of each month, karaoke was free to all female Tech students, though there were no checks to ensure this restriction was abided by.
Throughout the event, there were never more than 25 people present at the same time and often far fewer; however, those in attendance seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves.
Every few songs, a new small group would present itself at Tech Rec, while others would leave. This rotation made it difficult to realistically know how many people actually attended
the karaoke event throughout the evening.
Tech Rec’s Karaoke Night was self-lead with people choosing a song to perform and then singing them en masse. While the lyrics danced across the screen, humorously retrofitted music videos played in the background. One such video was for The Fray’s “How to Save a Life.” This oddity included videos of random waterfalls, a horseback-riding ninja, anime girls dancing on a glass floor and a martial arts battle in a bazaar. The melodic and off-key singing of the karaoke participants completed this strange amalgamation.
At various times, a non-English song would be selected. Surprisingly, the automatic rating of the singer’s performance for these songs were significantly higher than those of popular American songs. It was a rarity to be awarded a score higher than twenty, but one such foreign language song managed to garner a 79.
Other songs attendees enjoyed at the event on Wednesday night included Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb,” Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” Michel Jackson’s “Beat It” and Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me.” Upon selection of a High School Musical number, however, many of the attendees left in distaste (possibly also due to the late hour).
Of course, such a musical endeavor would not be complete without at least attempting a classic, so at one point towards the end of the evening, one brave Karaoke-goer selected “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” from “The Wizard of Oz,” which did not turn out as poorly a karaoke song as some had speculated.
The night’s event wound to its eventual close with only a small, but very enthusiastic group of four participants (who were fully enjoying themselves) remaining for the final song. They were quite excited to be able to perform Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love,” and the Tech Rec workers graciously allowed the group to finish their final selection before finally closing for the night.
By 10:05 p.m., Tech Rec had closed and the event had ended. Though not a particularly popular event, the Karaoke night was enthusiastically enjoyed by most in attendance.
Our Take: 3/5 stars