This night was probably one of the best karaoke nights I've ever been to (and I've been to A LOT of karaoke). Pretty much every single person that hit the stage went full-out and sang their heart out. So when it was finally my turn to sing, I knew I had no choice but to go with some Jovi.
...a motherfucking STAGE DIVE into the crowd! Thanks again to Brad Walsh for being there with a camera, otherwise this moment would've been lost to history forever!
Doubling up for the big outro. This was probably one of my most favorite accidental karaoke moments. (In fact, it's probably only eclipsed by the time that Seth and I ended up accidentally karaoking with Tracey Morgan back in 2003!)
When the band got back on stage, they called me up to sing! "Don't Stop" is pretty much one of the best karaoke songs of all time and one of the few times that I actually don't mind that fact that I was pretty much born with a woman's voice. Check out the singer all like "Holy shit, this guy's a eunuch!"
Last song of the night! I may not have won the competition, but I definitely went home feeling like a winner! (Cue sitcom audience applause and outro music from Growing Pains).
In my defense, I first used to balls to show off my juggling skills, but the crowd wasn't impressed. It wasn't until I started awkwardly rolling them around on my crotch that the crowd lit up! (Photo by Leo Zacharias)
If, by the time I die, tombstones with embedded video screens are commonplace, someone please make sure that this photo makes it into the cemetery slideshow. Thanks. (Photo by Leo Zacharias)
Claire was the other finalist! For the last round it was announced that our hands were going to be TAPED to one microphone and we'd be singing a duet voted on by the audience! Here's Claire and I getting our hands taped together. Hahaha.
(Photo by Leo Zacharias)
The audience ended up selecting Summer Lovin' from the musical Grease. I didn't know the song well, but I knew it better than most of the other songs that were on the list! (There was stuff like Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong! If the audience had chosen one of those songs, I would've been effed!).
For the first round of competition we were told that we'd be judged on two things: 1) How well we performed our song. 2) How well we incorporated the use of a "prop" that would be given to us halfway through our song! Sure enough, I was about halfway through Gloria and I was handed...
Out of all the Jovi repertoire, Livin on a Prayer is the one that has the most opportunity for crowd-interaction. You get to sing the part that goes "Whoa, we're halfway there..."
I was really nervous about the list (because nothing's worse than having to watch someone do karaoke when they don't know the song!), but I lucked out and managed to secure Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer for my round two jam!
I was the second competitor called up to the stage, and it was announced, much to my relief, that I'd be singing Gloria! Yay! (Thanks to Seth for manning my cam and snapping these pics!)
Then I sang. By the serious, woeful look in my eyes, I know that I must have sang about the tragic tale of Ricky's life-long incarceration at the age of 18 after having accidentally shot his friend in a drunken wild night. (For any of you who didn't grow up in NJ or are under the age of 30, I'm talking about Skid Row's epic ballad, 18 and Life.
