Karaoke Forums

I've sang with this type of scenario, its a blast. As Lon stated, you are the singer in a band. I would def. attend this type of show if it were offered locally here

In Portland there is KARAOKE FROM HELL at the Tiger Bar downtown on Thursdays and Dante's downtown on Monday nights. 400+ songs to choose from. Been doing it for 20 years. Perhaps the ORIGINAL live Karaoke band. 5-piece band. Sing off song sheets. Bandleader will help you with starts and stops if you get lost. Its a whole different bag than regular Karaoke and is a BLAST!! And it is DEFINANTLY NOT an OPEN MIC event.
http://www.karaokefromhell.com/

There is also The KARAOKE KINGS BAND
http://www.karaokekingspdx.com/calandar.html

We also have the TONY STARLIGHT SUPPERCLUB Big Band
http://tonystarlight.com/singforyoursup ... index.html

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

Thanks for all of your responses.
I can see that live band karaoke is something that interests quite a few of you, so can I ask those of you that have attended these events..............

What could be done better to enhance the experience?

Scantily clad dancers that fawn all over me while I am singing.....

-Chris

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-Chris

Your wish is my command.

Shame you never specified what gender dancers you required

There's also a live band karaoke in San Diego called "Rockout Karaoke" They have a 150 or so
song list and the words are shown on a monitor. I can only get to sing once because the rotation is like 50 deep. All songs selections are good and ALL performers are stage ready... I don't mind the cover charge and just sit there and listen. There's no My Way, Delilah, or Friends in low places in the menu. Oh Love Shack is included.

Chris...u can have the dancers at Devils Point on sunday nites wiyhin walking from my house...its called stripperoke....with a nude dancer on stage with u!! I did a story on them once in NWKG.

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

Did it and LOVED it. The only real objection/limitation from regular karaoke singers really isn't a problem, simply a fact of life: A band's repertoire just can't match the size of the selection at a karaoke show.

Personally, I think this is more than offset by the live band experience, at least in the short term. I don't know how long it could go on a regular basis without the few songs a singer would know getting a bit stale for the singer....

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

We have a Facebook group and will take requests to learn songs ahead of gigs. It's all good for us as any new song learnt this way goes into our repertoire for all future gigs.

It's a matter of practice - you can only dedicate so many hours a week to partice, so you have to be able to practice every song throughout a week. The ones you are more fluent on (as a band) obviously you don't need to put as much effort into but still need to keep them fresh.

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You can only practice them to a point, as you are not complete until the singer joins you, and that can go off in many unforseen directions.

I think the key to it is to capture the essence of the song (the intro, any memorable hook, unusual orchestration etc) but at the end of the day the audience have to be able to suspend their disbelief and fill in some gaps in their head. There's also a trade off to be made between getting close to the record and having a large and varied repertoire (and staying current).

The singer's performance really is the key to how you're going to play it. An example of when to take your lead from the singer is a song like "Hotel California". It ends with that guitar solo and we've had singers walk off the stage as soon as their vocal part is over, therefore we have to cut the solo very short so that the singer can be thanked while everyone still remembers them. Other singers stay on for the duration of the solo just grooving with the band (which is obviously what we'd prefer).

All of these things are quite hard to practice and you really have to be on your toes, watching and listening to everything, ready for anything (easier said than done). This is what makes it so much fun for the band. Another thing is if it fails, then we all fail together, sometimes spectacularly, but without the excruciating embarrassment that can occur when a singer makes a mess of karaoke.

We have a somewhat similar show here at our club a couple of Sunday afternoons per month... with some major differences.

First... they call it a jamboree, or "jam", and it's mostly old country with a smattering of old rock & roll.

Secondly... the band not only invites singers to perform, but musicians - especially guitar and/or fiddle players - are encouraged to join in as well.

The band leader is a friend and one of my regular karaoke singers... He's always asking me to sing at these jams, but I'm afraid I find it too uncomfortable. I tried it two or three times, but didn't feel it went all that well.. My friend says the band will always follow the singer, but I'm always trying to follow the band. The results have been less than stellar.

On the other hand, "most" of the singers do a fine job, and definitely seem to enjoy the experience.

To finish on a positive note... these Sunday afternoon jamborees always attract a full house - in fact, a packed house of mostly mature singers and dancers... and have proven very profitable for both the band, and our club.

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Earl
(BS, PHD & Certified CurmuDJeon)

[font=Times New Roman]"Growing Old may be mandatory... but growing UP is still optional."[/font]

These are just jam nights - musicians going to a place where a band is set up up & plug in and play. We have those everywhere.
Difference is they do allow musicians to play the other instruments. Live band karaoke - is a dedicated band to be the background to different singers only. Musicians typically aren't involved outside the karaoke band.

You should get up with your friend & sing a couple tunes. You'll love it - it's actually more comfortable than just being the only singer on stage, you mess up during karaoke - you have no out but to stumble and try to pick back up, you mess up with a band, if they are decent, they can pick you up & lead you back to where you should be.

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100% agree, Lonman

As I said, I've tried it a few times, and I think I'll stick with Karaoke.. Those who wish to sing with the band can do so with my blessing... I'll just sit back and listen.

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Earl
(BS, PHD & Certified CurmuDJeon)

[font=Times New Roman]"Growing Old may be mandatory... but growing UP is still optional."[/font]

I know I'm late to this thread but I just joined the forum.

I am a member of a live band karaoke project called kBand. We have 2 guitars, bass, and drums and offer over 1200 songs. We have developed our own teleprompter system that helps everyone out. We didn't want to have singers hold lyric sheets, as they can be difficult to read and stay along with. But if we went with scrolling lyrics, we would either need an operator or we would have to mate every performance to timecode. What we have is a display that shows several lines of lyrics on the screen. This keeps them in a large font and gives singers a digestible amount of information. The bass player has a set of pedals that "page-down" or "page-up" to the next set of lyrics. This way, the band can "catch" singers and the music stays in charge. Here's the great part: there are several prompters on stage; one for singers and several for band members. The band member prompters have an expanded set of info on them, we get chords with the lyrics, as well as notes on the particulars of an arangement (Bridge, Keychange). This enables us to offer a pretty wide range of material without having to memorize thousands of songs. Our real strength is our group cohesion.

We also have a Queue Manager who works the crowd while we're playing and helps people sign up. If we need to fill time, we do a song ourselves, but typically once one person sings, everybody wants to come up.

It is an incredible amount of fun. We keep it light and encouraging, and the people who come out are really supportive of everyone. We have attracted some fantastic singers and that really raises the entertainment value of the whole thing. Personally, I think the Bandaoke/Live Karaoke is a true "Empty Orchestra".

Jasaoke, I thinnk I found your web site. But it doesn't seem to give any clue where you are! Is it Altoona?

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The concept is great, but the downside is always depth of song choice. You will never find a band that has several thousand songs in their rep, ready to play (and play well). The ones I have seen have at most 200-300 songs which means it is almost always the same songs being sung every night.

Probably would work great in a tourist town where you have a steady stream of new blood, but without variety would quickly get old with the same patrons.

Not only that, usually a large number of those songs are for male tenors, who make up about 15% of men. You hear Folsom Prison Blues, Bad Bad Leroy Brown and Margaritaville every night, and rarely anything else.


Also, if you have a band with good patter who will fake some other songs, you can pull it off. Best I have seen is at Lou's Blues in Satellite Beach, FL and "Karaoke from Hell" in Portland.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Depends on the band. We have a local band "Rockaraoke" they play pretty regular locally and only have a few hundred songs from 70s classic rock to todays rock/pop & pack the place.
Here is their songlist.
http://www.rockaraoke.com/Songs
http://www.rockaraoke.com/Videos

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