Warble

It's been a long time since I've sung karaoke, so when I heard that Chorlton Players had organised a karaoke fundraiser, I was among the first to sign up, and the first (apart from DJ Annie, and Simon who was playing the part of doorman for the night) to arrive.

I was conditioned from a very early age to turn up right at the start of events like this. My parents were always the first to arrive at (and usually the last to leave from) any parties, weddings, or family gatherings to which we were invited, so naturally I grew up thinking this was the way it was done. I don't recall any pithy phrase of my mother's that accompanied these early arrivals, so this story won't feature in "shit my Mum says"; it just was. As I  got older, I soon realised I was in a minority in this respect, and sure enough with a posted start time of 7pm it was after 8 when the first of the "real audience" turned up, by which time I was champing at the bit to get going with the song I'd had cued up almost since I arrived.

A traditional starter for me - Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street - an easy melody to get the pipes warmed up. As I progressed during the course of the evening through a series of my most favourite karaoke staples, I realised just how long it had been since I sang any of these in public, and how easy it is to get out of practice with the nuanced phrasing of songs like Vincent, Desperado, and Englishman in New York.

Still, you know, it's karaoke not the Royal Opera House, so who cares? We all had a lot of fun and some good choons got sung. Not sure it was much of a success as a fund raiser - I think they needed 30 people to break even and I counted 29 at the busiest point - but if *almost* 30 people can have such a good time for a whole night and not actively lose money, it can't be that bad.