Tom...
While I sympathise with having heard the same songs done to death, it does seem to me that you have the worst luck at karaoke! Missing turns sometimes happens but it's not the norm. Shouting isn't always necessary to be heard. As much as volume, it can depend on the power of a song. Some songs need the volume up. If I can hear a singer's actual voice over the sound system for a powerful song, then I feel the music isn't up loud enough (with the exception of one karaoker from years ago who had a deafening, ill tuned screaming voice that could be heard microphone-less with the music at optimal volume).
I think perhaps a karaoke lounge might be in order for your taste. Instead of someone at the piano playing quiet jazz or the like, it could be relaxing karaoke to an intimate surrounding. When you're talking pubs and clubs though, where people tend to be rowdy even without background music, karaoke volume is a must in order to give the audience something to listen to and the singers the reassurance that it's worth getting up on stage because they will actually be heard. Some places go overboard and I am with you on that front but my take is that the vast majority play within the confines of acceptable volume for their settings. There's always another karaoke worth going to when one doesn't like one. You just have to be prepared to travel to sing since not every karaoke (catering to one's tastes) can be just around the corner. I have travelled virtually everywhere in Sydney checking out gigs. As far south as Campbelltown and Cronulla, east as Bondi, north as Palm Beach (have also gone to Newcastle for a sing) and these days am willing to go as far west as Penrith to check out gigs. That's all by public transport too. Seedy suburbs and plush ones alike, there's karaoke all over the place. When you find the ones that suit, you recognise them and you return often. That's just part and parcel of it.
Just had a think and rattled off from memory 59 different karaoke venues in Sydney alone that I have visited / frequented over the years - about a third of those in the last 3 - 5 years. 2 of them were restaurant karaoke but the remaining 57 are from the standard hotel / club scene and if you want to be pedantic, I have attended an extra 2 as one venue replaced their regular karaoke twice (all up: 3 different karaoke companies). So really, that's 63 karaokes in Sydney alone. Then of course, I've checked out others in Newcastle, Oberon and Queensland too (Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast and Mackay) as well as attended several karaoke parties where an actual KJ was hired with their own sound system etc, so I think I can speak from a position of authority when talking of karaoke standards across the board. I haven't checked out the truly rural shows but Oberon was a mining town when I was there and I think the community was akin to that in the country from what harpoet and James.T.Orr have described here of their respective rural karaoke escapades.
That first hand knowledge plus what I hear from others about other venues gives me reason to believe that if you are willing to look, you can find the karaoke that will suit you best and hopefully give you more to be positive about in your posts than they have been lately.
I know you cop a lot of flak here Tom but I also know how passionate you are about karaoke so it surprises me just how negative your comments come across. I wonder sometimes if you're just conducting psychological tests on the rest of us to see how the rest of us feel about karaoke or indeed our underlying characters. Hehehe
In any case, get out there and you'll find your own version of good gigs.
Submitted by Johnny Burrows on 17-09-2007

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