2 Melbourne karaoke venues

2 Melbourne karaoke venues on a W2S Roving Reporter stopover...

When you've been going to karaoke regularly for a while, you inevitably start to think that everyone runs a karaoke night in roughly the same manner as what you've been exposed to. A recent trip to Melbourne (from Sydney) turned that on it's head.
It's not so much that the format of the nights were all that different, but I found a destinct difference in attitude to the hobbie. In Sydney, I feel as though karaoke has got a bit of a 'nerdy' reputation. If you were to mention that you sing at karaoke, the inevitable first question is 'Are you any good?' as if you are required to justify your indulgence in the activity, whereas I get the feeling as though the first comment in Melbourne would be 'Good for you!' and if not, then 'So do I! Where do you go?' The other thing I noticed was that while many venues in Sydney seemed to be embarrased that they had karaoke on, with minimum advertising and sometimes only a chalk sandwhich board with incorrect times the only indication of where to be and when; Melbourne venues shout it from the rooftops with banners, billboards and even dedicated venues (something I've never seen in Sydney).

One thing that I feel really fosters an ability to sample new and varied venues in Melbourne is the public transport system. While we in Sydney complain a great deal about our trains and to a lesser extent, our buses; I thought we had a pretty good set up here. That was until I had the chance to sample what Melbourne had to offer. With a network of trains, buses and trams that seemed to go just about everywhere; nowhere seems too far away. On top of that, was a method of fare charging which I found to be quite interesting. Rarther than paying for a trip (say, city to Geelong), you pay for units of time. 2 hours of unlimited travel in Zone 1 (inner city and surrounding inner suburbs) costs under $4, but the bargain is the daily at just $5.90. That's unlimited travel on all buses, trains and trams for the day. Now if you're like me in Sydney, you're thinking, 'yeah, but I'd only use it twice a day'; however just like unlimited broadband internet, the more you can use, the more you actually do use. With trams running down almost every street in the CDB area of Melbourne (the size of about Central to Martin Place Squared in Sydney), where once you would walk four or five blocks simply because you had to, I thought nothing of hopping on and off trams just to travel the same distance. I preface this review with these comments on the transport system to highlight that getting from one venue to another isn't as painful as it might be in Sydney should you happen across one that doesn't quite cut the mustard...

My first port of call was to Coopers Inn on Friday night. W2S lists it as starting at 7.30pm and while I was originally going to head over to Altona Sports Club, Coopers was within the CBD and I wasn't quite confident on how the trams worked yet. Took David's advise and phoned ahead to find out that it in fact starts at 8.30pm, my girlfriend and I headed out a bit early to sample the food at the bistro. The pub was populated mainly by after-work suits and the area that would later be cleared for karaoke was full of diners. The food was very nice, but you may want to invest in a bottle of wine as the soft drink and spirits were quite expensive (by Sydney standards anyway). The host was set-up and ready to go at 8.30pm but it became clear quite quickly that we wouldn't be starting immediately because we were the only people in the room. The host was very communicative; rather than just letting me sit and assume what was going on, kept me informed on what he intended and offered his apology without going over-board. By 9.30pm, we had . . .(full story on where2sing.com)

Read the rest of this exclusive Karaoke Gig Review, and find whether this karaoke gig is still running on Where2sing.com . . .

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