Lost among the fliers for
next week's electrofad hip-hop night and martini bar swizzle sticks is a form
of entertainment that's so hip there's not even an English word for it.
Join
T.I. Fraser: I have returned to
the "Hour of the Amateur" in order to lay the smackdown on a certain injustice
now plaguing
T.I.: Things
go wrong past the entrance (actually at the entrance if you count the cover).
The set-up is that of a dinner theatre - separate tables, separate sections,
very spread apart. Thus Rising Star robs karaoke’s noble art of its intimacy
and turns it into a show. Add to that the layout of the stage, with backup
singers and a drum shield, and you have an experience that overshadows instead
of embarrasses.
Clientele
T.I.:
Imagine walking into the D&D club in high school and finding it’s been
taken over by jocks and their girlfriends. And they’ve changed the rules so no
one can ever die and ever orc you slay gets you a new magic sword. This is karaoke
for high rollers. In the first hour, almost all the participants were taken
from a V.I.P. section, some two or three times.
T.I.: To
serve me domestic draft from an 8-oz. “fun size” cup for $3.75 PLUS TAX is
insult enough. But then to say on the check that these are 14-oz. cups?!? Now
you got a lawsuit on your hands.
T.I.: Since
it is a live band, it’s hard to fault them for a 60-song set-list of pretty
standard favorites (if not still absent things like “Total Eclipse of the
Heart”). But I do hope they take my suggestion to at least add
Tod: Give us Ice Cube’s “Steady Mobbin’”! Iron
Maiden’s “Number of the Beast”! Yeah, those suggestion slips were a nice touch.
I don’t think my vote will count, but that’s never stopped me before.
T.I.:
D-Nasty, one of two hosts that we saw, came to sum up the whole shebang. Blonde
faux-hawk, suit coat over T-shirt, and the audience rapport of a birthday
clown, he made the whole thing feel so tightly controlled that it lacked the
spontaneity one expects from alcoholics with microphones. Hence my rant against
right-wing values and the venue itself during “What’s Up?” Sorry to everyone
who saw that and felt I might have treated
