Massaoke

Debbie Harris 
June 2024  •  2 min read

Massaoke

In a concerted effort for 2024, I am trying to ‘do things’ that are outside of my comfort zone (or at least … things I’ve never done before).

I am aiming to try one new thing each month and last month’s adventure was a trip to the Rose Theatre in Kingston for an event called ‘Massaoke’.  The concept is basically ‘group karaoke’.  I didn’t really know what to expect (although I had an inkling), but I rather enjoyed it!

There was a live band, a big screen (for the lyrics) and 1,000+ people all in fine voice and high spirits!

As is the way of the majority of sound technicians (in my experience), the music was a smidgen too loud and I was sadly unable to tell whether I was sitting next to the next Ariana Grande or whether the man behind me was the next Luther Vandross (which was a shame – I was rather looking forward to that aspect of it).

But the lasting memory of this event for me is the sound of a 1,000 voices singing the chorus of Phantom of the Opera one minute and those same voices singing songs the next minute from the musical Oliver – complete with full cockney twang!

It was a reminder that Aristotle was right … “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”