So…in chronological order, here are the brief highlights of the last nine months.

March – Our first and only hen night. 4 lads, 25 drunk ladies = you do the math! Wowzers! Repeat booking please.

April – Snowbombing – 5 days in Austria. 4 performances. 300 jaegerbombs. Youdu  the mafth…..hic.

May – Our introduction to the carnage of Propaganda at the O2 Acadamy in Islington. this spurned a number of national dates that could turn into a lively tour next year. May also marked our first festival of the year on a rainy day in a car park in North Yorkshire. The beautiful people of Crickstock go down in Rockoake folklore.

June – The Wednesday and Thursday at Download were absolute mayhem. Anyone who thinks Rockoake is not a big stage ting should cast their beady eyes at the 1,500 people getting down and dirty in this little number .Big Stage Rockaoke at Download.  We also played Winterwell for the third time which is another of our favourite festivals of the year but for very different reasons. Then there was the Hard Rock Calling after party at Kensington Roof Gardens which involved Danny drinking far too many mojitos and getting his car towed the next morning as a result. In between this action we managed to clock up a 36 hour road trip, taking in a very early morning varsity ball and then a crazy corporate in Harrogate that saw Jamie Archer ( Xfactor man with Afro ) turn up for his PA and on seeing the boys play swapped his backing tracks for a 3o minute improvised live set. Rockaoke\’s Longest Day

July – This whole month was overshadowed by the sensational events of the first weekend. In fact that weekend has to go up there in not only the best weekends of the year but also in the Rockaoke Hall Of Fame top ten weekends of all time. It was a story of two double performances. The days were spent whipping up revellers in the summer sun at Jamie Oliver’s Big Feastival on Clapham Common. This included hitting up the main stage on the Sunday, giving singers the chance to perform in front of 4,000 people and again proving that Rockaoke works on the big stage. Big Feastival By night we sped to the Milton Keynes bowl where we twice rocked the VIP section of the Foo Fighters mega gigs. Sadly this also involved getting to watch the whole show both nights from a Grohl’s spit distance. The month was finished in style with a red wine and meat infested  3 day sejourn to a party in a castle in Umbria. It was nearly finished for good after a late night drinking session with the hotel owner turned a little funky. Never again will we ask a wobbly Kosovan war veteran to prove it!

August – Weddings, weddings, parties, parties, V Festival VIP, weddings and more parties. The top of the rock tree in August was a sensational party thrown by a gazillionaire in the back yard of his uber mansion somewhere in Wiltshire. Putting on your own minifestival for 200 mates for a whole weekend is a pretty cool thing to do and in the words of one of the guests ” I’ve been to many parties over the years and this was the best party I have ever been to, and the best thing about the best party I’ve ever been to was Rockoake”. Not only the party of the summer but quote of the decade.

September – Errrrmmmm. Right. This warrants either a sperate blog or a very quick entry so I don’t end up daydreaming. Here we go.  So we played at the Roundhouse and twice at Koko in the space of a week! That’s some heavy music venue boxes ticked! Amazing! Wish we could do that over and over….one day. Just check out these videos – you’ll understand. Rockaoke @ Guilty Pleasures Rockaoke @ Crisis \”The Big Thankyou\”

October – The Pride of Britain Awards Aftershow party started the month with a celeb fest bang. Unfortunately there were far too many agents hanging around to let any of them get on stage, not that Jon would have known who any of them were. We also started a new residency at The Star of Kings in Kings Cross which we hope will turn into as great a night as the wonderful AAA in Kensington. Seeing that not much else happened in October, now would be a good time to say how the growth of our AAA nights has definitely been one of our favourite things this year. After the unceremonious exit from Punk in January we were a touch dejected and wondered where we could find a venue as good. Two weeks later we started at AAA and it’s been a treat ever since. The owners are lovely, the stage and sound are easily the best we have had at a residency and it creates a genuine gig atmosphere for singers to strut their stuff.

November – We can’t complain so far. A couple of days in Portugal with 700 woman in fancy dress and a weekend in Belfast to play the sublime Empire Music Hall. Those crazy Irish kids love Rockaoke and we never fail to have excellent Craic when we’re there. It’s so good that even our down time is epic. On this occasion a mid afternoon guinness at The Crown turned into rock and roll story time with the legendary Wilko Johnson from Dr. Feelgood.

So here we are, half way through November and about to embark on our busiest Xmas ever. We’re going into battle at over 40 gigs in December alone and if we make it out the other side we’ll let you know what happened.

If you got this far, thanks for reading. More regular updates will be shorter and sweeter. Keep on rocking!

x

“Let em say we’re crazy, I don’t care about that, put your hand in my hand baby, don’t ever look baaaacccck”

As we valiantly sang those words at 11:32 last night  I imagine most people in The Rose, especially those on stage were questioning our sanity.

It had all started 3 and a half hours earlier, when at the beginning of our Red Nose Rockaoke night  we rather foolishly guaranteed that everyone who wanted to sing would get at least one song. It’s for charity after all, what’s a band to do. And so we rocked and rocked and rocked until we had squeezed all the sweat and energy from our foreheads, strings, drums, lights, the rockstars, the pub and it’s staff. I’m pretty sure the door said “thank f@*k for that” when I closed it on the way out.

The night opened in style with a huge slice of big bad Jon Bon Jovi. Helena ( the organiser ) and her Red Nose crew set the standard for the rest of the nights rockers by laying down a storming version of Living on a Prayer. This got the crowd going and the first set flew by at ferocious pace with Sweet Child of Mine, Mr Brightside and You Really Got Me building to a Roger Innocenti shaped Simply the Best crescendo to close.

The second set bought around a semi naked rendition of Sex on Fire with Steve George struggling to raise the necessary £10 to whip his top off. Sophie from Surrey came up trumps though and coughed up the cash for him to reveal himself to the audience. She then kindly offered to do a number in the buff for £20. I wish I hadn’t bought all those red noses at the start of the night. We are now very seriously considering making “naked song” a regular part of the show. The performance of the night came from the middle of the second set when Jon caught hold of I Believe in a thing called Love by The Darkness. He grabbed it by the collar, spanked it and sent it home like a naughty little school boy.

By the time the third set came around, the last tube catchers had made theirs moves and we were left with a slightly smaller, unquestionably drunker but nonetheless resolutely rocking red nose massive. They were in for a treat however as we unleashed a volley of dirty rock anthems to tie the night up. Killing in the Name of, Nobody Knows and Whole Lotta Rosie got dusted off and thrashed about, but to be honest, by that point in the evening it wasn’t really a fair fight and we nearly didn’t make it out of the ring.

And so we made it to Helena’s swangsong at the end of a wonderful evening. The might of Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now carried us all home on a Red Nose shaped cloud and even now my ears are still ringing. All in all we busted through the best part of 40 songs in 3 hours, raised around £900 for Red Nose Day and agreed that this felt like the start of a beautiful relationship.

This year The Rose, next year Wembley.

Job done.

x

Admittedly there weren’t as many as we would have liked. For some reason people don’t feel the need to launch into the rockmosphere at this time of the year. From the faces I see on da street I think the contrary is probably the truth. But where we were invited, stars were born , legendary residencies created and a little bit of wedding dust sprinkled.

The stunningly wonderful Tooting Tram and Social hosted us for a loosely Valentine themed shindig and as a little band meeting decided afterwards we think this was probably our favourite gig there of the past 3 years. Because it’s such a big beautiful barn of a venue it can take a while to get the whole place shaking. However this Valetine’s spectacular saw revellers bouncing on chairs at the back and hanging from the mezzanine from the first song and then it just got better and better. There were a few contenders for winner of the soon to be invented “I am Rockaoke and Roll” performance of the night T-shirt. These included a 30th birthday rendition of Teenage Dirtbag (complete with rose between the teeth when rubbing up to MC Mataoke’s leg), a guy on his first night in London leading everyone in a rendition of Tootingwall and another pulsating Standing in the Way of Control to finish the night off.

Next stop was a new Friday night residency at AAA@Archangel bar on Kensington High Street. We went for this gig based on a meeting with Mark, the lovely ( and a little bit crazy) owner of the bar whose enthusiasm and excitement for bringing Rockaoke madness to his stage was infectious and he DID NOT disappoint. From the very first lick, pluck and snare smash he was front, side and centre of the party, jumping around, singing and giving away free “Rocktails” to everyone who performed. In contrast to the vastness of Tooting this is a cosy ( not cramped) downstairs venue which filled up quickly and after about 4/5 songs we found ourselves slap bang in the middle of a bouncing rock and roll gig. One of the main reasons this was and will be such a bloody good crack of a residency is that the sound is AWESOME. AAA is very serious about becoming one of West London’s best live music venues and as such have laden themselves with an awesome sound system and some of the best technicians in the business. Phil was God of Sound for our first gig and he was genuinely enthralled by the task of making EACH and EVERY singer sound as good as they possibly could. It’s not often we find that detail on the road and subsequently we have provisionally bagged him for our world tour . This maybe be tough as he was out in Europe last week with Deep Purple and is making Marillion sound good for the rest of the month.

Last but not in anyway least was the wonder of last Thursday at The Alchemist in the city. Technically this was not in February but  it deserves a mention as it was the scene of not only a Rockaoke first but simultaneously one of  most mega Rockaoke moments of all time. . Manus ( our new biggest fan) had e-mailed a few weeks earlier to ask if we could accommodate a little favour during the evening. So at the beginning of the second half,  after the previous singer had whipped the crowd into a frenzy with Sex on Fire , Manus took to the stage. Eyes closed and understandably a little nervous he slipped into Chasing Cars and within moments the lighters were out, arms were swaying and everyone was in love. During the second verse he signalled to his girlfriend Lauren to come and sing with him and she foolishly obliged. As the crescendo of the last chorus eased, our main man dropped to one knee and slightly adapted the outro to suit his requirements. “If i just kneel, If I just kneel here, will you kneel with me and we’ll forget the world”. He then popped the question and Lauren said yes. She burst into tears ( which is rare for an Aussie girl) and so did the band and the rest of the Alchemist. In fact I’m a little wet around the edges writing this now.

And so we march into March with guitars held high and amps turned up very loud, looking forward to making more dreams come true along the way. It’s a tough gig but we’ll play it.

We’re going to start at Punk this Friday and then a large dose of Rednose Rockaoke next Thursday at The Rose in Vauxhall. Let’s lay some down and raise money for those who have fewer chances to Rock than ourselves. Take a sneaky peek at the link below for more details

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=129319497140292

Rock long and prosper

x

Having played The Empire in Belfast a couple of times before we are always excited to go back and had high hopes for a glorious night of rock. However when we arrived in Belfast on Friday to find swathes of luminous pink Rockaoke posters slapped across the city centre ( we’re not sure by who) and double page spreads in gig guides we started to speculate about what might just go off on the Saturday night. Add in the fact that our hotel was a drum stick throw away from The Empire and we were all on a high as we strode out into the Friday night to ensure we were fully up to speed with all local customs. Addmitedly our tour of the sites led us straight to The Crown and a protracted 4 hour sejourn in booth two. 10 pints of guinness, 3 sambucas, a load of inappropriate jokes from Smooth ( head of security and chief photographer) and a stumble around town later we ended up back at the Empire where we gatecrashed the Salsa session in the bar down stairs and Danny a) tried to teach everybody the Maccam Conga and b) tell everyone that we would be playing on the big stage upstairs and it would undoubtably be ” a reet good craiic”

The whole place erupted as we strode onto stage and pounded through the formalities of the geeing up, announcing a raffle, and our first song. Then onto the real stars.What ensued was quite simply one of the finest sets of Rockaoke ever to have been witnessed by our 200 gig a year souls. The crowd were electric, the performers were eccentric, the band were on fire, the Empire was one in one out ( 450 capacity, you do the math) and we were doing what we do best, making people into rockstars……IT WAS AWESOME! From a breath taking rendition of Highway to hell, through a strutastic Simply the Best to an emotionally rousing Don’t Stop Believing the half was jam packed of quality performers and brilliant moments.

Its been a while since our last blog, with so much happening all the time, its hard to keep up, but here we are to fill you in on how stuff has been going in the ROCKAOKE camp.

We have done some really amazing gigs in the last few months such as Download!! which was nothing less than amazing! We played to over 2000 people, which was also immense. And the best thing about it was, the singers were brilliant, which really does help the Rockstar experience, although anyone can join in the fun, and feel like a Rockstar! You can find some of the videos for this on our youtube channel: http://www.rockaoke.co.uk/rockaoke_video.php

Its also Gaymers festival season, where we have been enjoying yet another season working for the lovely people @ Gaymers. So far we have played Lattitude and Big Chill, which are two of our favourite festivals to date, and in amongst rocking out in The Gaymers Lost Orchid, we found time to go watch the amazing Massive Attack. A totally mind blowing experience to say the least!

The festivals are always fantastic, but we have been doing some awsome weddings too, with the most fun, memorable and coolest wedding of all time, being Louise and Diego’s wedding in Dorset, which got featured in Brides Magazine. We had a great time and met some really cool people, and drank some beautiful Spanish wine, a personal highlight. Negative point being most of it ended up all over my Primarny special white shirt. Should have had my very classy head torch switched on at this point A special thanks goes out to Alice @ Brides Mag for being so kind and featuring us in her blog.

So, great festivals, top notch weddings, features in Brides Magazine. Have I forgotten anything? ermmm, oh yes, Alan Shearer’s 40th birthday party

It was an absolute honour to be asked to play @ Alan Shearer’s 40th birthday, where the great man himself, opened the second set with a very credible rendition of “Sex on Fire”. This has to be the top ROCKAOKE moment of all time. The guy is a feckin legend, even if he did play for Newcastle! Top goal scorer in the premiership, 30 goals in 63 caps for England, unreal. As if thats not living the dream enough, he has also fronted his own rock band.

His party was a who’s who of premiership footballers and managers alike, and also local boys Ant and Dec were present. If rumour is to be believed, both Ant and Dec and Shearer, did a version of “Lets Get Ready to Rumble” in the early hours of the morning. Priceless!!

We were featured in the Bizarre section of The Sun http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/3098956/Shearer-40th-is-rocking.html, got a mention on Radio 1 by our old friend, Chris Moyles, and we also had the pleasure of playing with the awsome, Matt Fincham, from The Chris Moyles Show

All in all, everything is good in the Rockaoke camp, with Leeds and V Festivals coming up, and our usual, great fun nights, at both Punk and Karaoke box.

More blogs soon people. Hope to see you all at a night near you, really soon.

For now, keep on ROCKAOKEING

ROCKAOKE Sundays @ PROUD, Camden - launch night 23 may 2010

ROCKAOKE NIGHTS return to the home of karaoke’s much cooler older bro’ - PROUD, Camden.

ROCKAOKE are the UKs original karaoke rock band, inviting their audience to live the dream by jumping on stage, grabbing the mic, fronting their own live rock band and getting a crowd going crazy.

The band and the concept made headlines back in 2006 when Ricky Wilson jumped on stage with ROCKAOKE @ IBIZA ROCKS to sing “I Predict a Riot”.

One of the last bands to play the old PROUD GALLERIES back in august 2007, ROCKAOKE became a firm favourite at PROUD over the next few years.

ROCKAOKE have performed with over 25,000 different lead singers – all wannabe rockstars and some actual superstars like Justin Lee Collins, Alexandra Burke, Peter Andre, James Corden, Jeremy Clarkson etc…

Shows with CHRIS MOYLES in 2009 introduced ROCKAOKE to 8,000,000 Radio 1 listeners. In september 2009, the band toured with Chris to celebrate his show becoming the longest running Radio 1 breakfast show ever!

And now on 23/05/2010, ROCKAOKE are launching monthly Sunday ROCKAOKE NIGHTS @ PROUD.

So, if you want something cooler than karaoke but more interactive and hands-on than a live rock band, come down to ROCKAOKE NIGHTS @ PROUD and get your lips dirty!

up-and-coming ROCKAOKE NIGHTS @ PROUD (8 til 11.30 – free admission)

Sunday 23rd may 2010 – Sunday 27th june 2010 – Sunday 25th july 2010

“Most fun ever? We reckon so” – TIME OUT, LONDON

“So wrong – it’s right” – IBIZA ROCKS

“Karaoke’s much cooler older brother” – SUNDAY TIMES

“It’s such a good idea! Get a band – and then you do karaoke” – CHRIS MOYLES

SIGN UP TO SING ONLINE @ www.rockaokenights.com/proud

See www.rockaoke.co.uk for more information on ROCKAOKE.

Rockaoke @ The Gaymers Camden Crawl 2010 Aftershow

Sunday 2nd May, officially the start of the Rockaoke summer, and it’s not because of the weather as it was freezing and pissing it down. It’s because it was the start of our 2010 festival season. Camden Crawl was a weekend we were all really looking forward to, and it did not disappoint. From the second the free bar opened it was pure rock n roll carnage on the Rockaoke stage @ Dingwalls.

Each and every one of the performers embraced their few mins of Rock n roll glory to sing with a live Karaoke Rock band, even if they were in bands themselves such as Baby Bird (Danny, bass player of Baby Bird sang Kiss as the opening song). As the Gaymers Cider flowed, so did our set of anthems with all manner of people gracing the stage from MTV people to Kerrang, we even spotted the drummer from Snow Patrol trying to sneak on to stage, although were pretty sure he was trying to get his mate on. But none the less we shared the stage with a member of Snow Patrol. Another name to add to the Rockaoke hall of fame

Despite the crazy amounts of booze consumed (sensibly of course), Camden Crawl produced a really high standard of singers/performers helping make this one of the most memoral Rockaoke nights so far this year. It’s certainly the latest as we got off stage at 3am – but boy did we enjoy it! and would we do it again?

hmmmmm FUCK YEA!!!!!

TRIBUTE 2010 = see www.tributeni.com

TRIBUTE is a completely unique, alternative credit crunch festival celebrating the greatest rock and pop anthems of the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s alongside a headline performance by live karaoke rock band, Rockaoke – and YOU!

For the first time in history, you, the audience will headline your very own music festival.

TRIBUTE will be an all-inclusive, sing-a-long extravaganza, playing out as a history through Rock. There are 3 of the UKs premier tribute bands on the bill. HOT FUSS, ZU2 (easy to work out what they are all about) and MAURICE JAY’S PLEASURE DOME (a tribute to the 80s). But they are only the warm-up for the star attraction. Which is you – with ROCKAOKE as your backing band.

We have worked in Belfast 3 times before – twice at The Empire Music Hall, 2 nights amongst the best gigs of our lives. And most recently in december doing “Caroloke” with the CHRIS MOYLES SHOW at the Mandela Hall, Queens Uni. Belfast is just such a terrific place to visit and to work in. And we can’t wait to get back there in may.

So much so, infact, that we are heading back there next week – 1 month ahead of schedule. We are flying into Belfast and then heading for Derry on the 8th april and Dublin on the 9th to do 2 launch night / warm-up / audition events – at Sandinos and The Village respectively. Here are some links to these events on Facebook:

ROCKAOKE North-West debut – Sandinos, Derry

ROCKAOKE Dublin debut – The Village, Wexford St, Dublin

We’ll be blogging more about these events next week and about TRIBUTE 2010 in the next month. And if anyone wants to come on tour to Belfast with us in may, please contact us using the usual methods.

After a slightly delayed start last night, due to Mat poncing around at a singing lesson, we managed to get on stage at about 8, full of pizza and topped up with Mojitos. What looked like being an intimate affair turned out to be a raucous free for all as the songs came in thick and fast.

Particular highlights included the one and only Roger Inocenti smashing the front and back doors out of Bon Jovi ( the bar tenders had to smother the glasses when he went awol on the top note near the end ). There was also a high voltage rendition of Don’t Stop Believing that nearly made me stop hearing ,and a very excited American contingent who stumbled upon us from their booth and got stuck into a bit of Blink 182.

Good news is that we think this night will be mega if the first one was owt to go by. It’s tough to find a good venue with cool staff and a ready flow of right minded peop’s to get on stage and have a smash, and Karaoke Box at Smithfields is definitely a goer. We just need to keep on telling the city folk that it’s there every other Wednesday and hopefully they’ll come down and help make it a cracker. There are even rumours of a Rockaoke themed Pizza being created especially! What dreams are made of…..I wonder if Kings of Leon have got their own pizza?

Until the next one…rock on!

ROCKAOKE NIGHTS @ Karaoke Box, Smithfield - launch night 31/3/2010

LAUNCH NIGHT 31/3/2010 and every 2nd & last wednesday.

We are looking forward to our first ROCKAOKE NIGHT at Karaoke Box, Smithfield. It is live band karaoke’s first venture into hardcore karaoke territory in London and it will be interesting to see how we get on. Our nights at OK Karaoke in Leeds were successful – marred only by the tiny stage and the amount of Sambuca that seemed to find its way into our guitarist. Karaoke Box is small too – but the stage is OK and I think we are going to have a great night!

The signs are good. Already 10 songs requested at www.rockaokenights.com/karaokebox – get your song request in quick if you want to sing tomorrow. Admission is free and we will be on stage between 8-11pm.

The really good news is that there are drinks sponsors. Asahi beer – though I can’t help thinking that Singha beer would be a better fit at Karaoke Box. And Bacardi! That’s a dream come true for us. The Mojito is the official drink of Rockaoke as hotel night porter’s throughout the land will grudgingly vouch for. And now we have the name “Bacardi” on our flyers. Happy days.

Hope to see you down at Karaoke Box tonight

Shitbiscuits! I’m driving