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Singing karaoke has always been a form of enthusiastic embarrassment. If you actually can sing, you have probably moved past the typical karaoke crowd. But what happens when you've conquered your anxieties, stepped up on stage in front of hundreds of your peers, and the song you picked to sing is thrown out the window?
That was exactly the situation facing Justin Rondeau and Adam Yusuf, two members of UNH's Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, as they were about to perform at Alpha Xi Delta's third annual "Say What? Karaoke!" event on Tuesday night in the MUB Strafford Room.
The pair of Lambda brothers had chosen their costumes specifically for a certain song, but they didn't learn of the rules until the groups began performing. Alpha Xi Delta wasn't accepting submissions; the event hosts would decide the songs by spinning a wheel with all sorts of one-hit wonders and popular songs written in equal spaces.
Yusuf dressed as the famous rapper T-Pain, in long, black flowing robes and a tall headdress made up to look like a top hat, and Rondeau wore a faux tux, hoping to give the appearance of comedian Andy Samberg, who performs a rap spoof with T-Pain called "I'm On A Boat" in a Saturday Night Live sketch from an episode last season.
"I was really hoping that they were actually going to do it kind of like the real MTV style, where you came with a song," Rondeau said. "We actually had the song, "I'm On A Boat" ready, but didn't do it."
The changeup didn't prevent the pair from having a good time, however, and Lambda Chi Alpha won the whole contest with a surprisingly accurate rendition of "Sometimes" by Britney Spears to earn one of three spots in the final round, and an inspirational version of "I'll Be There for You" by the Rembrandts to seal the victory.
"I knew the 'Sometimes' one," Rondeau admitted, laughing. "People just asked me like, 'There's no way to know, but apparently you're a closet Britney Spears fan.' And everyone knows the 'Friends' [theme song]. That was our senior video in my high school. It was a good pair of songs."
In all, 13 groups of Greek societies collected the courage to sing sappy songs and help Alpha Xi Delta raise money for their philanthropy, the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth. Gift certificates and prizes were also awarded to lucky raffle winners in between performances from local eateries like Young's, Wendy's, Olive Garden and Dunkin' Donuts.
Megan Honey, the president of Alpha Xi Delta, thought the karaoke contest was a success, and nobody minded paying the $5 entry fee in order to watch friends and fellow students.
"Everyone came out and we had a good time raising money for a good cause," said Honey. "[The children's hospital has] been our philanthropy for the past I don't know how many years, but that's the philanthropy that we do most often."
The event didn't start out too well though, as the first group had to overcome a huge problem right on stage - no words showed up on the display in front of them. So when the lyrics to Toni Braxton's "Un-Break My Heart" floated across the wall from the projector and not on the small screen up in front, a little improvisation was necessary for Chi Omega's sorority trio.
The group aptly named themselves "No Authority" for the contest and sported white T-shirts with their team name in black, bold lettering on the front. The girls sang all the words they could see above and behind them, but relied more on their animated dancing skills to get them through the performance.
They would get another chance at the end of the first round, when Alpha Xi Delta host Sarah Sargeant announced the technical difficulties to the audience, but their adaptation of "Celebration" by Kool & the Gang didn't win over the judges, and "No Authority" was eliminated in the opening round.
From beach studs belting Savage Garden's "Truly, Madly, Deeply" to Alpha Chi Omega girls crooning to Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time," the audience was entertained every minute.
"I think it went very well," Honey said. "I think we had a lot of support from the other houses."
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