Welcome to our Rockaoke Blog! Follow our posts to stay up to date with gig announcements, press features, festival news and everything Rockaoke.
About us:
ROCKAOKE are the UKs original, BEST and only SPECIALIST live karaoke band, inviting their audience to “live the dream” by taking to the stage and singing with a live rock band…
“One of London’s finest WTF experiences!” – Timeout London
A “beloved institution” – Rolling Stone
Back in 2005, Sheffield bassist Jon Short had a band without a singer. This wasn’t an ideal position for a family man to find himself in, what with a mortgage to pay and mouths to feed, so he decided to try flipping this disadvantage into the band’s USP (unique selling point). No one else was doing rock band karaoke, and for good reason – there was no demand for it. For a year the phone remained silent.
Then one Saturday morning in May 2006, the phone rang.
It was Ibiza based entrepreneur Andy McKay who introduced himself as co-owner of the World’s biggest nightclub Manumission. He invited the band to do a season at Ibiza Rocks. Jon suggested Ibiza Rockaoke! Andy bought the domain. And when Kaiser Chief Ricky Wilson jumped on stage with them to belt out a drunken “I Predict A Riot”, all eyes and ears were suddenly on hot Sheffield band Rockaoke and their exciting new concept.
The Rockaoke band/brand/concept very quickly became a favourite London club night attraction. Iconic venues like Punk, Proud, Raffles, Cuckoo Club, AAA, Roadhouse, Koko and others all offered Rockaoke Nights. Festival appearances followed, beginning on the V2007 VIP stage with a star-studded line-up of celeb singers and an appearance in OK Magazine. Before long, the band were performing all around the UK and Europe, touring with the Chris Moyles Show, house band at Hard Rock Cafe, darlings of aftershow parties like Kerrang Awards, the Brits and Top Gear Live, getting booked for private parties by the likes of Alan Shearer, Richard Hammond and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, opening the show at Chris Evans’ Carfest and… well, the list goes on.
10 years and an estimated 2,500 shows and 50,000 lead singers later, the Rockaoke tour bus shows no sign of slowing down. However, with the exception of one charity event, they have never done a club night in their home town. That is – until now….
The Steel City’s music scene is famous for spawning the likes of Pulp and Arctic Monkeys, and much of this history can be retraced within the walls of the Leadmill – Sheffield’s longest running live music venue. Many of the World’s iconic acts have graced the Leadmill stage over the years, including Coldplay, Oasis, Kings Of Leon and The Killers, and on the 22nd October 2015 Rockaoke will join them!
So basically, this is a shout out to all you Sheffielders, inviting you to come along and to make your voice heard (literally) at The Leadmill.
In case you’re not familiar with the Rockaoke concept, here’s how it works.
You fill out a song sheet telling us what you want to sing. When your name’s called you get on stage and become a ROCK STAR backed by a three piece band and with lyrics provided. Once you’re up there, mic in hand, the most important thing to remember is – this isn’t the X-Factor. We don’t care whether or not you can actually carry a tune. All we look for is passion and enthusiasm, and all we ask is that you have a blast!
Entry is £5, doors open at 7:00 and the band will be rocking out til 11:00! Head to leadmill.co.uk to buy tickets.
And to make sure you get to sing, sign-up online at www.rockaokenights.com.
How prestigious can you get? Rockaoke have had the esteemed honour of headlining The Daily Mirror Labour Conference After Party, and what a party it was…
On September 29th 2015 the Revolution Bar in Brighton was abuzz with labour officials all eager to take a break from hardcore politics and release their inner rock gods; an opportunity that our live-karaoke band was very glad to provide! The likes of Andy Burnham and Sharon Hodgson got up to sing with the guys before man-of-the-hour Jeremy Corbyn arrived to deliver his speech and then have a little dance to F**k You by Cee Lo Green. All in all, top night!
Click the here to view the full Telegraph article.
There was also a mention in the Sunday People:
Through our regular nights at AAA in South Kensington, we made friends with some of the people who work with the rock band MARILLION. The upshot of this was they asked us to come out and play at their Weekender at Port Zelande in the Netherlands in march 2015. We were scheduled to play an aftershow party on the saturday and sunday nights – well the early hours of the following mornings to be precise.
We anticipated 2 great shows. But fair to say we didn’t quite know what to expect. Marillion pretty much invented the whole crowd funding thing and owe their continued existence to their fanatically loyal / loyally fanatical fanbase. Over the weekend, it felt like we were adopted as a part of this wonderful family the band and their fans have created. Being part of a family is just how it felt!
The 2 shows were brilliant. We were made very welcome and enjoyed playing with some fabulous performers who all well and truly bought into the spirit of Rockaoke. We all had a lot of fun!
The highlight of the weekend came around 1am on monday morning when Marillion singer Steve Hogarth (“H”) joined us on stage. We reckon he’d been performing for around 10 hours over the weekend but he still managed to muster the energy and the voice to perform 3 songs as a thankyou to his adoring fans.
The perfect end to a great weekender!!!
What a great start to the year for rockstars everywhere! Without much of a break from the Xmas party season, Rockaoke have been hitting the road hard, and although the tiredness levels are high, it’s been well worth it. Satisfied singers the country over have been left with no voices and great ( if not vague ) memories. Here’s a few of the kind words that we’ve had back so far:
‘Just wanted to say a massive thank you for last Saturday night – it was an awesome evening and everyone had a fantastic time, best birthday party ever – really good fun’ Amanda, Rock and Roll birthday chick.
You guys are supremely AWESOME!! Thank you so much – that was SO much fun!! What a great party. I want to do it all over again right now. Xx Sophie, overjoyed popstar
Just a quick email to thank you and the rest of the band for making my 50th birthday party one of the best and most memorable occasions ever ! Stuart, fallen over birthday angel
‘Thank YOU for a brilliant night – everyone has been texting and telling me how much they enjoyed your musicianship, professionalism, entertainment and the ability to make everyone feel part of the evening’ Sarah, legendary birthday girl.
‘When we need a performance that can astound and include a huge variety of people- be it upward of 1000 volunteers from all kinds of backgrounds at our volunteer party, or dozens of our homeless and vulnerable Crisis at Christmas guests – we ask Rockaoke. Their incomparable showmanship and musical chops are second only to the ability to take even the shyest punter and give them 5 minutes as a rockstar’ David Littlefair – Very cool Ents Coordinator, Crisis.
Here’s looking forward to a very busy February and undoubtedly similar levels of surreal stage antics as this, found in the picturesque Hampshire village of Whitchurch.
For the 4th year in a row, Rockaoke crashed into the New Year with a heart warming performance at The Crisis at Xmas volunteer’s party. Over 1,300 people packed into Scala to celebrate all the hard work they’d done over the festive period and set a benchmark for Rockaoke’s year ahead.
Following this up swiftly in February, we headed to Manchester’s Victoria Warehouse to play at the inaugural BBC6 festival. Billed in the fringe section of the program we found ourselves slotted in between Tim Burgess’ acoustic sets and the surreal wonder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. We may have rubbed shoulders with the likes of Guy Gurvey, Mark King and Huey Morgan, but the highlight of the weekend was the passionate rendition of Born to Run that Shaun Keaveny produced to kick off the show.
Onto March and a meeting with comedy royalty at The School of Life. David Baddiel was giving a Sunday sermon on Fame and requested us to help lead a secular sing a long around his talk. After opening with David Bowie’s Fame, we ended by surprising the whole crowd, including the esteemed speaker as we pulled an 18 year old Xfactor auditionee up onto stage to sing Creep. The nervous but talented rocker had everyone entranced and as the masses joined in to belt out the final chorus, Baddiel turned to the band and eloquently commented ‘this is like karaoke, but not shit’.
We raced through April and May with Rockaoke nights going strong as well as plenty of corporate parties, birthdays and weddings – including that of MC Mataoke’s sister, with him and his Mum smashing Living on a Prayer. There was also another trip to the legendary Concorde club in Southampton where our raucous crowd participation has found it’s own spot in the hearts of the jazz loving members.
June saw us launch into festival season headfirst with our Northern team taking on the Doghouse again at Download for 5 nights in a row. That was Rockaoke’s 6th year of creating rockstars in front of 3,000 head banging revelers. On the same weekend, the Southern team headed over to IOW festival to lather on the suncream and grab of few lead singers from the throngs in Hey Joe’s bar. We then managed to bolt on a week in Madrid as the house band at the Oracle global sales conference. Nice.
The Tour de France was kind enough to pop past Rockaoke HQ in early July and of course the greatest cycling event in the world needed help from the greatest live karaoke band on the planet. Then later in the month we had to up sticks and head to another major sporting event, this time the Commonwealth Games. Having caused havoc in the Athletes village at the Olympics and Paralympics at London 2012, we were all to happy to go and repeat the job in Glasgow. This time round we found ourselves largely turning lawn green bowlers into rockers….it’s always the quiet ones.
Two of the best gigs of the year came at Standon Calling Festival with around 400 people at a time cramming into The Salon tent to go crazy with Rockaoke love. Stunning performances, epic fancy dress and the a wild crowd high on life ( at the very least) caused one reviewer to ask the question – Are Rockaoke the most entertaining festival band on the planet? From the boutique to the major, we sent @rockaokenorth to V Fest in Birmingham to deliver the Carling Roadies brand experience. Likewise, at V South, our London team entertained in the Carling area whilst sneaking into VIP to play the Saturday night after-show. We finished off the month with a great 3 piece acoustaoke gig at the Time Out summer party where CEO Tim Arthur demonstrated his outstanding tambourine skills for most of the night. It was then on to Big Feastival where we headlined the second stage on the Sunday night.
In September we trecked up to Gleneagles and were honoured to play at The European Ryder Cup team’s winning party. After spending the afternoon watching the golf on the 18th green, we enjoyed our warm up act – The Jones Gang and hung out with Rory Mcilroy, Justin Rose and the boys. It was then over to us to try and control the exuberant Ryder Cup organising staff. We just managed to do that with the help of Miguel Angel Jimenez’s unique dancing technique and the note perfect tones of Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter
The end of the year flew by with some wonderful Rockaoke nights at the Star of Kings, Tooting Tram and Social and our new venue London Cocktail Club Shoreditch. However, we did have to mourn for one of our London homes as AAA bar in Kensington lost it’s live music license and with it our twice monthly carnage. We also slapped on the make up for Halloween at the Hospital Club. We devised a brand new Live Music Quiz for BDO, during which we turned 160 accountants into a Choir – thanks Starling Arts! And to top it off we met and played with Sky Sports King of Cool, Chris Kamara at The Heineken Star Pub awards
And so we came to the Christmas period and as ever, it was silly season for our bands. Amongst other amazing gigs we teamed up with Monster energy drinks to create a Rockaoke stage at the Mercedes Brawn 2014 Championship party, where Nico Rosberg duly obliged and smashed his way through a 6 song mini set. Other Christmas parties included Freemantle, England Rugby 2015, The Guardian, Ericcson, The Sun, The Earls Court closing party, Planet Rockstock, Lime Pictures, Sony Music and The European Tour. We then finished the year as we’d started and headed to Paddington Green for Crisis at Xmas. It’s not the easiest gig of the year, but it’s lovely to be able to make anyone a Rockstar, no matter who they are, where they’re from or what they’ve got. As ever, we’ll rock out with anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Thanks to everyone who made 2014 such a fun and loud place to be and we look forward to seeing you all in 2015!
Playing at the AAA at Archangel on the first and third Friday of every month, Rockaoke is the UK’s original, best and, well, only specialist live karaoke band, giving people the chance to ‘live the dream’ up on the stage with the backing of a full live band.
Unique among the karaoke bars, Rockaoke has been spreading its brand of fully interactive rock’n’roll fun for the last eight years, both up and down the country as well as worldwide.
Join in and rock out!
The School of Life is a global humanist organisation devoted to developing emotional intelligence through the help of culture. Who did they choose to help spread that message on Mother’s Day? You’ve guessed it….David Baddiel and Rockaoke.
Sunday mornings are not a musician’s natural habitat but we managed to drag ourselves to the beautiful Conway Hall to sandwich David Baddiel’s brilliant secular sermon on Fame with two rock and roll hymns.
The subject of the talk provided the opening hymn, with us leading the congregation in an early morning dance to David Bowie’s Fame. We then sat back and laughed for 45 minutes as Baddiel, one of Rockaoke’s comedy heroes, shared his observations on fame; his own, other people’s and the myths surrounding this prized but also reviled status.
The following Q&A session provided us with the ideal end to a wonderful and slightly surreal morning, as a wannabe teenage rockstar asked a question about levels of fame based on his own upcoming XFactor audition. When we returned to the stage to play the final hymn, Creep by Radiohead, we asked asked him to come onto the stage and lead the song.
He rose to the challenge and delighted the audience as he rolled onto the stage, put on his sun glasses and delivered a slightly nervy, but wonderfully tender rendition of the Radiohead classic. It ended with the whole room singing an a cappella refrain of the chorus, before Conway Hall erupted into applause for the fame hungry youngster, who had given the perfect epilogue to David Baddiel’s poignant and extremely funny sermon.
Just a regular Sunday morning in the office. In the words of Mr Baddiel himself ‘I’ve never seen this before, It’s brilliant, you make karaoke NOT NAFF’.
According to new scientific research, Karaoke nights out are actually good for your health, writes The Telegraph Science Correspondent Richard Alleyne.
Researchers found that moderate drinking with a good friend helped improve cardiovascular health with singing also helping to reduce stress.
While heavy drinking is associated with a greater risk of a stroke, light to moderate drinking has been linked to a lesser risk of stroke and coronary heart disease.
Having the social support of a good friend seems increase the positive effect that moderate drinking has on your health.
“In short,” said Professor Takeshi Tanigawa, at Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan. “Moderate to light alcohol consumption with high social support is good for your health. Drinking with a good friend appropriately makes you feel happy and healthy.
“So drink with good friends for health.”
Prof Tanigawa also recommended karaoke bars as one way for business persons to cope with stress. “Singers use deep breathing, which is good for the nervous system,” he said.
“After singing, they usually receive applause. It is a good kind of social support, and helps in the face of adverse occasions or stressful events.”
The study on 19,356 men aged 40 to 69 found the health benefits of light to moderate drinking are more pronounced in men with greater social support.
The study, published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, also found that those with low social support had less healthy lifestyles such as physical inactivity, no job and fewer opportunities for medical checkups.
Heavy drinking was found to be risky irrespective of the level of social support.
Professor Hiroyasu Iso, the study’s co-author from Osaka University, said: “We found the reduced risks of total stroke, ischemic stroke, and total cardiovascular disease associated with light to moderate drinking were more pronounced in men with high social support, probably due to avoidance of unhealthy behaviours and enhancement of stress buffering.”
See you at a Rockaoke Night soon!!!
AAA – High St Kensington – 1st and 3rd Friday of the month
Tooting Tram and Social – 2nd Friday of the month
Star of Kings – Kings Cross – Last Friday of the month.
#YOLOndon feature in TIME OUT London – 11th march 2014.
We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves…!!!
“Londoners, are you living? I mean, really living? Well, it’s high time you started and to kick you off, this week’s issue of Time Out Magazine is dedicated to the lost art of YOLOing. Yep, you may well be aware that You Only Live Once, so we’ve rounded up the most impulsive, wild, fun and fancy-free stuff to do in the city. “
You only live once – so have stupid amounts of fun with London’s finest WTF experiences.
Becoming a ROCK STAR is a long process involving countless hours of practice and oodles of talent (all that commitment, all those sacrifices, being in the right place at the right time, knowing the right people, kissing the right ass etc… etc…)
Ain’t NOBODY got time for that!
Just jump on stage with the dudes from ROCKAOKE at one of their London ROCKAOKE NIGHTS and belt out some tunes with a LIVE ROCK BAND.
Rock God rewards – zero effort.
ROCKAOKE NIGHTS are fridays nights at AAA, Kensington, Tooting Tram & Social and Star of Kings, Kings Cross.
Venue info and sign-up to sing @ www.rockaokenights.com xxx
This has to go down as one of the greatest weekends in Rockaoke history. We’re all still buzzing from the BBC6 Music Festival at the Victoria Warehouse in Manchester. We were asked by the coolest music radio station in the country to be their official party starters on both the Friday and Saturday on their inaugural festival. This was organised to say thanks to the listeners who helped to keep the station on air and BBC6 enlisted the UK’s finest live karaoke band to add a bit of interactive rock and roll fun to proceedings, complimenting the raft of rockstar talks, interviews and acoustic sessions that were going on during the daytime fringe.
The very first live musical performance of the weekend took place on the Rockaoke stage on Friday morning and it was no surprise to us that our old pal Shaun Keaveny was determined to kick proceedings off in style with a performance he predicted would be the festival’s “high-water mark”. Typically charismatic and slightly bonkers, it was a great opening salvo; however Shaun wasn’t the only person to get up and show us who’s The Boss:
The following sets saw us blast through some old Rockaoke classics, but also visit new ground with tunes that had been specifically requested by BBC6. We went Up The Junction a couple of times, Pumped it up with some Elvis Costello and drove down the 2-4-6-8 motorway whilst Tom Robinson himself was watching. He was one of the many musical heroes who we had the pleasure of entertaining and meeting across the two days. Our heads are still spinning from the chats we’ve had with Mark Radcliffe, Mark King, Tim Burgess, Guy Garvey, Steve Lamacq, Huey Morgan and even Freddie Flintoff.
The only down side to the experience is that we didn’t get to play one particular tune that we had rehearsed. It’s probably a good thing though as the Victoria Warehouse may not have been able to deal with a rendition of “Two Pints of Lager and a packet of crisps please” similar to this one that we smashed during rehearsals.
You can see the rest of the musical highlights on our You Tube channel.
We’re already excited about the thought of doing it again next year. Hopefully we’ll be able to bring a few of the Rockaoke faithful along!
