Sierra Benson
Staff Writer
Live band Chicago Blackhawks played at Parkland College on Wednesday, Jan 13, 2015 during a karaoke event in the Student Union Cafe.
A live karaoke show put on by Student Life welcomed students back to Parkland for the spring 2016 semester.
Every semester, Student Life has a welcome week filled with different activities. In the past there had been dueling pianos and also an alcohol awareness improvisation show.
Chaya Sandler, Parkland’s Activity Program Manager, explains the rationale for bringing in a live karaoke band at the start of the spring 2016 semester.
“This semester we decided to go back to live karaoke because a local band wanted to do it,” Sandler said. “They reached out to me …they had heard from other people that we had brought in a band from Chicago before.”
This is the second time Student Life has had a band play live karaoke. The first time was two years back during the fall of 2014.
“I liked it, it was cool,” said Zach Broeker, a Parkland student. “I did theater my senior year of high school and I’m used to being in front of crowds and speaking.”
Broeker talks about his experience on stage singing Tenacious D song “Tribute.”
“Once you’re up there time goes by a lot slower than it does when you’re listening to the music,” he said. “I had to pause to think of the words every once in a while.”
Broeker explains what compelled him to get up on the stage in the first place.
“You have to think about them [the band] too,” he said. “They’re waiting up there, waiting for people to come and play with them. It makes them feel bad, I’d say, if no one comes up and they’re just playing up there by themselves while offering for you to come up.”
“It’s like a one-time thing, not an everyday thing, you get the opportunity to have a live band in front of you,” says Broeker.
Jacob Ping, another Parkland student, was the first to volunteer.
“I can’t sing at all,” Ping said. “I sound terrible, but you know they were up there doing their thing so I thought I would get started for them…the first time I was pretty nervous because I barely knew the Creed song, so I didn’t know when to start singing. I didn’t really care about people’s opinions, but I definitely don’t like to be looked at by everybody. After a while I just didn’t care.”
Ping recalls a large binder full of lyrics for the songs that the karaoke band could play,
“They had some Led Zeppelin, quite a bit of Beatles on there; they were pretty across the board with their song choices, so I was pretty impressed by that,” he said. “It was more things they could do instrumental wise, and a lot of rap songs are not so easy to do instrumental wise.”
“Those guys were pretty cool though,” he said. “They could play their instruments pretty well so it was nice…If there was more karaoke I think we would have a lot less awkwardness around here.”
Sandler says there are no plans as of yet to do more karaoke for the rest of the semester,
“It’s hard to gauge how many people are going to want to put themselves out there, so we try and do it maybe once a semester just so it’s new and fresh,” Sandler said. “It doesn’t get old and repetitive.”
Student Life, located in U111, is looking for students who would like to gain experience in event planning or working with professionals in the field. There will be more events watch out for in the future that any student can participate in free of charge.
