“Garth Brooks Gets Fiji’d: Karaoke at the Tiger Bay Pub”

Let's be honest. Country songs are hard to butcher, even with karaoke. At the Tiger Bay Pub on February 4, however, botched country tunes, as well as other ear-splitting travesties, occurred every fifteen minutes or so. Braving the torrential downpour, I made my way to the Pub around 8:50 p.m., believing that fifty minutes was enough time to get the ball rolling on Thursday night karaoke. I walked into the half-empty room to the sounds of "Picture," Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow's inescapable early noughties ballad, adequately rendered by the first boy-girl duet of the night. Positioning myself at a table near the counter, I nodded in approval as a junior in a pastel yellow polo sang "Jack and Diane" with the respectable bombast of one trying to get the night started.

"This isn't bad for karaoke night," I shouted into a friend's ear. As if on cue, a half-monotone, half-screamed chorus of "It's Raining Men" came on the loudspeakers, delivered by a few "too eager" KD pledges. "I hope this is a pledging thing," my friend shouted back. Cringing, I silently prayed for this to be true, as groups of KD girls swarmed the mic to sing their own personal versions of well-known hits. "Toxic" and "Nothing at All" were complete with halfway-committed dance moves and fully-committed clenched fists, and confused looks went around the room as the girls singing "Lady Marmalade" stumbled over one of the most famous French phrases of all time.

By 9:55 p.m., the Pub was packed from pinball machine to carousel tiger. After a thoroughly entertaining rendition of "Bye Bye Bye" by half of the KD girls present, the deluge of country tunes began. Performances of "Kerosene" and "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" were both appropriately accented. Sadly, the twang was the highlight of each song. Nothing could have saved "Family Tradition" though, not even the roaring mumble of the audience singing along. "Last time, thank God," DJ Michael B exclaimed, as the girls on the mic shouted through the final chorus. Every now and then, the country theme was broken by a couple of pop chart hits. A spoken word version of "I Try" prompted an audience member to comment how "the song title sure [was] appropriate," and a well-deserved round of applause went to the male duet who sang "I'm Too Sexy."

Not all performances made the crowd wish that the sound system's squealing feedback would get louder. One particular KD pledge helped redeem her crew when she belted a pitch-perfect "Man, I Feel Like a Woman." She was even handed a Tiger Bay Pub shirt for her efforts, a high honor for those who frequent the Sewanee karaoke circuit. Going for three, the yellow polo sporting junior and a friend delivered one of the most memorable tunes of the night, "Barbie Girl." On-key falsetto takes a fair amount of talent, and the junior, who took the first full knee of the night while singing about "life in plastic," had a surprisingly good ear and quite the knack for entertaining. Arguably, the night's top honors went to the freshman who worked Missy Elliot's "Work It." He brought a whole new level of maudlin sexuality to the song, finding an interesting valley between the sultry lust of the lyrics and the dry desert thump of the beat. Wiping the nervous sweat off his brow, he was greeted with a round of high fives and a free t-shirt when he returned to his seat.

As the clock hit eleven, the Pub began to resemble a Nashville bar at two in the morning, with the singers on chairs and enough fist pumps to keep the Jersey Shore crowd satisfied. "Come on Eileen" caused an impromptu dance party to break out. Like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, the end was inevitable after that one. The night closed with a hearty Fiji rendition of "Friends in Low Places," leaving audience members with an unavoidable earworm as they exited through the back door.