{"id":3228,"date":"2014-07-22T22:30:14","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T05:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3228"},"modified":"2014-07-31T13:15:13","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T20:15:13","slug":"and-were-live-halifax-nova-scotia-07212014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3228","title":{"rendered":"And We\u2019re Live! \u2013 Halifax, Nova Scotia \u2013 [07\/21\/2014]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"super_star_by_enchantedwhispersart-d7mwrpq\"<\/a>The live karaoke night the ship hosts every week \u2013 when guests get to have their chance to sing with the party band, requires a lot more prep work to get off the ground properly than most people realize. For one thing, it uses different books, and the paperwork for it always seems to be kept in a different place on every ship. And somehow, this time around? It missed even being put on the musicians\u2019 schedules \u2013 but it was<\/em> listed in the guests\u2019 program, which meant it had to happen, whether we were ready for it or not.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, I get a copy of said program, because Amras doesn\u2019t, as a result, our conversation over late night snack night before last went something like this:<\/p>\n

You know you have the whole sing along thing tomorrow night right?<\/em><\/p>\n

No we don\u2019t<\/em><\/p>\n

Pretty sure you do. I\u2019ll double check the program when I go on shift in the morning.<\/em><\/p>\n

And I did, and I was right. So I printed off a copy of the program, highlighted the relevant line, scrawled my usual offer to help across the top and slid it under his door. It was only after our return from our jaunt around Halifax (which involved a total stranger trying to eat my bagel right out of my hand, which I may or may not go into at another time), that we realized that we had no clue where the lyrics books were. Nor did we have the song selection lists. No song lists, no live karaoke. Not good. So after a few phone calls back and forth, our singer Nightingale managed to track down one<\/em> lyric book, just one. Still no song lists.<\/p>\n

I can work from one book, give me one book with a title index and I can give you a song list<\/em><\/p>\n

At which Amras just grins at me and tucks the phone back into his shoulder.<\/p>\n

Yeah, Shaughnessy can do it for us\u2026no\u2026seriously\u2026she just volunteered. Yeah, I know but she\u2019s got like 300 words a minute typing speed or something crazy, trust me.<\/em><\/p>\n

Which is how I ended up spending my dinner break with my fingers flying across a laptop keyboard while Amras sat there calling out chart titles and corresponding numbers.<\/p>\n

#178, Mamma Mia<\/em><\/p>\n

Here we go again? Next!<\/em><\/p>\n

#179, Margaritaville<\/em><\/p>\n

Spelling please?<\/em><\/p>\n

M-a-r-g-a\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

And on and on it went. Ended up being 5 pages long, formatted.<\/p>\n

I always ask special permission to help with the whole live karaoke event. So I\u2019ve seen a lot of them. They usually somewhat die after the first 45 minutes and part of my unofficial job becomes simply getting people up to the sign up table (one party band singer once offered a kiss to anyone who signed up it was so quiet, and STILL no one did!) so that\u2019s kind of what we were prepared for. What we weren\u2019t prepared for was the event to start flying after the first 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

And it went for nearly two hours. I mean seriously that\u2019s got to be a first. It\u2019s also the first time I\u2019ve seen the dance floor packed for the event as it usually becomes a spectator only sport. But a lot of that was because someone chose to sing Y.M.C.A which of course brought the prompt \u201cwe need dancers!\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll do it if I have a partner<\/em><\/p>\n

Nah, it\u2019s \u2018YMCA\u2019, Sis<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh\u2026that\u2019s different then<\/em><\/p>\n

Which is how I ended up, along with the DJ, leading a floor full of people in the line dance everyone seems to know but no one seems to remember how to do. At one point I\u2019m pretty sure I was nearly pulling people out of their chairs. From the bandstand, Amras just flashes me this high-voltage grin,<\/p>\n

I so owe you. That was awesome<\/em><\/p>\n

Nah, \u2018twas nothin\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

In exchange for all this, he lets me sing. Only if sign-ups are slow, so usually at the very beginning or the very end of the night, and only if at least a trickle of guests have come up before me (that was a company rule on one ship, and has become a self-imposed one ever since). Thing is, I\u2019ve been singing the same chart with Amras for the last three seasons, so we\u2019ve pretty much got it down to a science at this point\u2026<\/p>\n

178 guys\u2026and \u2018Gale, give me your mic, she won\u2019t need the words , but she\u2019s gonna want the back-ups<\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you big brother<\/em><\/p>\n

Yer welcome Sis.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The live karaoke night the ship hosts every week \u2013 when guests get to have their chance to sing with the party band, requires a lot more prep work to get off the ground properly than most people realize. For … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23,77,15,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cat-chronicles","category-east-coast-adventures-2014","category-performances","category-summer-contracts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-Q4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3230,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3228\/revisions\/3230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}