Rockaoke at the BBC6 Music Festival

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.

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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.

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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!