Nights @ LCC in April and May
Hey guys! Rockaoke residence at LCC Shoreditch continues throughout April and May! You can view the gig listing below on this latest poster:
news
Rockaoke in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society
What: A supersonic extravaganza featuring Rockaoke, the UK’s greatest live karaoke rock band, celebrity judges (including BBC Radio 6 Music’s Shaun Keaveny), DJ’s, drinks promotions and exclusive rock star raffle, all in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society, the UK’s leading support and research charity for people living with dementia, their families and carers.
When: Friday 6th May 2016, 7pm-late
Where: 229 The Venue, 229 Great Portland Street, W1W 5PN (Going Underground – 30 seconds from Great Portland Street, 2 mins from Regent’s Park and 5 mins from Warren Street)
Tickets: £13 in advance, £17 on the door (www.229thevenue.com)
Here we are now, entertain us: Described by The Times as “The most fun you can have without getting arrested” and featuring a setlist of hundreds of the greatest anthems of all time, Rockaoke promises to be an unforgettable evening with something for everyone, whether you are looking for your five glorious minutes of fame or just want to lend your support to those brave enough to take to the stage. Satisfaction guaranteed 🙂
Nights @ London Cocktail Club, Shoreditch
The Rockaoke train shows no sign of stopping as nights at The London Cocktail Club, Shoreditch are becoming increasingly popular. Come and join us on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month to see what all the fuss is about! Entry’s free, and you can wet your whistle with a special Jack Daniel’s Rocktail before jumping onstage.
If you’re curious, Rockaoke nights at the LCC look a little something like this:
Rockaoke @ Standon Calling 2016
Great news! We have confirmed ROCKAOKE at Standon Calling 2016. It will be the 9th year in a row that ROCKAOKE has been at the heartbeat of our favourite UK festival.
Standon Calling – 29-31 july 2016
friday 29 july – Clock Tower (time tbc)
saturday 30 july – Clock Tower (time tbc)
sunday 31 july – Main Stage (time tbc)
Hope to see you there.
Agency Olympics @ Brooklyn Bowl – C&IT Magazine
On the 27th October, Rockaoke were called upon by Ad2SF to help find the most talented event organisers/rock stars at their 2015 Agency Olympics! The competition was held at the O2’s Brooklyn Bowl down in London and saw events professionals from across the board all singing their hearts out for the top spot. Agencies taking part included Bluehat Group, TBA, George P Johnson, CWT, RPM, Chillisauce, Grass Roots, BrandFuel, TRO and Chew.
Adding a bit of class to proceedings was ’80s TV presenter Pat Sharp, our host and commentator for an evening of challenges that also included a bowling tournament and chicken wing eating contest – whew! The venue wasn’t bad either as Brooklyn Bowl were kind enough to lay on an open bar and buffet spread with fried chicken, pulled pork sliders and chilli chips.
It was a tough final call, but the folks at TRO managed to take home the gold and be crowned this year’s Agency Champions/Rockaoke Superstars. Click here to view the full C&IT article.
Rockaoke is coming home! (to The Leadmill)
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.
Labour Conference 2015 After Party
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:
Marillion Weekender 2015
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!!!
Rocking away the January blues
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.
ROCKAOKE’S 2014 RUNDOWN
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!