Whether or not your heart was truly lonely, it was hard not to have fun at Lonely Hearts Karaoke on Wednesday.
Hosted by WXCU, students came to One Main Café and sang karaoke from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Using the karaoke software Karafun and boasting a chocolate fountain, members of the WXCU set up a stage along the west windows.
To kick off the night, Maura Fortino got the crowd fired up by her rendition of “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls. Fortino would reappear throughout the night with covers of “My Girl” by The Temptations, “I Love Rock N’ Roll” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys.
Aside from a small technical difficulty during Fortino’s cover of “I Love Rock N’ Roll,” the event went smoothly for the amateur performers and the WXCU hosts. Other notable solo performers of the night included Kate Smith with her Norah Jones cover, Alex Caperton with his version of Billy Joel’s “Longest Time,” and Abadir Kassim’s soulful rendition of “Misery” by the Maroon 5. Kassim later Rick-rolled the audience as one half of a duet that performed Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Other songs covered solo throughout the night included “Sk8r Boy” by Avril Lavigne, “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” by Cake, and “Radioactive” by Marina and the Diamonds. Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” was even covered twice, once as a solo and once in a duet.
Country music was also thrown into the mix, with covers of Sam Hunt’s “Leave The Night On” and Jason Aldean’s “Burnin’ It Down.”
Duets of students sang songs such as “Downtown” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, “A Thousand Miles” by singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton, “I’m Your Man” by British pop duo Wham! and “Ocean Avenue” by the punk group Yellowcard. A quartet of female upperclassmen even took the stage with their rendition of “Bye Bye Bye” by NSYNC.
Although the event was scheduled to end at 9:00 p.m., the singing didn’t stop. The WXCU staff who were proctoring the event finally ended the festivities at 9:31 with their group version of “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” by the Backstreet Boys.
All performers throughout the night, including the WXCU staff members, received applause from the patrons of One Main Café. The staff agreed that Lonely Hearts Karaoke had been their biggest event of the school year yet, and were looking forward to hosting an event like it again soon.
The Lonely Hearts Karaoke was a major success, and the WXCU radio staff is still looking ahead to the biggest event of the year: WXCU Radiothon.
Happening March 11 and 12, Radiothon is twenty-four consecutive hours of broadcast from the WXCU studios. Special events planned so far for these days include performances by university groups such as the Capitones and Capital University Rock Ensemble, and an on-air interview with outgoing campus president Dr. Denvy Bowman.
As WXCU grows in popularity on campus and with the community, the group hopes to host more events. With the recent success of Lonely Hearts Karaoke, be prepared to see more of WXCU around campus.
