Rockeoke

Karaoke is a national pastime for Asian mega cities like Seoul and Tokyo. It is a cultural staple in Manila as well. The number of Filipino singers that have participated on American Idol seems to be quite indicative of this. A more communal version of karaoke dubbed as “rockeoke” is gaining a strong following in the city. Basically, there’s a stage, a song book and a band waiting for volunteer vocalists willing to perform in front of a crowd of diners and beer drinkers.

Credit goes to Mag:net Cafe, a bar-restaurant that hosts up-and-coming local music talent, for starting the trend here. There are other cities in the world where this is being done but Mag:net has made a popular ritual of it by cleverly scheduling rockeoke nights on Mondays (plenty of office angst being unleashed here). It started out as every other Monday, but “popeoke” has recently been created to fill out the remaining Mondays on the calendar.

Singers might be performing to a much larger crowd than they think. A YouTube channel featuring choice highlights is now online.