Rock the Bazaar

Published on September 15, 2007

The 2007 World Karaoke Championship comes to an end last week at Suan Lum Night Bazaar.

Finland's World Karaoke Championships came to Bangkok's Suan Lum Night Bazaar last weekend and some of the world's best karaoke singers were in attendance.

The bazaar was packed with an estimated 10,000 fans from around the globe cheering on their national crooning heroes.

For this, the fifth running of the championships, Malaysia's Lu Hee Wah and Australia's Julie Walter-Sgro were announced as the men's and women's winners, respectively. There were 10 challengers in each division.

Lu became an instant local favourite with his rendition of superstar Thongchai "Bird" McIntyre's "Cheewit Likhit Ang", and exhibited powerful vocals on "Knife" by Rockwell.

Walter-Sgro performed Celine Dion's "The Prayer".

The event closed with all contestants coming together to sing Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie's USA for Africa anthem "We are the World".

Lu, aka Kelvin, didn't expect to win. "Everybody was so good. I'm surprised to be the champion."

He tells The Nation he started singing Chinese opera with his grandmother when he was three. Growing up, he was always listening to the radio while his parents were busy at work.

His favourite artists are Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, George Michael, Boyz II Men and, of course, Thongchai.

He has collected other karaoke prizes, including winning the 2002 Chivas Regal and the Dan Dare segment of Channel 3's "At Ten" variety show plus a third at the 2003 Karaoke Hutch Challenge.

"Singing any Thai song is hard because of the accent and tones. I've got be careful because the tones are very close. For instance, it's khon suay [beautiful guy], not khon suuay [unlucky guy]," he laughs.

He performs a male-female duet, too - by himself. "I really don't know how I do it, but I just love to do it. You know, I like to play with my voice. I have a wide range - maybe seven or eight octaves.

"I usually write my own songs - Thai, Chinese and Western. I target the Philippines, a good market for me. The Filipinos love English songs," he adds.

Michael Moses of the United States singing "Give It To Me Baby" and Ireland's Vanessa Cooney with "I Could Have Danced All Night" from the musical "My Fair Lady" were the first runners-up, with Ireland's David Naughton singing Engelbert Humperdinck's "Quando Quando" and Hungary's Gabriella Lukacs with Michael Buble's "Feeling Good" second runners-up.

Price money totalled ¤20,000 (Bt950,000). Winners also received microphones, DVD players and discs and other karaoke equipment.

Organiser Terminal Extra's chief executive Vanida Vanasirikul is seeking to have the world championships return to Thailand next year.

She notes local contestants are at a disadvantage because they concentrate on popular numbers, while international competitions encourage a  wide cross-section of numbers, from jazz to country  to popular.

Kitchana Lersakvanitchakul

 The Nation