Karaoke around the World

Music in Montreal

We lingered over apple pie and ice cream, reluctant to face the cold. I felt slightly dubious about the karaoke bar my friend Marianne wanted to go to but she promised that it would be the best part of the evening, and she was right. The wooden bar was crowded with slightly tipsy people happily singing along to "I Will Survive," and the atmosphere of the tiny brick room was jovial and friendly.

After an hour or so, we left to try one of the clubs up the street. The sidewalk was packed with people waiting to enter, and your place in the line had little to do with whether or not you got in. The bouncers were letting only their personal friends through the door.

During a previous excursion, Marianne had managed to gain access by seducing them with her silver sandals, but we were too far back in the crowd for my snakeskin heels to have their proper effect. After 10 minutes of standing in the cold, we went back to the karaoke bar.

It felt like coming home. The waiters welcomed us back; the rather drunk and extremely happy student we had dubbed "That Guy" came over to dance with us; a pudgy Elvis impersonator tried to buy us beer.

But the best moment of the evening was yet to come. An older man with grey hair (whom we heard called Giovanni) had charmed us on our first visit with an excellent rendition of "My Way." He got up to sing "Unforgettable," dedicating it first to all the women in the room--and then he walked over to where the three of us sat perched on bar stools, and proceeded to serenade us.

After that, all that it took to make the evening perfect was having the cute waiter urge us to stay. We explained that we had to drive back to the States the next morning, but assured him that we would be back as soon as possible. "Yeah, right," he said. "You'll get back to school, you'll get busy with your work and you'll say 'Oh, he really wasn't that cute, anyway.' "

Not quite. He--and the rest of our Montreal adventure--are still a main topic of conversation at our dinner table. Maybe we'll even follow through with our good intentions about going
back.