The Perfect Pitch

Music’s like a heatwave

- Alannah Myles

Or more like a tsunami, that hit Trio Mall on Friday and Saturday (17th and 18th) as KWC Organization set up the soundsystem in the middle of the mall and let the Champions do the talking (singing.). This event was a sequal to the promo event that we had in Lanun Aukio earlier. The current Champions, Lu Hee Wah (”Kelvin”) and Julie Walter-Sgro flew to Finland on Thursday and the very next day they were letting the people of Lahti know that it’s time for KWC! On Friday Juha Karvonen and Heidi Ruuska performed with Kelvin and Julie and on Saturday the Champions were joined by Kristoffer Ignatius and Maria Saarimaa-Ylitalo, all (except Maria, she was the third runner-up in womens category in 2005) current members of the Finnish team.

Kelvin performing a beautiful ballad

Regardless of the busy-busy-busy shopping, people could not resist Kelvin’s performances, mesmerized they just had to lay the bags down for a few minutes.

Kristoffer & whole lot of feeling

Karaoke is all about having fun!

We are proud to say, that once again the extremely talented KWC singers were able to convert hundreds of karaoke cynics to the right side of the force Trio haven’t seen anything like this, and probably won’t…until KWC 2009 that is!

Rest of the pictures here…

ps. four days until KWC..

Last Saturday, Lahti Lahti witnessed something it didn’t expect to see a few months or even weeks ago. On a misty October morning, a strange structure was being built by even stranger people. Eventually, all kinds of cables, lights and speakers were installed in the middle of the city. As it was early morning, only a few by passers by witnessed this shady activity so the group responsible for this weird stunt could work in peace.

The serenity of that Saturday morning didn’t last for long. Soon the streets of Lahti echoed with the melodies of George Ots as the president of the Karaoke World Championships, Kari Hujanen, volunteered to do the soundcheck with “Moskovan Valot”. The scene was now set.

KWC Organization, Eastway Sound & Lighting, Lahden Messut and ESS.fi (the local news portal) held an open mic event in the center of Lahti, just beside the new ESS Media Center. People of all ages joined in to sing karaoke for four hours from 10am - 2pm. It didn’t matter whether the singer was in grade school or in a retirement home, everybody had a chance to sing what ever they loved. Karaoke does not discriminate. Even with Municipal elections just around the corner, a lot of candidates put party status aside and were out spreading the word because of karaoke. People cheered for the singers while joining in and singing along.

Every performance was recorded by the ESS.fi crew. They will put the videos on their website, so people can vote for their favorites. The three winners will each receive VIP tickets to the Karaoke World Championsips for themselves and for their friend. All singers received free coffee and pastries.

Over 50 people sang during the four hours. Even the Finland’s own Patrick Swayze, Juha Karvonen (fourth place in the mens series in 2007) came along and gave the good people of Lahti a sneak peak as to what he has in store for this year. Click for more pictures..