Photo By Staff Sgt. David McLean | Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dennis Fetter, a member of Joint Task Force Guantanamo,...... read more read more
Subscribe
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — The house lights - merely glowing embers from 20 or so dying cigarettes. The performance stage — a cement slab left vulnerable to the varied elements of rain, humidity and attack mosquitoes. The audience — service members and a few eager iguanas. While this scene does not often conjure immediate thoughts of musical concerts or Broadway shows, it is in this atmosphere that a slew of Joint Task Force Guantanamo's musical artists demonstrate their vocal talents every Wednesday.
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dennis Fetter, a member of JTF Guantanamo, is the mic master at the Windjammer Club's weekly karaoke review, providing both tunes and enthusiasm.
"Basically I like getting the crowd all riled up," said Fetter, who started out hosting karaoke nights at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as an entertaining pass time.
Now providing lyrics and melodies to JTF service members, Fetter said he never seems to experience a dull evening, and gets to cheer on a varied assortment of performers.
While many singers tend to stick to classic favorites or mellow ballads, no act is exactly the same.
"There is no such thing as a typical night of karaoke," Fetter said. "I even have a couple of guys who come down, and I'll throw on some hip-hop music and instead of doing the words to those songs they will just go ahead and do their own freestyle thing."
To keep deployed Guantanamo Bay troopers singing and dancing their stress away, Fetter uses a standard laptop, iTunes, basic karaoke program, an external hard drive, monitor, power deck and 1,000-watt speakers to project lyrics and melodies. Combined with two wireless microphones and one brave soul or an ensemble, the fun begins.
"I like to sing with a big group of friends," Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Danielle Mugford said. "That way it's less noticeable if my voice cracks or if I forget the words."
With 40,000 MP3s and 45,000 karaoke songs there's something for everyone, not to mention classic tunes that keep the crowd singing along.
"Anything from the 1940s to November of last year. I could probably play for just about four months without ever repeating a song," Fetter said.
The mic man sets up every Wednesday evening, takes requests and during the course of the evening plays everything from country to hip hop, based on the requests of the brave talent.
"I usually sing 'Don't Take the Girl' by Tim McGraw," said Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Vincent Reibers, who generally limits his singing to the shower or small groups.
Regulars are common to the Guantanamo Bay hot spot.
"They will sing the songs they know, they won't deviate. Those are the songs they are going to sing and that's the end of it," Fetter said.
While he does appreciate variety, Fetter said he also recognizes several factors contribute to the success of the weekly performers.
"It's always a good time," Fetter said. "As long as they're having fun, everybody is having fun."
| Date Taken: | 06.05.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 06.10.2009 09:54 |
| Story ID: | 34824 |
| Location: | GUANTANAMO BAY, CU |
| Web Views: | 219 |
| Downloads: | 176 |
This work, Karaoke night at GTMO; something for everyone, by SSG David McLean, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
