Bowling alley karaoke gives kids a voice

In a swirl of sprinkles, sparkling lights and nerves, the next stars are warming up.

Oak Bowl & Mario’s Pizza, the funtastic location that offers arcade, bowling and pizza, introduced its latest addition in April, open mic and karaoke on Wednesdays at 7 p.m.

Two middle school grads, Selah Rivera and Cora Fix, dined on cupcakes and pizza while they waited to take the stage. They go there every week, they said. It’s a low-pressure setting to get practice singing in front of an audience, and of course, it’s fun. It might be a smaller stage for now, but the girls have big dreams to sing on Broadway or perform for Cirque du Soleil.

“I tell my daughter all the time I wanna be like you when I grow up,” Selah’s mom, Lucienne Rivera, said.

She is proud of her daughter’s courage to go on stage and sing for a room of strangers.

“Not a lot for kids this age to do on this island to keep kids this engaged, so when we find something, anything like this that they wanna do, we’re game,” Lucienne said.

When the kids take the stage, their voices fill the alley and the audience claps and cheers while the sound of bowling continues in the lanes.

Besides being the last bowling alley on the island, Oak Bowl & Mario’s Pizza is one of the only places young people can sing and perform for free in public. Most other bars in the area that offer open mics only allow people above the legal drinking age to perform, explained owner Karie Cockrell, whose grandfather built the establishment in 1956.

“I always wanted to add live music. I just didn’t know if we had the space,” Cockrell said. “It’s so cool just to be able to have all those memories and being able to have something for everyone.”

As a fellow music enthusiast, she is excited to see the crowd grow as people discover this new opportunity to perform without judgment. The open mics attract more than beginners; some of the adult performers have hundreds of shows under their belts and come to play alongside their friends and families.

Shawn Cain, the head of sales at the bowling alley and one of the biggest supporters of the open mic, explained why music is so important.

“It brings people together from all walks of life, you know? You know what I see at concerts? I see Democrats and Republicans, and independents all there singing the same song. So when you tell me, we don’t have nothing to agree with, I say we do,” Cain said.

Having seen firsthand how the music industry takes advantage of people, Cain encourages young people to show up and receive real advice from seasoned musicians. He leads by example, he says, by staying away from drugs and giving realistic advice for kids to follow their careers in the music industry.

“There’s no place else to go with this. When I was a kid, there was a place you could go play and learn from people my age, you know, and learn the little things like stage presence, you know, who to work or who not to work for. Who’s going to pay me?” Cain said.

People of all ages took turns singing or playing instruments on stage late into the night.

“We play until we don’t wanna play anymore,” Cain said.

Though the establishment nearly gave up on open mic night entirely because people weren’t coming, now it is growing into a place of mutual appreciation for music, no matter the age.