Karaoke ​“Heroes” Emerge On Crown

What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened at Karaoke Heroes?

“I would never have another customer if I repeated it,” said Dan Lebov with a laugh. ​“Most karaoke places are tame but we can get pretty wild.”

Lebov has owned Karaoke Heroes on Crown Street since January of this year, when he bought the business from Andrew Lebwohl, who founded Karaoke Heroes in 2013 while he was still a student at the Yale School of Management. Lebov started working there as a bartender in June 2015 and became general manager in December 2015.

“Does this guy juice?” Deano D’Amico, one of the night’s patrons, asked me about Lebov. (He meant steroids.) Lebov did look like one of the comic book superheroes depicted in the wall panels of Karaoke Heroes. He wore a tight T‑shirt and a baseball cap turned backwards as he carried jugs of ice and six-packs of beer, stocking the bar for the night.

Thursdays aren’t the busiest days, Lebov said apologetically. He told me I should come on a Friday or Saturday, which remain the bar’s biggest days, though Lebov added that he’s intent on building up the Wednesday and Sunday crowd. Lebov has changed the establishment’s hours to strengthen midweek and weekend turnout.

Though it started slow, the wildness did indeed start when I came on a Thursday. By 9:30 p.m. a bevy of 30-something women had marched in. The birthday girl, wearing a sash and brandishing an erotically shaped wand, held court at one of the tables. Her wand in turn became the microphone for the drunken opening of Frank Sinatra’s ​“Summer Wind,” as sung by a man named A.J. That is, until an older gentleman and karaoke-circuit regular named Jim Boston, sporting a blazer and buckled shoes, took the stage and started singing the tune in a fine baritone.

“He’s nailing it,” the man next to me muttered sporadically. The crowd cheered.

Boston wasn’t the only one to garner genuine applause. Three sisters — Chrystal, Shannon, and Sharon Dickey — inspired guests across the room to raise their hands and shout in appreciation during their rendition of ​“Ain’t Nobody,” which was accompanied by a little dance routine.

The crowd looked happy. ​“I mean, who can’t be when you’re singing?” asked Chris Mason, who came to Karaoke Heroes with his wife and her colleagues at Knights of Columbus New Haven to let loose.

Lebov said attendance at Karaoke Heroes has gone up 25 percent in the past year — on a stretch of Crown Street that has seen a lot of turnover. ​“A lot of the bars are failing. While they’re going, we’re coming up,” Lebov said.

Lebov also noted changes in the crowd. ​“We used to have people who looked like they belonged in the cast of ​‘The Big Bang Theory’ sipping apple beer who would sing only, like, a few songs.… Literally, seven apples beers [were on tap] — I’ve never seen anything like it in a bar.”

Since then Karaoke Heroes has attracted a broader crowd — college students, 20-somethings, and older folks, in addition to the joint’s longtime fans. The drinks are a little more current. One local brewer is always in rotation, and there’s an array of microbrews and popular drafts. The number of apple beers, alas, has dropped. Other eccentricities have tapered off, too. The staff, for example, no longer don Karaoke Hero capes. A fresh paint job has been applied, and the place has gotten a facelift.

But Karaoke Heroes retains ​“a little bit of a superhero theme slash weird vibe,” as Lebov put it. The bar looks like a motherboard; underneath a glass panel there’s a bank of lights that turn on based on a motion sensor, so when you slide your beer down the bar it may unexpectedly light up for a moment like phosphorescent ambrosia.

Certain Karaoke Heroes staples continue to be sung. ​’N Sync’s ​“Tearin’ Up My Heart” almost always gets airtime. When I’ve chanced to go to Karaoke Heroes with friends, I have invariably heard ​“No Scrubs” performed.

Lebov said Karaoke Heroes might move into live music — maybe a Sing-along Sunday on which bands would play and people could join in. He’s also considering a Wednesday League night, when teams could compete for a prize. One of the two private karaoke rooms might be turned into a kitchen. Plans to remove some old equipment and install a wireless setup are in the works.

As Thursday’s rowdiness got under way, job interviews took place in the back while middle-aged patrons conversed at the more secluded tables. The Dickey sisters were in a booth studying Karaoke Heroes’ song binder to find just the right song. A gaggle of Yale girls walked in as a DJ was setting up for a late-night dance party, which later brought the space to capacity. And agents of an app called ​“Jet Spread” distributed promotional placards throughout the bar. (“Download the app and you can get a free drink…we’re everywhere,” the agents told me.) In short, a lot was going on at once, but all of it was connected by a sort of harmony, a little off-pitch and off-key — just like the songs performed at Karaoke Heroes.

“This is a no-judgment zone, “ said Tia Kozar, one of the bartenders. The description is apt — Karaoke Heroes is a place where sometimes-incongruous music and drunken revelry bring together people of all stripes. You can get up to sing at Karaoke Heroes and completely botch the song, and nobody will care. Sometimes you’ll nail it, and nobody will care. And every so often, audience and performer will come together for a moment, hooting and cheering and singing in unison, and they’ll be karaoke heroes, if just for one night.