Aside from the "Fuck You" to Her Fans, Tiffany is still Nailing 'I Think We're Alone Now'
As a general rule, you don't want to say "fuck you" to the audience at a Karaoke show when you're clearly hammered and mistakenly chosen a song that is way out of your range and that you can't possibly pull off. One, it's a breach of etiquette in a polite society. And two, the crowd is entitled to their opinion. And three, just because you can't sing doesn't mean you still can't entertain them. Some of the best Karaoke moments are over-the-top, self-deprecating parody. I remember one time--
Wait. This isn't a Karaoke bar? It's the actual performer who spent two weeks at No. 1 with this very song? My bad.
TMZ - Tiffany was onstage Sunday night in Melbourne, FL with her band, belting out a few tunes including her hugely successful "I Think We're Alone Now." You can hear Tiffany struggle with a few notes, but fans help her out -- singing along word for word.
However, near the end of the song, Tiffany apparently hears or sees something she doesn't like in the crowd ... telling them, "F*** You!!!"
A rep for the singer tells us Tiffany had lost her voice and got frustrated with her performance. It's clear in the video, she was struggling to hit several notes during the gig, so it's possible some concertgoers were heckling ... but Tiffany just wasn't having it.
Children behave! I never would've guessed.
I feel bad for Tiffany's fans, who were just trying to be helpful to the music legend they'd inexplicably paid to see. Growing up I remember hearing old baseball fans talk about how painful it was watching Willie Mays stumbling around in a Mets uniform, and this must be the singing version of that. I feel bad for Tiffany, who has brought so much joy to generations of lovers of cover versions of '60s songs sung by one-named teen idols. She deserves to have her golden voice last forever, like an Aretha Franklin or an Ella Fitzgerald. And if I'm being honest, I feel bad for me. I've long believed that my lasting memory of this lyric would be the way Tiffany and Debbie Gibson used it in the SyFy Original Movie "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid." In a swamp. In soaking wet evening gowns. After a five minute cat fight. With Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees. Surrounded by mega pythons and gatoroids. (Skip to the 2:30 mark if you're in a hurry. But watch the full scene whenever time permits):
But now I can't unsee or unhear this sad moment.
In a world filled with music legends performing at the top of their game at an advanced age, this is tough to watch. The Rolling Stones are on tour. Not a week ago I saw Steely Dan (because I want to prove to you kids how down I am with hip, contemporary music) in concert and they were razor sharp. Hell, I took No. 2 son to see Paul McCartney at Fenway, and he was in peak form in his mid-70s and having been knighted by the Queen. The thought of any of them off-key caterwauling their way through their biggest hits with an acoustic guitar in front of a dozen people in Melbourne, FL is too sad to comprehend.
But when the mighty have fallen, there's always a chance for a comeback. If every, single, musical biopic every produced has taught us anything, in the second act the hero of the movie hits rock bottom before picking themselves up, dusting themselves off and then roaring back to the big stage at the end. It happened to Johnny Cash, it happened to Freddie Mercury, it happened to Elton John, and by the grace of God will happen to our girl Tiffany. Her time will come again, I promise you.