By Pat Gil

I walked into the Epic Lounge on a night that I usually don’t go -- a Wednesday night around 9:30 p.m. --  and I was pleasantly surprised. 

I was walking by after finishing a late meeting and heard someone singing to one of my favorite songs from the 80’s, Joan Jett’s “Crimson and Clover,” and had to go in and check it out. 

Apparently, the Epic Lounge (8239 2nd St.) has karaoke every Wednesday night now, and the karaoke screen is the huge movie screen they sometimes use for film screenings; I had no idea this was happening. They have a great selection of drinks, and drink specials for that night would be very hard to beat.

People seemed to be having a great time, singing everything from Madonna to Patsy Cline to Depeche Mode to Elvis to Vicente Fernandez; everything under the sun, which is what made it fun. You didn’t know what was going on next; the song selection seemed endless. 

I spoke to David Devis, the owner of Epic Lounge, and he said he has been doing karaoke Wednesdays for over a year now. Thinking of different ways of making it better, they have an upgraded pro-concert sound system that sounds amazing, he got one of the best karaoke DJs in the area, and people can look up song books and sign up through their phones...how awesome is that.

I stayed about an hour and a half. I didn’t work up the nerve to go up and sing (I never do at karaoke) but the Epic Lounge would be a great place for me to start; it was a friendly atmosphere, from the people hanging out to the staff. I had to leave because I had an early start at work the next day, but some people were just getting warmed up; it goes on until 2 a.m. 

It’s a little hidden gem I discovered on a Wednesday night. 

Pat Gil is president of the Downey Arts Coalition.