Tuesday, April 6, 2010

AI Season 9- Top 9 Performance


We open in the control room, with Ryan pointing out multiple screens showing views of the kids, the judges, and the audience. They're. Running. Out. Of. Ideas.

Randy's wearing a letter sweater. Literally. (R). Kara is once again, extremely sparkly. Ellen is in a gray pin-striped vest over a blue and orange checked shirt (this is the most color she's worn since joining the show). Simon forgot to put a shirt on over his tee.

It's nice of The Show to provide a montage of those Lennon and McCartney guys, because otherwise, we'd never know who they were. I guess they wrote some songs back in the dinosaur days, or something. Kara explains why their music was so good ("it was relevant"), which is also helpful. I sure hope someone sings When I'm Sixty-Four, or Maxwell's Silver Hammer.

Aaron is up first, singing Long and Winding Road. He's wearing a dark, double breasted jacket over a checked shirt, with the sleeves rolled up clear past his elbows. His hair is quite a bit darker than it was last week (evidence of the stylists). Well... this is awfully slow and deliberate, with lots of weak and wavery notes, and yet there are also some lovely bits here and there. Is there a sound glitch? Why have Aaron talk into a hand mike?

Katie also has darker hair. She's wearing a very cute, short, pink dress with an open back. In fact, she looks like a pretty young girl tonight, which is unusual. She's singing Let It Be, which has trainwreck potential, but is actually pretty good. In fact, it's the best I've heard from her. She still has no connection with the song, or the audience, but it was a good peformance.

Andrew's hair is so dark, it has purple tints. He also may be supporting his pompadour with a Bump-it. He's wearing a yellow shirt and a suit jacket. His stance is very Elvis. So is his performance of Can't Buy Me Love. Vegas Elvis. This is odd,and I don't love it.

Omigod, did Mike really say that he and his brothers formed a singing group called the Lynche Mob? Tonight, he's wearing a very Sgt. Pepper style, gray  jacket, and singing Eleanor Rigby, which could be interesting. Well... I have no idea what to think of this. It's not at all what I was expecting. It's choppy and unusual, sort of peppy, and... wow... I still don't know what to think of it.

Crystal is wearing an off-the-shoulder black top over a gray strappy thing, holey jeans, and cowboy boots. She's going to sing Come Together, and I am worried that she won't pull it off. It opens with an older black musician playing a didgeridoo, and takes off from there. The whole thing is bluesy and wonderful. Lesson learned. I will never doubt Crystal again.

And Poor Pretty Tim has to follow her with All My Lovin', in his tan linen pinstripe jacket and coral henley and Carol Brady hair. He sucked the life clean out of the song. Bleh.

Casey looks permed, and his white jacket with the black piping makes his shoulders look narrow. He's singing Jealous Guy (which I think is just Lennon, not L/M), accompanied only by his accoustic guitar and a cello. This is a quiet and heartfelt performance, his best ever, and one of the best of the night, and his guitar playing is beautiful.

Siobhan is dressed like a demented shepherdess in a floor-length transparent ruffled lace dress, white boots, and a high-collared leather vest. She has lots of soft curls and extremely glossy lips, and three little  sparklettes glued in an arc next to one eye. She's singing Across the Universe, while sitting knees-up on The Stool of Seriousness. It's a soft and quiet performance. Almost too slow. Sleepy even. But there were a couple of achingly beautiful notes. Simon is right- we never know what to expect from Siobhan.

Note to show: Do not let assholes from the audience up on the stage. Ever.

I haven't mentioned that each of the finalists has described each of the other finalists in their intros tonight because all of the comments have been predictible, and fairly boring (Tim has shiny teeth, Aaron is tiny, Mike is goofy, Crystal is the coolest person in the universe, Casey is handsome, and Siobhan is weird in a good way)... until they get to the comments about Lee, when Katie finally turns into a real human girl by suggesting that Lee and Andrew may be dating. And Crystal, in what could be the smartest, meanest, funniest, most honest thing ever said on this show, says that Lee and Andrew should get together and have little Danny Gokey babies. I nearly choked.

Andrew's soulmate Lee closes the show, in a gray jacket and accoustic guitar, with Hey Jude. The vocals are weak, and it's just plain awful. And a bagpipe? Seriously? Where the didgeridoo was integral to Crystal's performance, this is a stunt. A deeply ill-considered one, though only Simon agrees with me.

Best tonight: Casey, Crystal, and in different ways, Siohban and Katie

Worst tonight: everyone else, but especially Lee, Andrew, and Tim.

Going home? Maybe, finally, Tim

1 comment:

Kathy said...

I think the audio quality has been horrible this entire season. And there must be a huge discrepency between what the television audience hears and what the studio audience experiences! I like the quality of Lee's voice but he began horribly and did not deserve the praise that the judges gave him.