Thursday, February 3, 2011

AI Season 10, 02-03-11, Los Angeles Auditions


We're in LA, but it must be chilly for SoCal, because everyone is wearing jackets. Well, everyone but JLo and Randy. But Randy is wearing shiny gold shoes, and JLo is in shorts and impossibly high heels, so the lack of jacket is pretty much moot. Steven Tyler makes up for them by smoking a cigar and wearing some sort of military dress coat.

#1 is Victoria Garrett, who was sent to American Idol by God, who works in mysterious ways. Whatever the divine plan is, it has nothing to do with Victoria's singing talent, which is nonexistent.

#2. Tim Halperin is wearing a threadbare denim shirt over a faded red t-shirt. His voice isn't anything spectacular, but I like it. After he gets the nod, he tells JLo that he has had a crush on her ever since he was a kid, which is perhaps not the best tack to take when trying to impress a beautiful woman who is beginning to approach a certain age.

#3. Justin Carter is wearing a dumb, slouchy knit hat, and he has a competent, but generic and uninteresting voice. JLo says something about his voice not having... bleep... and that he needs to support it with his... bleep... (I'm not being coy- they use the Idol logo to cover her mouth so we can't even read her lips). Randy and Steven giggle, and they let Justin through.

#4/5. Daniel and Isaac are friends. One has very white teeth, the other has Justin Beiber hair and facial studs. Neither one can sing, but both seem like nice young men.

Day 2, already. JLo has compressed her hair under a severe head scarf and is wearing  an oddly constructed black top. Randy is in a preppy royal blue knit shirt with white cuffs, collar, and placket. Steven Tyler is wearing a Steven Tyler outfit.

#1. We were promised MySpace auditioners tonight, but the only one they trot out is Karen Rodriguez, from New York City. She's wearing black leggings, a skinny dress, and a black leather shortie jacket. she has a good, clear voice, and says that she wants to be the first Latina to win.

#2. Tamisha Roche, of New Jersey, suffers from an excess of personality, and overdrawn eyebrows. She has really odd hair (straight with curvy bangs), shorts, a Rat Pack Hat, and she's carrying her own microphone. This girl is trying way too hard, and I am delighted that she is awful, because Tamisha here is seriously annoying, and possibly dangerous. She chases Randy around the set, and eventually has to be escorted from the room.

#3. Heidi Khzam belly dances for about an hour, which brings out the worst in Steven Tyler. She sings, and  sounds totally mediocre to me, but they send her on.

#4. Matt Frankel is a sad specimen, and the show should be ashamed of itself for putting him through this.

We see a string of terrible singers- William Roberts (my notes say: no no no no), Jeanette Manning, in a strapless denim dress (which is even uglier than it sounds), Daniel Hall (about whom I wrote nothing but his name), Anthony Granger who drops his pants, and since his midsection is blurred, I wonder whether or not was wearing underpants, and Arista Pemberton, who caps a terrible performance by attempting the splits, a trick her body wasn't equipped to perform. My guess is that she pulled something, though she covered pretty well.

You know, 50 people got tickets in Austin- why can't we see a few of them tonight? Or, maybe a few talented ones from LA- there has to be one or two, right?

#5/6 are brothers Mark and Aaron Gutierrez. They're nice looking young men, who are dressed in brightly colored shirts and scarves (not matching, but not different either). They sing a duet of Lean on Me, and they sing it very very well, with beautiful harmonies. But since AI isn't a duet show, I wait for the judges to ask them to sing separately, which shows you how much I know about this operation. Evidently, we won't know if they can sing alone until the Hollywood episode(s).

#7 Cooper Robinson calls himself the Human Tornado, and he looks like he got dressed in one. He's 59 years old, and there is no doubt whatsoever that he's unbalanced. At least the Pants on the Ground guy was entertaining- this guy is scary. He declares, panting, that he is going to be the "Next American."  My guess is that he's going to be the next headline.

Show- I take back what I said last night. Let's hope things shape up in San Francisco next week.

No comments: