San An Tonionionioooo
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
And we're back. The LAST live audition round, with tomorrow's show titled "The Rest of the Best". Who knows what that really means. I'm taking it to mean that it's the good people we didn't see.
Gratuitous Alamo shot. Really - can you come to San Antonio without showing the Alamo? I think not. It's like coming to Washington DC without showing the Washington Monument or the Capitol or like going to St. Louis without showing the Arch. So my sense of monumental history is fulfilled in San Antonio.
People are sleeping outside the audition place. It's dark. Ryan's waking people up and interviewing them. How annoying must that be? But it's morning now, and everyone's American Idol happy yet again. They do the gratuitous stadium-sing thing. Then they go to the "show them waiting" thing. Yawn.
Newsflash: Simon's a putz in a bad mood. Follow to the extended for the rest of the show.
Brian Tyrish - big dude. Kind of an old-looking young guy, if that makes any sense. Claims his vocal projection is "very loud and profound". Now he's doing handstands. Not bad for a biggish dude. And he's in. What's with those pants? He won a mock American Idol somewhere undisclosed. Rebel Yell is his choice. Definitely not Idol material. Changing keys. Now he's screaming, pumping his fist. Randy and Paula join in - fun!! Fist pumping!! Yay!! Simon proclaims his very awake-ness after the "shouting without a lot of melody". It's a no across the board. Ryan states the obvious: "if we're lookin' for a ballad singer, it's not you" whereupon Brian sings a ballad and does it very poorly. Next.
Gratuitous hot chick: Haley Stronado. She reminds me a bit of Kat which is a strike against her right out of the door. She's a wedding band singer. She's wearing a tight halter-jumpsuit. Randy introduces her to Paula. She shakes her hand. Got the outfit from a "hoochie momma" store. She's singing I Can't Make You Love Me - big ass song. Hard to sing, believe me - it goes all over the place vocally. I like her voice. This is a tough song, and she's doing a good job with it. She's actually growing on me more as the song progresses. I really liked it! Paula thinks she's controlled. Randy thinks she's ok, and Simon agrees and adds that she's a big cabaret without much originality. Simon thinks she doesn't have the unique factor. He says yes, though. Paula says yes, and Randy joins in. I agree. I thought the criticisms were on in some respects but I would expect she could be a LOT better than what we saw.
And we're back from commercial. It's 10am and peo9ple are filing in. Holding room people are having a party. There are guitars. Accordians. Fun fun fun!! SO MUCH fun!!
Jasmine Holland - Clothes are a little tight and she looks really nervous, poor thing. REALLY nervous. Almost like she's going to cry. She calls Paula "ma'am". Heh. She's singing. I can't identify the song - not a good thing. She's really not good. She sings through her nose, her pitch is awful, and she's trying (and failing) at the runs. Judges are laughing - at least, Randy and Simon are. Randy was about to choke on his water. Paula says it wasn't the best audition and that she seemed sad. Jasmine thinks she was bad because they are being rude. In fairness, she was sad BEFORE they were rude. She has never heard of Randy and tries to diss him. It's kind of pathetic because it's obvious she's truly angry and upset. Now she's crying. Crying and complaining. Has she seen the show before? Now the family is jumping in on the dissing, talking about how Simon "needs to go back" to England, presumably. Cursing. Bleeping. Good riddance.
Bailey Brown - Sixteen, blonde, cute, from Krum, a town in Texas (I'm not making that up - she's from Krum). She has horses. Her mom is kind of cute too, in the way Bailey is cute. Both pretty. She gets her style from fashion magazines. Small town life is not for her - she's a city girl. She enters for the judges - she's singing Stronger by Faith Hill. She's comfortable in front of them. I don't know the song, so it's difficult for me to tell, but I think she sounds good. Interesting voice. VERY country. Disclosure: I don't like country, but I definitely think she should be good enough to go to Hollywood. Randy asks about bulls on the ranch. Simon moves it along. Simon thinks she's born to be a pop star - not a great voice, but she's commercial with a capital "C". She doesn't know if this is a good thing, and they assure her it is. She sails through to the next round. I agree.
And we're off to commercial and the teaser tells us we'll meet the "dynamic due". Back from commercial, we see the "people coming out of the doors" montage. That's new. We get the added bonus of people not being able to get out of the doors. We play bullfighting music as we go to a cheesy montage in daguerrotype overlay about Choosing The Right Door. And the poor slob they choose chooses the wrong one. And now a montage of people choosing the wrong door. Enough with the doors already. It IS funny when Paula gets the wrong door, though.
Akron and Woody. Cousins. Arguing about who will be the next American Idol. They live together. Eckerd's mom took care of Woody from age 14. Both are unemployed. American Idol is everything to them. and Woody's up first.
William "Woody" Green - Sings Amazing Grace in a low, off-key bass. No key is discernible. Paula's laughing. Randy's laughing. Simon's not laughing. They let him keep going - and they keep laughing. FINALLY they stop him. They talk about the neverending nature of the song, that they could have left and flown to LA and come back and he'd still be singing. It's a no across the board. He tells them he's going to walk through the door and talk some trash and then proceeds to do just that. It's funny, though. His cousin looks petrified as a result. So now to the cousin.
Akron Watson - singing A Change is Gonna Come - again, an ALL-time favorite of mine. It starts out rough, gets better, then gets rough again, but not bad. Simon says he sees a massive personality/charisma problem. He doesn't want Simon to be bored. So he breaks into another song - Let's Get It On - and now he's hamming it up. This time is better, both the singing and the performance. And Simon is CONVINCED - Paula says YES - and he's going to Hollywood!! That was good to see - he shook it off and corrected the problem and then continued. Having said that, I don't see him getting past the Hollywood round, but it was still good to see.
The commercial teaser shows a lot of crying. And we come back from commercial with the obligatory Bad Singer Montage. You can tell this next girl is a set-up because they showed her singing badly before the commercial. She says she's bluesy and soulful. I doubt it.
Sandie Chavez - Chooses Black Velvet. It's automatically weird. I can't distinguish any actual words. The melody is unrecognizable, and I know this song. She's got her finger in her ear, as though that would make a difference. She's really bad, and that's saying something. The judges are laughing. Simon says he didn't understand a word of it (I agree). He wants to know if it was serious and she starts to cry and Simon says he's sorry he asked. He won't let her sing a second song. Randy wants to know if she wants them to be honest, and she says yes, and Randy says it wasn't good. Paula reaffirms Sandie's career choice as a teacher (as in, don't quit your day job). Oooh bust. Gently, but bust. It's a no from all three. Simon thanks her and she picks... THE WRONG DOOR. And then she's through it, crying again. Simon delivers the zinger - she's a music teacher.
Ashlyn Carr - Was beaten up by another girl because she was a good singer. She decides on Feelin' Good - I like her. I like her tone and her phrasing. She's a teeny bit sloppy in the runs, but I can chalk that up to nerves. I really liked her. She finishes and looks like she's going to barf. The judges are confused. Paula tries to explain - suggests she watches herself perform because the faces take away from her voice (for my part, I wasn't watching when she was singing - I was listening and typing). Simon says she needs a great vocal coach. Randy passes. They get to Paula and Ashlyn starts to cry and she passes. Simon would have said yes. I think they made a mistake, frankly. The second one I've seen them make this season. I hope she comes back next year, with a little teeny bit work. They cut to Simon, he thinks they made a mistake. They bring her back in. She is called back in. I think they need to change their mind.
They make us wait through a commercial before Ashlyn comes back. Her second choice of song is Inseparable - HARD HARD song. She sounds pretty. They tell her to break free of her bad habits - really hit on the fact that she has to work on them - and they unanimously put her through. Sidebar: I actually watched her in the second song. Her facial expressions WERE distracting, but the larger issue is that she's using them to form and shape notes. She doesn't know she doesn't need to do that - in fact, if she dropped that limiting pretense, she's probably be MUCH better - but it's difficult to un-learn that kind of habit. I'm not saying she can't, but it will be difficult. She crosses herself. For once the right thing happened. I couldn't agree more - she deserves the Hollywood round.
Jacob Tudor - Jake the Snake he calls himself. Family is in the entertainment business, and he wants to keep the legend up and running. He's going to be our really bad guy because we know he curses at the camera after his audition. And it's bad. He's singing some weirdly dark song - reminds me of that song that starts out "Hey now - all you children" by (I think) Godsmack, only it's out of tune. And he's out, nos across the board, saying things I can't make out because it's being bleeped so persistently.
Oh crap!! My DVR has caught up with the commercials and I'm stuck watching them!! I'm usually good at timing it. But not tonight.
LAST GUY. Jimmy McNeal - Cupid is his song. He has a higher voice than I expected. I like him - he's strong, and he's comfortable on stage. He's got to watch his breathing and his pitch when he reaches. Simon thinks he's a "little fun Reuben" when he "used to smile". At least he's beasting on someone other than Taylor. They're sending Jimmy sailing through.
And we've wrapped San Antonio. No knock-me-down talent on this show. I had to scroll back and review the contestants to simply remember them. Akron Watson would be my favorite tonight because he revised and recovered. But I didn't think he had a great voice. I also liked Ashlyn for the same reason. But I'd be shocked if any from tonight's show went the distance.
Oh - and tomorrow night? It appears it's not just the best singers - it's also the best of badness apparently. ((sigh)) Thank God auditions will conclude after tomorrow!
Labels: American Idol, Auditions
posted by RenaRF @ 8:13 PM,
3 Comments:
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At 9:18 PM,
RenaRF said...
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All right. I'm going to comment because I'm tired of seeing no comments. :-)
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At 11:11 AM,
said...
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I don't know where to go to sign in... I tried other user-ids and they don't want to work for me. Huh.
Anyway, I'm enjoying the blog and wanted to let you know that.
-MaryS-NJ -
At 12:06 PM,
RenaRF said...
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Thanks Mary! If you have a blogger account you can sign in. But Blogger has done some re-inventing and has converted from "old" blogger to "new" blogger... it should prompt you if you sign in with an "old" blogger account, but there may be bugs. That's part of the reason I allowed for anonymous comments at any rate. :-)
Thanks for reading and for dropping a note!