Let the competition begin!
by dhayes
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posted Nov 4 2011 12:52PM
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Now we’ve got a horse race. Tim Urban’s Teflon coating finally wore off, and he got stuck with the American Idol pink slip. He caught a break when he didn’t have to sing himself off the show because of how long Idol Gives Back ran over. It was about 9:20 when the announcement was made, which meant that all the Gleeks missed the last half hour of the ensuing GLEE episode when they DVR’d it. (FOX got so much invective in the social media that they decided to re-run GLEE on Friday night.) Ryan Seacrest had said Tuesday night that the show would run long, so I allowed an extra half-hour for my recording and was able to catch all of Idol Gives Back. The highlight was the performance of “Stairway To Heaven” by an all-star band of Steve Vai and Orianthi on guitars, Travis Barker from Blink 182 on drums, A.I.’s Randy Jackson on bass, and the incomparable Mary J. Blige on the lead vocal. Mary J. is quite possibly the coolest person on the planet. She’s one of the few artists who can step between genres and perform each with authenticity and integrity. If you’ve never heard her version of U2’s “One”, do yourself a favor and Google it right now. Carrie Underwood once again proved why she is the superstar that she is when she sang “Change”. That’s how you take ownership of a song. Carrie wrings every bit of emotion out of every song she sings. Can’t wait to see her here in October. (BTW—Tickets for Carrie’s concert at INTRUST Bank Arena go on sale Saturday.) Joss Stone and Jeff Beck blazed through “I Put A Spell On You”. Stone is today’s preeminent Blues singer. Talk about an old soul; she’s only 23 and she sings like she’s lived decades of hard times and pain. Incredible. As far as the other performances go--Black Eyed Peas were terrible, Elton John was so-so, and Alicia Keys was solid. George Lopez’ roasting of the judges was funny and on the money; and Wanda Sykes’ skewering of the whole Idol process was really good, too. Overall, I thought the show was excellent, but I do have an admission to make: I fast-forwarded through all the charity vignettes. Come on—you did it too! Admit it!
I was pretty much dead wrong in my predictions yesterday. It’s like the only time I didn’t have Tim Urban getting the boot, and the one time I don’t list him, he gets hosed. “Bout time. Wasn’t that surprised to see Aaron Kelly in the Bottom 3, but was pretty stunned when Casey James joined the bunch. Teflon Tim’s finally gone. Look for him in a Brady Bunch revival coming to your town soon!
How I rank the remainder:
- Crystal Bowersox
- Lee Dewyze
- Casey James
- Siobhan Magnus
- Michael Lynche
- Aaron Kelly
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