Last night’s “American Idol” auditions were in Los Angeles, not far from where the contestants with golden tickets will go if they move on to the next round. And while they didn’t give an exact number, they said L.A. did not produce the hopefuls they thought it would. Here are the good and the bad from last night:
HOLLYWOOD BOUND
Tim Halperin admitted to having a crush on J-Lo as a kid, which, being that he’s 23, wasn’t that long ago. He sang a Maroon 5 tune and had a really nice voice. Steven said yes, Randy said no, and it was up to J-Lo, who sent her admirer through….next was 27 year old Justin Carter, who also got through, but I admit that today I don’t remember this guy at all…..Karen Rodriguez, 21, was one of the contestants that got this audition based on her application to MySpace calling for hopefuls, and she didn’t disappoint. She also reminded Jennifer that she sang for her a few years ago on TRL….23 year old Heidi Khzam was a belly dancer who mesmerized Randy and Steven, even though her voice was kind of “eh.” It didn’t matter what J-Lo thought, but she kind of rolled her eyes…..Mark and Aaron Gutierrez are hyperactive brothers that are 28 and 27, and they sang an amazing duet of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me.” Keep an eye on these two…
BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR OR NEVER
Victoria Garrett started things off last night by saying that she had visions of making it to the “American Idol” finale, but they really were just visions. Her voice was shrill and awful….friends Daniel and Isaac, both 18, auditioned but Isaac mentioned that his parents did not know he dropped out of college to go audition. Really? You have to drop out to audition? Anyway, they were both terrible, but Steven gave some false hope to Isaac, telling him to stick with it when Randy was saying to find a different passion. Yikes……Tynisha Roche from Hoboken did a horrible Frank Sinatra medley. It was so bad that Randy had to walk out…..Matt Frankel, aka Matthew Scott Frankel from MSFP Productions, aka Big Stats, sang, or rapped, or both, but was such as joke. Well, you knew there would be weirdos in LA, right?……Then came a medley of bad auditions–William Roberts, Jeannette Manning, Daniel Hall and Arista Pemberton–all of which were so bad that they were driving our cat crazy when they sang!…..Finally, 59 year old Cooper Robinson, aka the Human Tornado, came from somewhere in the hills of Arkansas and is a street performer. Really, there are streets in the hills of Arkansas? Anyway, this guy was clearly a producer plant, and maybe MSFP was too.
So that’s it…one more initial audition round, and that’s in San Francisco on Wednesday. Then Hollywood week begins on Thursday. Let the party begin!