After Tuesday’s Minneapolis auditions that were pretty much awful, “American Idol” showed up in rainy Seattle for the next wave of crappy contestants. Okay, they weren’t all bad, but there were 9,000 entrants and on Seattle’s first day only 7 were Hollywood bound. Is the talent pool diminishing? I guess we’ll find out.
Let’s start again with the talented bunch. Tommy Daniels, who auditioned last year but didn’t quite make it to the Randy/Paula/Simon room, sang Amos Lee and he was awesome. In fact he kind of made it look easy. Keep an eye on this kid, I have a feeling about him.
The brother/sister combo (don’t even ask me to pronounce or spell their names) “were so cute!” to paraphrase the wife. They talked about how their dad was a talented singer in his native India so you knew they had good genes going in. And though both were a bit shy, holy crap, could they sing. The dude was even better than his sister. Keep an eye on these two as well….they could be duking it out against each other as this thing progresses.
Blake, aka the “beat boy,” did such an amazing job impersonating a beat box and bass guitar that he could only disappoint with his vocal ability. Lucky for him he was just good enough to advance, even though Simon said Paula was “easily pleased.”
Anna, a 6’4″ chick who sang Aretha Franklin, had to be distracted by Randy and Paula growling at Simon during her audition. Simon referred to her as a giraffe, and I’m starting to think that Simon spends a lot of time in zoos or on safaris.
A guy named Rodolfo did a nice job with Journey’s “Open Arms” and advanced, and the only other one advancing that they showed was a 16-year-old girl named Jordin Sparks who sang Celine Dion really well. We all love Celine, don’t we? ( someone please help me dislodge the index finger from my throat)Additional props to Jordin from yours truly because she is the daughter of former New York Football Giant cornerback Phillippi Sparks. What the hell has become of the Giants defense anyway? Sorry, couldn’t help it.
So since that was all the producers decided to show us of the talented ones, you know they filled up most of the two hours with crap, otherwise known as the ones that bring the ratings. Here are some of the lowlights of those performances:
Jennifer, who called herself “The Hotness,” was about as hot as Canada in February. I mean, blech. She couldn’t sing her way out of the paper bag they should have put on her head, but then she added insult when she started taking shots at the judges. She said Simon was probably used to listening to “that back country English sheep stuff” and that his opinion “don’t mean nothing.” Okay, your Hotness, go cool down now. Back country English sheep stuff? We’re not making this stuff up, people, she really said that.
Misha (her real name is Darwin…which begs the question…why the hell do these kids have names that they don’t use?) was a large, nerdy woman who desperately needed a bra. Mrs. Mikey pointed that out first, but you couldn’t miss those heavy pancakes flopping around. Again, blech. Misha looked like a cartoon character and made things worse by attempting the Pussycat Dolls.
Melissa, who went under the name Carleen (are you sensing a pattern here?) had arms that looked like legs and legs that looked like tree trunks. And Simon accurately made reference to the red body stocking she was wearing that made her look sunburned. Naturally, she sucked.
Nick Zitzmann kept blinking to the point that it was distracting, but he didn’t sing well either. And David Mills did a poor job with “Lean On Me,” but the refreshing part was when he said afterward that his audition was a personal “wake up call.” Attaboy, David.
Then they showed two sort of misfit friends. The first was Kenneth, who Simon (again, accurately) depicted as a wild monkey with massive eyes. I mean, those eyes were something we’re all going to have nightmares about. Then his buddy, the obviously overweight Jonathan, gave a go at “God Bless America.” He wasn’t all that bad, but the fact that he kept changing keys in the middle of the song did him in. Simon made a comment that Jonathan had borrowed Randy’s pants, which was pretty funny.
Then there was Eric, the Taylor Hicks lookalike and soundalike…well, not really soundalike. Dude is a hairdresser with graying hair (or did he color it gray?) and after attempting to sing, he’s going back to cutting hair. But after the audition he tried to go put some gel in Simon’s hair and security whisked him off. Dude, what the hell did you expect to happen?
Finally, there was Steven…..who sang “Bohemian Rhapsody” so utterly bad that there really are no words to describe it. But I’ll say one thing…some of these awful auditions, or what they show of them, go on FOREVER. I mean, stick a fork in these kids before they burn on the stove.
Next up is the musical mecca of Memphis, and Fox is likely to bring Elvis references until we want to vomit.
Holy crap, I just realized it’s the end of my second entry and I haven’t made reference to Ryan Seacrest more than once. He really hasn’t been that annoying yet, but the crappy auditions are just overshadowing him.
See you next week….
