By M. Giant | Season 13 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.16.2014
After the ads, Rico Perkins, 24, and Aranesa Turner, 22, are both sent through to Hollywood, even though one of them is kind of a weirdo (it's Rico).
Some muscleman wearing a tank top so small that it barely exists at all comes in and intimidates Harry with his physique. You can tell because Harry immediately gets up and hugs him. They ask him a little about his workout routine before getting on to his singing, which makes me wish they'd kept talking about this workout routine. He sings from the bottom of his throat and the back of his sinuses, creating a sound like an adenoidal foghorn, so that's it for Gaddy Basil Foster. And Jennifer managed to mostly conceal the fact that she was completely cracking up during that. After he leaves, Harry says he never heard a sound like that. Jennifer tries to imitate him and is surprisingly successful, and this low-frequency moan fades into Ryan out in the holding room, sitting cross-legged on the floor with some white-clad, Aryan-Jesus-looking meditation enthusiast who's making a sound like a human didgeridoo. This is Adam Roth from Sacramento, age 28, who claims to be a professional "sound-healer." As he explains it to the judges, it has to do with chakras and frequencies and so forth. Harry acts like he's so relaxed that he flops on the floor unconscious.
As for his actual song, Adam is going to be doing "Hallelujah." He doesn't have a terrible voice, but as a performer he's so toxically smarmy that he needs to be stopped at all costs. Keith diplomatically says it was a strange performance, and Jennifer wondered if it was all fake. He says he was just trying so hard. Harry says no, Jennifer yes and Adam engages Keith in some eye contact so intense that Keith pretends to be hypnotized as he reaches for Adam's golden ticket. "Of course I'm going to Hollywood, I just sold my soul to Satan," Harry growls. After Adam exits the room, Harry takes up position on the audition platform and plays out his version of the moment when Adam got his ticket, briefly going from beatific to demonically possessed and back. "Oh my God, I've revealed myself," he says, still in character. Ryan comes in to go over the day, and Keith says they don't have many golden tickets left, as though they weren't handing the things out like candy. Really good candy, but still.
So according to statistician-Ryan, the winners came from California, Oregon, Arkansas, Florida, and North Carolina, totaling 19 from San Francisco, plus 14 from tonight's Austin Auditions (at least 12 of whom we actually heard, if you can believe that), making 33 tonight to add to last night's 46, bringing the total thus far to 79. Only four cities left, including Detroit week. And more goofing off from Harry Connick, Jr., according to the previews. They might be exaggerating, though.