Mario comes to us from a dimmed stage with news that after last night's performances by the final thirteen, they had big plans for tonight. "We were going to give you the results, but we had a graphics problem -- which means some of the voting information given was incorrect." So they're going to have them all perform again. Tonight. In the same order as last night. With new songs. For votes again. Whoa, that is seriously bush league. Is anybody actually running this show?
So this is really going to happen, looks like. As he did last night, Josh Levi starts the show off, but tonight he's doing "Stay," which is at least another song that puts the focus on the vocals. The stage projections don't look as thrown together as one might expect from a performance show that had to be staged in less than 24 hours, but Josh looks, as I expect most singers will, like he's dressed in what he came in off the street wearing. And he sounds pretty well rehearsed, too. After the show, I find out that the finalists sang their "save me" songs, which means they rehearsed them hoping they would never have to sing them. The judges' comments will have to be pretty rushed tonight, but Simon is impressed, saying that was a winning performance and not just a survival song. Josh's mentor Paulina says she nailed it, and Mario gives Josh the bum's rush so we can keep this moving.
Country singer Rachel Potter's do-over song breaks new ground for her in that she's doing an actual country song: "Sing it Anyway" by Martina McBride. It's not all that innovative or radical, but it's nice to see she can still sing even when she isn't countrifying up something from an entirely different genre. Simon thinks she has a twin sister, because she sang horribly last night (disagree) and was fantastic tonight. Kelly says she's proud of her and that everyone needs to vote for Rachel Potter. I don't feel like I need to, actually.
Carlos Guevara is , and if the song he's singing isn't by Damien Rice, he certainly makes it sound like it is. Let's just Google those lyrics quick…yep, it's "Cannonball." Carlos has taken Simon's criticism from last night to heart, and is actually looking at the audience tonight. It's pretty, too. Paulina calls it "being the most amazing performance that I've ever saw," and then we're moving on already.
Mario introduces Restless Road, who also get to do a country song tonight, namely Jason Aldean's "Don't You Wanna Stay." I know Mario said it was only fair to all the acts to let them all perform again, but given that some of them get to put last night's feedback to work tonight, that others aren't bound by a theme that challenged them last night, and still others are never going to be able to reproduce the highs they may have reached before, it seems more fair to some than to others. Simon is actually harder on the boys than I expected, asking them if there was a problem with the backing track (not that they noticed, which isn't encouraging) and remarking that this was the first time they looked nervous. He still thinks they did great, though he says it in a way that indicates he's clearly pretty pissed off that anyone has to do this at all.
Even with thirteen performances crammed into an hour, we still have time for some filler in the form of several minutes of backstage makeover footage. Which there is no time for, but it looks like Cover Girl is paying some of the bills this week so it stays in. Never mind how gross it is. Another interesting thing is that Mario told us last night that Selena Gomez was supposed to perform on the show tonight. I hope she's at home now saying, "They bumped me but they kept this?"
Then Ellona Santiago sings "Titanium," which is nowhere near as challenging for her or as exciting for us as her performance last night was, so she's another one who's getting screwed. In the absence of the choreography, she tries to make up for it by getting way into it, with actually a fair degree of success. Demi kvells over how she just proved that she doesn't need all the dancers and crap, and Simon chimes in that it was Ellona's best performance ever. Now get out of here, Ellona, we got shit to do.
Then Jeff Gutt has to come back again with "In the Air Tonight." He doesn't so much sing it as growl it, with a lot more R in all the vowels than is really necessary. Oversinging again, in other words. Kelly says it was all about the rock factor, though Simon agrees with me that some of the phrasing was pretty corny. Demi is with both of us, but there's no time for more than two judges to say anything about any of the acts tonight, so Jeff Gutt basically gets trapdoored. And now, some actual Cover Girl ads.
Alex & Sierra seem to be struggling more than any of the other acts with this mess -- or at least Sierra is, which means Alex is both carrying them musically and constantly trying to look reassuringly at Sierra while they're singing. She barely makes it through, but people like them enough that they get away with it. Simon tells them it was both "immaculate" and "ragged," which seems a bit paradoxical, and promises to let them choose all their own songs from now on. We'll see how long that lasts.
Khaya Cohen also ends up taking a big step down from last night. We know from at least one of her past performances that she's usually a pretty good Duffy impersonator, but she hasn't had time to really work up the whole thing for "Distant Dreamer" before tonight's show, so she ends up being stuck doing it in her own normal voice. Demi says America would be stupid not to vote for her. Shit, where's the phone? I can't have Demi Lovato thinking I'm stupid.
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Carlito Olivero has come back with another ballad, though unlike last night's song, this one started out that way. It's "If You're Not the One" by Daniel Bedingfield, and it's all pretty dull except for the high falsetto notes on the choruses that Carlito completely screws up. Paulina starts by saying she knows it's an especially tough night for Carlito, and Simon interjects, "Is he ill?" Paulina unconvincingly seizes on that as an excuse, and even more unconvincingly claims that Carlito nailed it. To a cross, maybe. Mario asks Carlito if he's sick, and Carlito claims that he's not feeling a hundred percent but didn't want that to be an excuse. Too late.
is Lillie McCloud, who is doing a Queen b-side, "Who Wants to Live Forever." It starts out as the most undemanding song she's ever done, but ends up building to some more Lillie McCloud-style belting while she keeps her laser-focus at the very center of the house. Kelly tells her that's what you're supposed to do when you perform, and since there is no time for her feud with Simon over Lillie tonight, that's where it gets left.
The rush is obviously telling on Sweet Suspense too, because in all the rush they haven't even had time to color-coordinate. Without any backup dancers or choreography, they're forced to plod through a straightforward version of "That Should Be Me," which I think they picked because it's mostly just the title being repeated multiple times in place of, you know, lyrics. Simon basically makes apologies for them, saying it's a tough song and he wants the voters to remember their other performances. "I wish we weren't in this position," he says. I'm sure he's already fired plenty of people today, but I'll bet he fires even more after the show. And probably some every day for the rest of the season.
Rion Paige doesn't have time for anyone's shit tonight, because she's bringing it home with a slow, powerful version of "Born This Way" that builds to a major blowout. It earns her the first standing ovation of the week from the judges, and Demi says she only sat back down so she can tell Rion how proud she is of her. So that was not only a winning performance, it was a great way for Rion to tell the world, "Shut up about my hands already."
Inoffensive, unthreatening Tim Olstad is going with that inoffensive, unthreatening standard, "I Believe I Can Fly." And dude is trying, but you know how some white performers make you think that a black person crawled inside them? Well, Tim's black person died in there and is starting to smell. He drops a "woo" in there at one point, which is all Simon can talk about (or, more accurately, imitate repeatedly and mockingly) afterward. I mean, Paulina also says some things but they don't make any more sense than usual.
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So believe it or not, they actually crammed thirteen live performances and a product placement segment in there. No surprise that there isn't time for the performance recaps; Mario just opens the phone lines and says the results will be revealed Wednesday. While they're supposed to be singing for week's vote? Are they just going to be a night behind for the whole rest of the season now? Simon says tonight was like being at McDonald's; "I've never had anything so fast in my life." I bet that's not what his sex partners say.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.
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