Another episode of “American Idol” in the books, and this time they took the show to Vegas for the initial auditions. Seriously now, are these preliminary auditions ever going to end? The producers are getting good at showing us a few really good contestants and more of the crappy ones, which is really what we all want to see at this point, right?
Only 11 contestants made it to Hollywood this time…the ones they showed were 18 year old Mecca, a cute little belly dancer chick who had a great voice; Heather, a young black woman who sang “Redneck Woman”….a bit out of character it seemed, but she had a good enough voice; and Taylor, the dude from Birmingham who has been prematurely gray since he was 15, but had a killer gospel/blues type voice ala Ray Charles.
It’s always amusing to see the gimmicks people will come up with to get on the show….the first dude, Alexis a.k.a. “Dylon” was a rasta wannabe and as it turns out, a vocal wannabe.
Ryan, the kid who started his audition by saying “F–k Yeah,” was obviously just trying to get on TV…he sang/screamed Silverstein’s “Smash Into Pieces.” The best part was Randy Jackson impersonating him after the audition.
There was also Anthony, this very large man who said that he and his girlfriend take in stray animals, and currently have 75 of them. It wouldnt’ surprise me if he had 75 animals in his belly during the audition either. Oh, and he sang terribly.
The Pearson twins looked cute enough but their rendition of a Cranberries song was bizarre, turning their audition into what amounted to a bad Doublemint commercial.
Another of the strangest auditions ever was this Russian kid who was wearing an American flag shirt and sang “God Bless the USA”…..maybe he was happy to be here, but he sure was indignant after failing his audition, saying the judges did not make eye contact with him and that’s why he did not make it to Hollywood. He also claimed to have perfect pitch, which the judges set him straight on. Uh dude, you just plain sucked. Welcome to America.
Finally, the one I thought was good that the judges did not, was Jason, who has a day job as “Pepe,” taking tourists on fake Italian boat tours at a Vegas hotel. Randy, Paula and Simon…I’m sorry, that dude had a good voice…you just couldn’t see past his Pepe persona.
All in all, a bit uneventful compared to some of the other stops on the American Idol freak tour…..but just as I say that, I’m afraid of what tomorrow in Austin holds. See you then….
