American Idol 2009 Week 2 Program 2: Louisville
Louisville auditions came from Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby and more than 11,000 hopefuls turned up for the first round in the ‘blue grass state’. The judges arrived to a great fanfare — literally. A memorable start to the day for Paula Abdul who mentioned it during a discussion about the auditions on Ryan’s radio show yesterday. Paula admitted on Ryan’s radio show that she does sometimes get annoyed with the contestants and agreed with Ryan that Simon’s ‘yes or no?’ were the most annoying three (or two) words they were hearing from him this year.
Lou-ah-vull Auditions
First away from the starting gate was Tiffany Shedd, whose father described her as ‘unbelievable’. Unbelievably bad, but at least she had a plan B to go to college. Simon used the horse racing metaphor to describe her chances of winning Idol: “imagine 22 horses and a donkey. You just wouldn’t stand a chance.” Tiffany wasn’t happy with the rejection and ranted her way out of the building as we heard Ryan over the VT saying: “we wish Tiffany the best of luck in college … end even more luck to her room mate.” Classic.
Joanna Pacitti has been trying to break into the music industry for a while and had an unsuccessful recording contract behind her, but she got the first ticket to Hollywood. Mark Mudd made an impression, but it wasn’t for his singing — as he left the auditions without a golden ticket he said “take care, and be careful”, and the judges weren’t sure if “be careful” was a threat, though it seemed pretty clear they just were being drama queens about a regionalism. Makes for good TV, I guess. Brent Keith Smith was easy on the eyes and not too bad on the ears, but the judges lost it completely with the girls unable to listen to Simon’s criticism (he had a point about Brent sounding like a busker) and disappearing under the table. Disappointing that Kara didn’t finish her comment; we were interested in what she had to say.
On the teaser for the next few contestants, a ‘nerd’ was shown slurping water through Paula’s straw as Ryan built up the anticipation: “if you think this is sucking, wait ‘til you hear him sing.” Or not. Irene Angueloba should try singing somewhere over the rainbow, or at least somewhere far away where we can’t hear her strangling the song. Obianuju Omwurah sounded like she’d taken singing lessons from Woody Woodpecker and Wil Heuser needed to tone it down a little. Or a lot. Ryan Benningfield was channelling Leigh Bowery and we’re sure Michael Jackson won’t be losing any sleep over Patrick Warner.
We were half expecting duelling piano player Matt Giraud to be more duelling banjos, but he was actually pretty good. The judges liked him and he made it through to the next round. Sucky geek, Ross Playsic waxed lyrical on the arrangement of Chinese characters, but was less than inspiring with his depressing dirge. Paula offered him a sip of water but looked shocked that he used her straw. No golden ticket for Ross, but ten Louisville contestants went through to Hollywood on day one.
Alexis Grace was first in to see the judges and got the day off to a good start with a ticket to the next round. After a run of dull, untalented contestants, Aaron Williamson woke the judges up … but not in a good way. Kara and Paula got Aaron’s hopes up by joining in (that’s so much crueler than Simon’s brutal honesty) and it sounded so … different … that Ryan headed into the audition room to see what was going on! Next, Rebecca Garcia did a bad karaoke and Kara thought the high school funny girl was having a joke. Oops. Kris Allen, Felicia Barton, Ryan Johnson and Shera Lawrence added to the ticket tally, making it eight through to Hollywood on day two. Laneshe Young sang one of her own songs and impressed the judges with her voice and writing ability, taking the last of a total of nineteen tickets from Kentucky.
On the first day of judges’ audtions, Ryan was wearing a grey long-sleeved shirt over a dark teeshirt with dark trousers and dark shoes. The teeshirt had a design on it but we couldn’t see it clearly. On day two he wore a white shirt with a check with light fawn trousers and white shoes.
Hollywood Tickets
- Joanna Pacitti
- Matt Giraud
- Alexis Grace
- Kris Allen
- Felicia Barton
- Ryan Johnson
- Shera Lawrence
- Laneshe Young
