American Idol 2009 Week 2 Program 1: San Francisco
American Idol headed to the ‘City by the Bay’ for the third round of auditions. Previous contestants from San Francisco include Katherine McPhee and William Hung but the first person thrown to the mercy of Simon, Kara, Randy and Paula this time was … Ryan Seacrest???
Ryan: “The panel was set and anxious to judge anyone who walked in the room. Even me. Season Eight and the stakes are even higher; now today in San Francisco everybody who auditions will walk down this pathway into the audition room where they’ll be in front of seven different cameras, all the bright lights, but the toughest part is, they’ve gotta get past our four judges.”
Simon: “Hang on. Let’s try it in the normal speaking voice.”
Randy: “Yeah, let’s try it in the normal voice.”
Ryan: “Sorry?”
Simon: “Normal speaking voice.”
Randy: “One more time. Normal voice.”
Ryan: “Normal voice?”
Simon: “It was good. Just… like it. Slightly higher!”
San Francisco Auditions
Tatiana Del Toro made an impression on us for having the most annoying laugh we’ve ever heard, but she was determined to get a ticket to Hollywood. Simon wasn’t impressed, saying “she didn’t get through on her vocals”. Simon, two words: bikini girl! Things didn’t get any better with Nick Reed’s indistinct beatboxing, Jiayi Yu’s lack of enthusiasm, and Dean-Anthony Bradford’s ‘jacket of life’. We loved Kara’s “what was that?” after Dean-Anthony left the room. Jesús Valenzula had been encouraged to enter by his kids, and when he wasn’t good enough to get through with his singing, the kids came in to help with a little emotional blackmail. It worked, and he’s joining Tatiana in Hollywood.
Dalton Powell could solve a Rubik’s cube, but with his weedy voice he didn’t have the winning formula to impress the judges. Dalton’s “Simon keeps it interesting” in response to Paula asking if he was a fan of the show earned him a compliment for his well-timed suck-up skills rather than brutal honesty from Simon. Paula was all smiles at James Smith’s uncomfortable serenade until Randy’s “she likes babies … she wants a baby” brought her mood crashing down and ended the audition with Ryan’s “oops … looks like we hit a bump”. Baby bump?
We enjoyed Ryan’s history lesson and vintage clips of the Summer of Love, but liked him playing up the bitchfest between Simon and Kara much more. Will that roll over to the live shows? We hope so, so long as it doesn’t cut into Ryan and Simon banter time! The next contestant, Akilah Askew-Gholston, turned up with a well-thumbed stack of crib notes and corrected Ryan’s correct pronunciation of trachea before singing one of her own songs for the judges. When that failed to impress, she sang Natural Woman ‘from the wrong rectum’ before complimenting Simon on his skills as a producer `:-) and calling Paula an old has-been. We were giggling too much to catch her ‘compliments’ for Kara and Randy. The best moment, however, was when Akilah said “they actually made me feel like one of those ‘auditioners’ that couldn’t sing…”. Wow. Harsh.
We haven’t seen any talent up to this point but the next three contestants, John Twiford, Allison Iraheta and Raquel Houghton, all had the voice to take them through to Hollywood. Annie Murdoch hadn’t decided on a song to sing before getting into the audition, and we wished the producers had cut away before she had finished deliberating. Awful. It was like a crazy Aunt at a wedding; Simon thought she was drunk too.
I liked the next contestant immediately — I’d say yes; who cares if he can sing! Adam Lambert CAN sing, and he brought his own style to the song, which we liked. Simon’s right that it was a bit theatrical, but with the popularity of High School Musical and singers with distinctive voices, is that a bad thing? He’s smooth too. I think we have a Fan Zone favourite ;-) Last contestant Kai Kalama had a nice tone to his voice and made it all sound too easy. Simon liked his voice but said he had “the personality of a ship singer” and Kara wanted him to work on his performance, but in the end all four judges said ‘yes’, making a total of 12 through to Hollywood
Hollywood Tickets
- Tatiana Del Toro
- Jesús Valenzula
- John Twiford
- Allison Iraheta
- Raquel Houghton
- Adam Lambert
- Kai Kalama
