Last Train To Clarksville, four aboard, no stops.

We’ve had the good (Lisa) and the bad (Joseph), the sublime (Lavina) and the surreal (Bobby), the magical (Irish) and the meh (Dean and Reigan) the fabulous (Jessica) and the flatout flat (almost everyone else). And, if I may paraphrase Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben - with great second opportunity Wildcard comes great responsibility to be . . . well, great. It’s not just the second chance, it’s the last chance. Unless I’m mistaken, I believe you can come back and re-audition if you bomb out at the Seymour Centre but you can’t come back from a failed semi-final performance (and I believe there is tar and feathering involved plus a naked stroll through the city centre.) Kind of begs the question as to why the hell the Wildcard show last night was so god damned boring, doesn’t it?

Brendan Boney meshes Lonely No More and This Love in his final and – one can only hope – failed attempt to crawl into the Top 12. Yes, he sang it ‘nicely’ and no, I didn’t so much mind the segue from one song to the other, but he had flat bits, he had pitchy bits and on the whole there was nothing great to be seen here. Nothing mindblowingly remarkable or memorable. I would still buy a released version of Gangsta’s Paradise but only if there was no B side. Both Mark and Kyle applaud the risk of a medley (such as it was, it was really only two lines from This Love) but neither thinks he hit it out of the ballpark. Marcia of course thinks it was a ‘damn fine job’. I just don’t even have the energy to hate on her anymore.

Nathanial Willemse’s suit is a pinstriped pimpin’ number that screams Luck Be A Lady Tonight - and not in a good Daniel Belle belting it out suavely at Capers in Melbourne way, but more like . . . okay, like say, a highschool production of Reservoir Dogs where no-one dies and Mr Blonde is played by a sixteen year old girl because not enough boys auditioned. And they’re not allowed to swear. But at least the girl playing Mr Blonde is pretty good. Except the bored ninth grader who doesn’t understand how props work and who doesn’t read the script properly, accidentally lets her take a real razor blade on stage when she’s doing the policeman ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’ scene and consequently that high school’s insurance goes waaaaaaaaaaaay the fuck up and no-one will eat lunch with her anymore. It’s a trainwreck basically, is what I’m trying to say about his suit. And he’s singing My Girl by the Four Tops. Aw, sweet baby jesus. I love motown as much as the next person but what a ridiculous song choice for the Wildcard round. It’s cheesy and it’s boring. Like Vertigo, he sings well (the odd higher note notwithstanding) but the performance and his singing style feels really stilted and mannered – he HANDS OUT A FREAKING ROSE TO A GIRL IN THE AUDIENCE WHO IS WEARING A T-SHIRT THAT READS ‘I LOVE NATHANIEL’. I throw up in my mouth a little. Kyle and Marcia must have drifted off to sleep or something because they both enjoyed it but at least Mark picks up on the pitch problems. No-one points out to him that his song choice could only have been worse if he had stood up there and sung Rum Tum Tugger from Cats.

Klancie Keogh’s Dad made it up to the Big Smoke for her Wildcard performance. She’s revisiting her Seymour Centre solo performance and is singing Red Neck Woman. It’s a good song choice for her, this number highlights the Dolly Partonesque country twang and she’s having a HELL of a lot of fun. The vocals aren’t perfect, and she wobbles a bit but she’s a lot more confident. Mark gets into her about whether or not Ostralya is ready for a C&W Idol winner (and really Mark, she may make it to the Top 12 but what the hell are you smoking if you think she has a chance of actually winning?). Marcia babbles about liking her energy and freshness and says we’re all listening to country music these days. I check my CD player and she is correct. My KT Tunstall CD has inexplicably morphed into a Garth Brooks : Live in Baton Rouge, 1998 Tour Edition CD. Kyle ruins one of my all time favourite drinking songs by confessing to singing The Gambler with Mark backstage. You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. I don’t know if Klancie has pocket Queens or a two and a seven but I’m telling her to go All In!! (This joke zone reserved for Texas Hold ‘Em fans only.)

Chris Graffiti still looks like Bobby Brady, only a more intense wild eyed version, the kind who would shoot Carol Brady and hold Sam hostage until Alice made more pork chops with apple sauce. He’s taken Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” and turned it from a funky bopping hizzit into an Illustrated Guide on How Not To Arrange Classic Songs. He leaves the funk alone for about two thirds of the song and then sloooowwwwss it right down, leaving the band behind and singing it almost a cappella, although it comes off more Acapulco . . . (am I saying its like a seaport resort in southern Mexico? Yes, but only if you hate the heat. And the sea. And resorts. Which I kind of do.) This is one of Marcia’s favourite songs and she loves what he did with it although she damns him with faint praise by saying that he sang it in tune, which is all she can ask. Doesn’t ask for much then, does she? Mark thinks he’s too intense and asks him to back up and put down the knife. Or maybe he just says that Chris is making it look too much like hard work. Kyle halfheartedly mocks his Thunderbird style moves but says he has superb vocals and that he hopes people are voting on that. And that’s Today's Sensible Comment From Kyle of the night out of the way.

Guy ‘Mutto’ Mutton is singing one of the most overrated Australian songs currently glutting the market. Seriously, I liked Black Fingernails, Red Wine about a month ago when I heard it maybe once every couple of days, but when I was recently in Perth I heard it at least three times a day for five straight weeks and am officially Over It. Guy ‘acts’ out his lyrics, getting all touchy feely with his face and ‘emoting’ all over the place – dude, someone has to clean the stage after you perform, you know. This arrangement is a lot less frantic and dark than the Eskimo Joe version and the lyrics lose a lot of their impact when it is stodged down so much. It is plodding and dull for all that he sings it well. Mark also doesn’t know what to make of the arrangement and says it didn’t hit Mark. Hell, if he had hit Mark I’d have voted for him . . . oh . . . hit THE mark. Yeah, that makes more sense, actually. Marcia thought it was a little awe inspiring but I think she means insipid – they’re very similar words – and Kyle thinks it was an average job of an excellent tune and then offends the drummer from Guy’s band by calling it a bit Michael Hutchence-y and in a bad way. (So his performance is hanging from a belt in a hotel room, asphyxiating? Annnnnd you can officially mark that joke as the one that made God throw his hands up in the air and let Satan reserve me a place in hell. Yep. Okay okay, yes that was an awful awful joke to make, I'm sorry, Michael was a rock god and I admire his musicality greatly, I do. May he rest in peace.)

Amanda Rock Chick (or is she??!!) Streete is singing the same Powderfinger song that got Taaaaarni ousted last year, On My Mind. She does a much better job, the vocals are much clearer than Tarni’s were and I also find her voice more pleasing. She works the microphone stand like a pro, but it looks odd and a bit show-offy on a bare stage where she doesn’t have a killer house band (like the boys on Rockstar Supernova – the HB is FUCKING AWESOME on that show) behind her. She brings pub rock to the stage, grungy and a tad feral, but it falls oddly flat because of her surroundings. All three judges query her authenticity as a rock chick. I question their authenticity as human beings. Schmucks. This sucks because odds are that the public will vote through two boys and the judges will pick two others, one of which should be a girl and right now its looking an awful lot like they’ll go Klancie’s way. Bah.

Ricky Muscat sings Usher’s Caught Up and the judges can officially go to hell, because the odd shouty bit of this aside, I really enjoyed this performance. It was probably the most energetic and one of the best vocally and for fucks sake he shouldn’t even have to be a Wildcard, he should have gotten in ahead of Joseph. *breathe breathe I don't even know why I'm upset because I'll never vote for him and I'm not an RnB fan but there you have it breathe breathe* Ricky busts some dance moves and stares fairly bluntly down the camera, his eyes saying vote for me or fuck right off. He is pissed he didn’t get through last week. Marcia and Mark pick on him for picking a song without much melody, with Mark especially pointing out that you can’t just sing the whole thing loudly – why not Mark, it worked aaaaaall season for Emily, hell it garnered her more touchdowns than anyone else who has ever been on the show. Kyle begs Ricky not to get bogged down with RnB. Kyle has himself a little man crush on Ricky. If he doesn’t get the public vote I suspect Kyle will threaten to hold his breath until the others let Ricky through as Judges Choice.

Ohhhhhhhh no. Chris Murphy is singing H&C anthemic Holy Grail, the song that DeadtomeOnetrickponyLee Harding cocked up so magnificently last year and signalled the beginning of the end of TallulahBelle’s Love for Lee (cemented by The Green Day Affair a few weeks later). Do NOT fuck this up, Murphy. I am worried at the beginning when he starts off too easy listening but he grunges it up quickly and his voice is lovely and husky. He has nice shades, its still a little bit dull and he’s not showing the impeccable taste in music his brother did but he can still sing and perform well. His last grunge-y pub note is lovely. Mark says he normally cracks on people who spend years in pubs (pub rockers all over Australia throw their beers at the tv and in unison yell ‘fuck off Holden’ then jump straight back into the second chorus of Khe Sanh) but that Chris’ experience was well worth it, his stage and microphone work is impressive. Marcia tells him he’s a performer who considers every inch of his song choice and every move he makes on stage but that it never comes across as robotic. Kyle leapfrogs back into my haaaaaaaaaaaaate books by bagging the CourtJester to his brother’s face, saying he wasn’t a fan of Courtney at all but that there isn’t anything Chris can do that isn’t good enough in his eyes. I cross my fingers for him. He should get through.

Realistically the four to join the Top 12 should be the final four performers – Amanda, Chris, Ricky and Mutto (purely on the strength of his voice). But if the public put through Ricky and Chris – which I think they will – then the judges won’t put through two rockers, so my money would be on Klancie and Mutto to be pushed through which will frustrate me because as lovely as Klancie is, Amanda has a better and more interesting voice. Either way, it starts for real next week, FINALLY. Euph, Gracie, Fosse and Shaneequa – you know the way to Chez TallulahBelle, see you there for the first actual real show of the year and snarking & snacks . . .

TallulahBelle out.