Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Sign here, thanks.

Idol's international, baby!

But first the Barossa Valley where we're getting drunk on glasses of pinot, sauvignon blanc and cab merlot. Allllll mixed together in the one barrel! Yummy! Whoo hoo! We're toasted, man! And still the show makes more sense sans Holden! Yeah! (Also, celemotherfuckingbrate the lack of whatserface Coulter on tonight's show. It's The Awesome. Actually, The Awesome comes later in the show in the form of a teeny, tiny exYoung Talent Time star and the gay guy from Savage Garden and his new excellent haircut.)

Jaunty behatted triple threat Joseph Giardina (21) is trying to circumvent The Ground Rules. I have no time for you, sir. No time. Away with you.

Can You Feel It ad cutie, 16 year old Tom Williams is another kid who has been waiting to audition for four years - you are making me feel so very very old, show. It doesn't help that he looks about 12. An adorable 12 but still 12. He sings 'Waiting On The World To Change', the very song that Dean Geyer sang when he was in the final three with Jess Mauboy and Damien Leith and the song that made Mark Holden look down the camera and demand that Sir Des let him record it as a single because it would be a massive hit. God, I do NOT miss you Mark. Tom sings this about a BILLION times better and I can't say it enough, he is freaking aDORable. He's reminding me of last season's Ben McKenzie - but more commercial. The judges could not love him more and send him to Sydney - is his mum or dad going to chaperone?

Sidebar : G's hair is looking better tonight, it's ruffled and not so . . . merchant banker. Can I blame his wife? Excellent.

G and Mathieson drink some more. Lots and lots and lots. It won't make some of these singers sound any better boys, there isn't enough alcohol in the world.

They waste an ASTOUNDING amount of time with 23 year old James Butto who doesn't get a single one of the jokes that Dicko, Kyle and Marcia make at his expense. He massacres Robbie Williams, then the Bangles (causing Dicko to CRY with laughter) and then a little Leonard Cohen. Oh sweet jesus. Marcia honks and snorts and Kyle makes Shrek jokes. Make him LEAVE. 'Over The Rainbow'? Get the fuck off my screen, dude. OFF.

(Seriously, the drumming Cadbury gorilla has not worn out its welcome yet and I've seen that ad about twenty times in the last couple of days. Hilarious.)

16 year old Jessica Vogel is a performing arts student whose singing verges on the shouty just a little bit too much. She's projecting. There's no one sitting in the gods, darl. The judges are right there. Pull back and you've got a good voice. Oh, but there are too many sixteen year olds in the Top 100. Sigh.

20 year old Jess Griffin did this two years ago in the semi finals of the Season Of Irish :

"Spunky Jess Griffin has made a terrible error in judgement. She's singing Christina Aguilera's song Fighter. This is such a balls to the wall song and I firmly believe that Xtina's the only one who can sing it with any conviction. Jess starts out off the beat annnnnnnnnd stays there. She is obviously flustered that she fucked up so quickly that she gets pitchy and breathy and looks like she's going to burst into tears. It's an absolute mess, this is such a shame because every other time we've seen Jess, she has exuded confidence and charisma. I want to look away when she kind of taps herself on the forehead as if to say 'stupid' three quarters of the way through the song. She's right though. Stupid. Marcia and Jess "woahhhh" at each other and agree that "that was a hard one". Jess sighs that she lost control and Marcia actually critiques someone - "you were ahead of the band, behind the band, you didn't trust them and you let yourself down". That's the Marcia equivalent of beating your adopted daughter whilst screaming "no wire hangers" . . . (only Joan Crawford fans will get that one . . . ) Mark "oh Jess"s for about thirty seconds while she practically begs for his forgiveness, he notes that she can't let nerves get to her like that because she'll crash and burn (gee, you think??) but he still 'digs' her. Mark, can you 'dig' her out of the grave she just dug herself? Huh? Little help? Kyle says it was a joke and disastrous and he doesn't want to go on about it but he kind of does a little. G asks her that if she still worked in a pizza shop, what kind of pizza would that be? She stumbles on the answer but finally comes out with a gour-mess. I applaud her chutzpah but don't think she's a real contender to get in the Top 12 or even Wildcard."

(don't you just not miss Holden at all!) I was right, she didn't make Wildcard and this is the first time we've seen her since that fateful, painful performance. She's glammed herself up and has taken the Xtina thing a step further by getting those great pink highlights that start at the bottom of your hair and go up. She gets really breathy and loses it halfway through (sounds familiar . . . ) and barely gets a yes from Kyle. Marcia tells her she lacks focus and that she's bullshitting and she really hurt her feelings last time (the fuck?) and then HOLD THE FUCK ON TO YOUR SEATS GUYS, MARCIA SAYS NO. Marcia. Mother Marcia, Brown Sugar herself, says no after Kyle said yes. She has gotten tough this season, hasn't she? Wow. Dicko calls her a con artist but puts her through.

30 year old James Spargo sings Michael Buble's 'Home' and it's a good impersonation of Buble (which, lets face it, worked wonders for HotCarl last season) but it's not a great voice, it's just okay. Maybe when he sings something else, he'll rock it. In the mildest possible manner, of course. He gets through because Dicko is fully aware that Ladies Of A Certain Age *ahem* love that shit. I think he's referring to those of us who got HotCarl to final three and helped Irish win. We're not easy, Dicko. Don't be giving our love away for free. Boy has to EARN it.

Six are through in total from Barossa (and we got to see FOUR of them!) and then it's time for London. Accents! Big Ben! Crown jewels! Fosse's husband Darren Hayes is helping out, as are the scarily thin arms of Tina Arena (and the rest of her as well). But before we get to the auditions, Mathieson needs to remind us who they both are - you don't really James, we kind of already know - so we get a potted history of their musical JOURNEY!'s - and let's be frank, these two are so much more qualified to do this job than Kyle and even, dare I say, my dearest Dicko. But I wouldn't swap Dicko for anyone, so let's ditch Marcia instead.

Kate James (25) caterwauls Tina's own 'Chains' at her. No free ticket back to Aus for you, dear. Tina refers to herself in the third person and Darren about wets himself with glee.

The English think Australian's are loud, incoherent, alcoholics - and the auditions they show would appear to sustain that theory. The West end inspires too too many people to badly sing showtunes but does segue nicely into Darren and Tina briefly trilling at us and three seconds of their voices has outshined every single person who has auditioned over the last four nights.

Really cute Scott McLintock (27) lost his mum recently and it shows when he sings The Verve's 'The Drugs Don't Work', especially when he hits the line "and I know I'll see your face again". God, his eyes are so sad, he's killing me. Tina looks on the verge of tears as she rests her head in her hand, entranced by Scott's performance. Dicko starts to tell him to work on his big notes because "big notes win votes" and Tina immediately disses the hell out of stupid big notes, saying she's "over it" and that even she has pulled back and made her music more subtle. Then Darren name drops the biggest rock softie of them all, Bono and tells Scott to keep singing from the heart. They "hell, yes" him and he catapults to the top of my current favourite's list.

20 year old Jaden Dowd wears an Australian flag tshirt she made in the ninth grade. Dude, I don't fit into anything I owned in the ninth grade. Maybe some of my shoes. She sings Buble's 'Night and Day' and it's good - as Tina notes, she has a lovely smoky quality to her voice. Dicko picks on her clothes and the gay guy in the room (theirs, not mine, Fosse isn't home) is horrified and tells him he's cruel. Heeee. Clothes notwithstanding, she's through.

Montage of judges being silly and funny and MAN, it's going to be hard to go back to Kyle and Marcia. Tina does a Paula Abdul impersonation and I think Darren is doing Zoolander . . . I don't know, it's funny though.

Professional tourist spook, 26 year old Scott Herdman wears a silly hat and sings okay, but not brilliantly. Dicko and Tina 'no' him. Darren BRILLIANTLY tells him it's a "get-some-singing-lessons-no". God love you, Hayes. The judges are making fantastic critical sense and I'm giddy with excitement about it. Then Darren and Tina bust a whole bunch of people for mimicking, rather than singing and Tina tells one girl to broaden her musical references. I fucking love them both. Can we keep them? PLEASE? I'm so starting a petition.

(Darren bellows 'NEXT' and cracks Tina up.)

24 year old Sigrid Moar sings but she's there and gone so damn quickly that I barely have time to note her name before she's given three yes'es and a ticket to Sydney. Blink and you may have missed her.

Blonde cutie Sophie Paterson (22) has been in England long enough to have herself a little British accent - and actually, that's something, were only Aus citizens allowed to audition? Because Irish wasn't an Aus citizen when he won, so could anyone in the UK have auditioned? Tell us, show! Sophie sings a nice original number and has a lovely mournful quality to her voice. It trembles slightly - in a good way. She transfixes Dicko who loves her unique voice; Darren loves her original song; and Tina surreptitiously notes her mobile number so she can get some new stuff for her next album once the show is over. The judges give her a standing ovation. Sydney, here Sophie comes!

Six singers make it through from London. I gotta say, although Sophie and Scott were wonderful - six? Was it really worth the plane tickets for Dicko and the crew? Although yes, Mathieson sat on a double decker bus with auditionees, singing Khe Sanh . . . so maybe. And we actually saw five of those singers - I wonder who the sixth was.

Tomorrow and Friday we swoosh back to Sydney and a shaggy haired gentleman who is awesomely going to sing Bob Dylan's 'All Along The Watchtower'. Yet another song I never dreamed I'd see/hear performed on this show. I like it.

TallulahBelle out

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