Let me whisper in your ear

So last night I came home from rehearsals - after stopping on the way to do a little grocery shopping - and sat down with my dinner and my Fosse to watch Idol. It's been an age since we watched together, what with rehearsals and whatnot, and he's missed my screeching and anger, I can tell. He pretends not to, but he does, really. Anyway, Fosse bitched about how he hates The Rolling Stones, I told him how my middle name is from a Rolling Stones song because my parents were Dirty Hippies, we laughed uproariously as G and Mathieson tag teamed and smacked down Kyle, I pointed and ranted at the screen whenever whatserface was on . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . . and then Mark Spano sang 'Angie' . . .

*insert sound of broken record scratching*

Guys, I totally got caught up in a Mark Spano sang 'Angie' time loop, that I could not get myself out of, not that I tried terribly hard, it was an awesome place to be. It's made it really difficult, almost impossible, to rewind the tape back far enough to actually look at the other contestants again: but I've made myself do it, secure in the knowledge that a) G and Mathieson were on fire last night; b) I only have to sit through Roshani's song one more time (although I imagine tonight we'll have to hear it again 'cause she's B3 and probably out of here) and; c) the light at the end of the tunnel? Is Mark Spano singing 'Angie'. Sigh!

Sidebar; as it's Rolling Stones night, I am left with no other choice but to call Marcia 'Brown Sugar' all night. No other choice. Occasionally BS for short where appropriate. You can decide for yourselves what those initials might otherwise stand for . . .

As the show opens, Fosse calls me a freak for dreamily noting that G is dressed in all black tonight and that Mathieson's skinny tie is slightly fatter this week and has also been bedazzled all around the edge with silver sequins. I call him a freak for not noticing. You think those boys dress for themselves? They dress for us to notice and you do them a disservice sir, by not paying tribute to their hard work. Plus they both look super cute tonight! Mathieson notes that The Stones have been around for forty five years, G smarts that modern medicine is still at a loss to explain how they keep going and going. Well guys, The Stones drummer Charlie Watts has been dead for about fifteen years, it's just no one has told him.

Total vampire. Right?

Him and Iggy Pop, no one seems to want to break the news to them. I mean, there were funerals held and everything. Also, Keith Richards is pumped full of so many drugs that it's kicked in and melded with his body's internal system like a weird preservative. He's going to outlive us all. It'll be Keith and the cockroaches, man. And Keith? Won't even notice. Dicko for some strange reason, is wearing a shirt that is more suited to Country 'n Western night. He also still persists in his belief that the winner of Idol will have a career and reminds us of the 200k. I had totally forgot about the money. Can they retrospectively give Irish 200k? Man has two kids, he could totally use that money.

It's time wastage time! We're reminded of where the Idols came from and their Journey!!1! to get here. I try to count the different hats during Wes Carr's package, he tops out at five but Guy Sebastian adds another to the count. They show his awesome first audition and rendition of 'All Along The Watchtower' and it's always nice to be reminded that I loved him from the get go, especially when Spanner (ohmygod, 'Angie'!! It's coming, it's COMING!!) has taken over as my favourite. The Messiah, his twitchy right leg and some maracas are singing 'Jumping Jack Flash'. He puts a nice growl into his voice for this song as his left leg takes over the twitching for a short time before handing back to his right, the Reigning Twitching Champion. He jumps on the spot as he sings 'Jumping Jack Flash' and I'll let that one slide because that's a natural dance-y/twitch-y way to go with this song. Oooh, all the backing vocalists tonight are guys. The camera guys are struggling to keep up with the mad dancing skillz of The Messiah as he jumps and twitches and Jesus Pose's all over the stage. As ever, his singing is excellent. I'm wanting a ballad from him now though, anyone else? I feel like this is all we see, the frenetic (but excellently done) high paced number. Even last week, he took a folksy song and rocked it up. I want something slower from him at some point, it would be nice. Also, a haircut.

Dicko says The Stones are "a byword for noisy, dirty rock 'n roll" and I note to Fosse that it would have been nice if Wes had not washed his hair for a couple of days before this performance. For a grungy sound and performance, he still looks a little too clean cut (but not as clean as Teale who you could eat your dinner off of). He loves how Wes inhabits the songs he does and also enjoyed the dirty, raw texture of his voice. He says it was "epic". Brown Sugar congratulates him on being one of the most consistent performers and never being scared. Kyle picks Wes up by the scruff of his neck and takes him to a corner to lavish him with love. He says Wes makes the song his own and says he loved the little Rolling Stones dance movements - which were the exact same dance movements he does EVERY week, so unless there were some Mick Jagger chicken head movements we didn't get to see at home, shut up Kyle - and just loves him. Mathieson picks up the maracas and busts out Homer Simpson's "you don't make friends with salad." A. Dor. Able.

whatserface knows the Adam Levine/Alicia Keyes version of 'Wild Horses' and you guys, would totally have done it herself if she could! So Roshani Priddis is completely just stealing her thunder! And this is nothing like the time that whatserface did the Chaka Khan version of 'We Can Work It Out' on Beatles night and then got booted by an Angry Nation. No, you watch, Roshani will be absolutely safe and not at all in the Bottom Three for taking a great song and performing a lame ass version of what is actually a pretty decent cover. Granted it's no The Sundays but it's still not bad. Even towards the end when Alicia puts about eight different notes in the one 'yeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah' (this will become important in about a minute when Roshani starts singing). Plus Adam Levine is HOT. Roshani even starts at the second verse like Alicia does. She starts off very timid, there's no strength to her singing at all. And once she does kick into her upper (and usually more powerful) register, she does The Alicia, throwing no less than ten wildly different and pitchy notes in where one beautifully sung simple note would have kicked frigging arse. Bottom Three. Time to go Roshani. Start packing. whatserface? For saying you would have done that, you can pack too. Fired. Both of you. That's two weeks in a row that Roshani has taken one of my favourite songs and killed it dead. Now I need to go listen to my Buffy The Vampire Slayer soundtrack and The Sundays version and remind myself why I love the HELL out of this song. Judges, please express your disgust in three . . . two . . . one . . .

Brown Sugar has never heard the song before at all, but notes that a lot of their songs are masculine and is pleased she took it into a pretty, female place, and have you seen Jagger's lips and eyelashes, BS? They're pretty frigging girly. Kyle has three things to say; he loved her singing, hated the song choice and tells her that her outfit looks like "the dog has savaged the takeaway dinner wrapper". It is kind of a stupid dress. Dicko says she's been very hit and miss recently due to song choice. He tells her she did an okay job but that she sucked the life out of a whacked out country song that's down and desperate and turned it into cabaret. He tells her it may be death by song choice. G thanks Dicko and Marcia and then tells Kyle that was stupid critiquing and that there was nothing constructive whatsoever. Kyle whinges that no one cares what G thinks and G smilingly tells him to shut up as this is his turn to talk. There is an AWESOME shot of Sandilands looking off camera at someone with an unhappy face from being put in his place by pretty boy G and you just know there's going to be a rumble in the parking lot after tonights show. My money's on G, he may be pretty but you watch his eyes, there's steel in them. Now if it was Brown Sugar versus G, my money would be on BS, no question. My momma didn't raise no fool.

(Spano? Soon-o!)

Luke Dickens has once again picked a great song for him, choosing 'Honky Tonk Woman', it's one of The Stones bluesiest songs and it falls into that Joe Cocker place he sits. He shows some nice range, although he misses his first really high note, he picks it back up again when he does it again later in the song. He is absolutely the surprise package of this season. But if he pushes one of my boys out of a spot in the Final Two (as Fosse fears he might; he argues that people voted Shannon Noll into the second spot, I argue back that I am still firmly convinced that Cosima DeVito was second and would have performed at the Opera House if the nodules hadn't forced her exit - man, good good times. Except maybe for Cosima), then there will be repercussions. Either way, this is a good performance. Again. Damn.

Kyle is still up on his high horse about G telling him off and goes in guns blazing, overly complimenting Luke on choosing a song that everyone actually knows and how unique a concept that is. He says with what's riding on the competition they all need to make good song choice and that Luke never disappoints, he is, in fact "smart in the head". Let's all pause and enjoy the stupidity of that statement for a moment before Mathieson comes out and beats Kyle around the face with it. Kyle notes that everyone at this point of the competition can sing, it would be pointless if they couldn't and oh!! Let's all cast our minds back to Season Three shall we? DeadtomeOnetrickponyLee Harding. Still in the competition at this point. Could he sing? History has proven otherwise. Of course, most of us didn't need history for that, we knew from his souless rendition of Green Day's 'Holiday' and NO, I will never let that go. Dicko agrees with Kyle and we all need a long, scalding hot, cleansing shower now, don't we? He says it's about connecting with the audience and being relatable and giving the show big moments (which I had to listen to three times, I could have sworn Dicko was saying "big mumps" but that made no sense at all . . . ) Brown Sugar smiles that she hates it when the guys say everything there is to say and blows him a kiss instead. Ms Hines' performance fee for the night of the 26th October will be donated to charity, being that she DID NOT EARN IT. In defence of his boy G, Mathieson comes out and smirks at Luke and Kyle about being "smart . . . in the head" and he fully puts the italics on it and pauses and everything and neither Luke nor Kyle really get that he's mocking the living SHIT out of them. But I'm sure they pointed it out to Kyle at some point and made him aware that they got the last word. Hosts = 2,347,179. Kyle = -378.

Sidebar; How, how, is Channel Ten possibly going to put Will and Grace on in the seven pm time slot? They cut even the slightest mention of sex and drugs out of episodes of Friends. We'll never see Jack or Karen at all, will we? It'll be a five minute show about a good Jewish girl and her single male neutered housemate exchanging witty banter about . . . god . . . I don't even know. What's left of W&G once you take out Jack and Karen? Cue snazzy piano tinkling opening credits, Grace wearing awful outfits, Will cooking, laugh track, closing credits and scene. That's so lame, I don't even know where to begin.

Speaking of lame, whatserface wants to know from Teale Jakubenko who is better, Keith or Mick. Teale looks completely lost because Rick Price wasn't one of the choices and he . . . doesn't know what to do with that. He's singing the Gregory House theme song 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' with 95% less choirboy. He's sat himself down on a barstool, he's got his guitar, he's strumming, he's asking us to sing it with him and it's . . . pretty. Let me tell you something, Jagger et al are not in any way pretty. Whilst Teale's voice sounds pretty much immaculate (although I preemptively shudder when he indicates he's about to key change, he segues nicely to the higher register and I am pleasantly surprised), it's just so booorrrrring and perfectly enunciated. I don't doubt for a second that there are people who would buy a Teale J CD but I am not one of them. My mother maybe . . . Fosse and I drift off into conversations about anything other than Teale. I wonder if the contestants might have been able to get away with singing The Beatles 'All You Need Is Love' purely because Mick Jagger sang a bit towards the end, it's a long shot and I know it. Fosse is appropriately dismissive. We tune back in for the judges.

Dicko tells Teale he's singing very very well at the moment and compliments his song choice. He loves how he made this truncated version work for him, giving it a sweet country pop vibe. Brown Sugar says that song is an epic and she had no idea how he was going to do it. BS says it was a very intelligent way to go about it, well done. Kyle wants to know if he was in charge of the arranging and initially it was all with the band. Teale says he learnt the song yesterday on his guitar (well done, sir!) and hastily re-arranged it to strip it back more.

whatserface is backstage with a very jiggly Chrislyn Hamilton who confesses to not knowing much about The Rolling Stones at all. whatserface says good luck in a tone of voice that whispers of The Beatles. Seriously, kids? If you want to have a career in music, LEARN ABOUT IT. The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, these are GIANTS in musical history, I'm not saying you need to be able to play Rachmaninoff's Concerto in D (possibly a made up concerto just for the purposes of this sentence) but The Stones? I shake my head at the Youth Of Today. Chrislyn is singing 'Get Off Of My Cloud'. Okay. Look. She sings this extremely well, lovely emotion, great range, well arranged but OH MY GOD, the mugging. The faces, the miming of the lyrics, the musical theatricalness of the whole fucking thing, it MUST STOP, Chrislyn, I'm begging you. Chrislyn has taken Dicko's notes of being BIG and BALLSY and applied them to the nth degree and it's too too much. Her rapid fire lyrics with the backing vocals moment, is ace and BV Garry is having a ball with her but the rest? I can't watch the rest again. I could listen, but I couldn't and wouldn't watch it again. She loses almost all the points she gains because of the incessant freaking MUGGING.

Brown Sugar says she loves watching her perform and says her fans adore her and so does BS. Kyle says he loves her, she's a star and there's nothing else he can say, he loves her, loves her, loves her. Dicko loves (oh, there's a lot of that going around - it's because they're further away from the mugging, they don't have it thrust down a camera at them) it when she cuts loose - don't encourage her, Dicko - and says it's "like the Vicar of Dibley on party drugs" and Fosse and I miss everything else that's said for the next five minutes because we're laughing our arses off. Gold, Dicko, 24 carat.

(Oh my god!! You guys!! He's next!!)

whatserface ask Mark Spano if he's a Stones fan, and Mark possibly deliberately completely smacks her down by saying he's more a Beatles fan. whatserface's face freezes for 0.3 seconds before she continues on. After the break G introduces his boys package (dirty!), then Mathieson throws to Mark perched at the front of the stage, just him, his acoustic guitar, some unfortunately distracting backlights, and the beautiful melody of 'Angie'. The living room is silent until about half way through when I turn to Fosse and tell him I'm changing my name to Angie. Fosse pauses for a second and says he is too. This is FLAWLESS. It's hands down the best he's ever sung, it's the best of the night, it might actually be the best of the season thus far and seriously makes me ache. In the best possible way. Gorgeous, Spanner.

Kyle doesn't know how to wrap up the word 'perfect' into a whole sentence and says everyone there loved it, it was brilliant. He points out some girls in the audience who are holding M A R K up to the cameras and when they finally turn it around so Mark can read it, it says K R A M, which he laughingly notes. They eventually turn it the right way around. I'm not surprised they're a little light headed as they were in the same room as that performance, I'm a whole state away and I'm a little dizzy. Dicko calls him Spannerman and then tells him the range of flavours he gives are fantastic. He loves the intensity and says that him just sitting there with his guitar gave us the most electric moment of the night. Then he gives him the most worthy Touchdown I've seen since The Gauc did 'All The Boys In Town'. Brown Sugar talks about an Italian singer whose name I can't type, and then calls out the Italian community as being uber proud of their boy. Also proud of his boy? G, who comes out and sits next to him. Fosse rolls his eyes (I didn't see it, but I felt him roll them) as I shriek happily that their knees are touching and aren't they adorable and can't you just see how much G wants to put his hand on Mark's knee??!! They chat about 'Angie' being the song Mark was learning when the dread nodules came.

Bottom three - Roshani (blah), Teale (boring) and Chrislyn (for the mugging)
Top three - Mark (sitting at the top all by himself), Wes and Luke

Angie out.