Idol. A Journey!!1!

Season One

There are two standout moments from S1 in my mind. The first moment is sitting in my living room watching the Final Three as the boys put Guy Sebastian through to the Opera House and then paused whilst Cosima produced a piece of paper as she had something to say. At that moment, I knew she was withdrawing. The previous night she had noticeably lost part of her vocals during 'River Deep, Mountain High'. It was painful to listen to, as this powerhouse of a voice petered and cracked and eventually gave up. The last long note she hit splintered about halfway through and the look of disappointment on her face was heartbreaking. To this day, I firmly believe she would have been in the finals with Guy over Shannon Noll.

The second moment is back home in WA as the Opera House finale was televised after a week of Guy and Shannon spruiking around the country, stumping for votes. It was the day my sister and brother in law brought their second baby - the mischieveous Isabelle - home (their other daughter is partially named after me, and is ridiculously like me. Genetics is some weird shit, man) and I was over there for the birth. My sister and I had discussed Idol and whilst it was of a lesser import than the safe birth of Belle, it was still high on the list of priorites, specifically the winning of such show by Sebastian. Neither of us wished to have introduced little Belle to a world where Shannon Noll had won the first season of Idol. It can be said that we were not fans. There was much wooing and whispered yaying as Guy was named Aus Idol and I whispered in Belle's ear that the world was safe from bumpkin rock. How wrong I was. But good for Shannon, he's made an excellent career for himself that I can almost completely ignore - except for the fact one of his songs (and actually, one I shamefully confess to enjoying) is the theme song for The Biggest Loser.

Season Two

Oh, S2. My favourite of seasons. Chanel Cole, Courtney Murphy, Daniel Belle, Casey Donovan. 'Here's Where I Stand', 'Across The Universe', 'Glory Box', 'You Raise Me Up', 'God Only Knows', 'She Will Be Loved' and 'The Prayer'. What an amazing fucking season, full of outstanding performances. I was at rehearsals at Shaneequa's house when Chanel and Ricki Lee hit the Bottom Three after Beatles week. Fosse texted me in horror and I immediately called a halt to rehearsals to plunge at her tv and throw it on. We were all convinced it spelt the end for Chanel and I was LIVID as we waited through the commercial break. My eyes have never been bigger than when it was announced it was Ricki Lee who was leaving. There was a dance of joy, you know there was. Not to mention a HUGE freaking sigh of relief. And I was okay when a couple of weeks later, Chanel did go. The competition had started to sap the life out of her, the inexplainable and consistent dislike from Marcia was grating on everyone's nerves and it was time. She'd rocked my world - and continues to do so. Her original work with Spook (with Daniel Belle and Statler and Waldorf) remains one of my favourite post Idol CDs and my trips to Bega with the CC forum kids has produced a great number of new friends. Even if the last time I played Scrabble with Chanel via Facebook she dropped all her tiles in one hit, blowing her score into the stratosphere and then NEVER FINISHED THE GAME. Come on, Coco, what's that about? Let's dance.

And yeah, the winner of S2, Poor Poor Casey, started the tradition of Idol Treating Girl Winners Badly, but go listen to the song she has on her Myspace page. Her voice still sounds amazing and I expect in later years, she'll have the maturity to make her quite the awesome and accomplished alternative folk musician. Plus, Fosse and I wanted her to beat Anthony 'he'll be a real boy one day' Callea SO bad, I don't think we breathed at all when they were announcing the winner.

Season Three

Oy. Man, what a dog of a year. Except for the constantly growing, ever surprising talents of Miss Kate DeAurago, there wasn't a lot to keep me going that season. I fell in and then quickly out of love with DeadtomeOnetrickponyLee Harding and hated the crazy amount of love and pimpage that Mark Holden showed for EmilyTheColdlyAnointedOne. I loathed that Kyle Sandilands had replaced Dicko; worse that he turned out to be the sanest of the judges that year, as Marcia continued to offer no concrete critique and Holden gave everyone - but Kate - Touchdowns. I especially loathed the complete and utter look of disgust on Holden's face as Kate was announced the winner.

But the night of the Aus Idol finale of S3 was awful for other, much sadder and real life impacting reasons. That was the evening I pulled into the driveway, only to run over Fosse's beloved Doc, his eight year old cat who, for whatever reason, didn't move out of the driveway as I came down it. He was unseeable in the dim of the days dying light amid the grass, and the horror of that night, driving him frantically to the vet, sobbing uncontrollably against the wall of the examining room as the vet told me it didn't look good, being hugged and reassured by the lovely Eupholoofo that everything would be okay (it wasn't, he passed away a week later, we still miss you Doc, you crazy possum catching, laid back, alpha, cool cat) and then having to tell Fosse what had happened, is still a distressing memory. As you can imagine, Idol took quite the backseat in a somber, saddened ChezBelle that night. Even the joy of Kate beating Emily, who I hated, was never fully realised.

Season Four

S4 brought everything back again. The excitement, the fervour, the absolute one eyed fanaticism of being desperately, hugely, amazingly, head over heels devoted to one fantastically awesome contestant, the Irish chemist, Damien Leith. Only Chanel had produced the amount of sighing and gooey eyed happiness that Irish gave me, week after week. It was a wonderful feeling, to be enjoying my show again so much. And that the Final Two were so freaking likeable! Jess Mauboy and Irish were the standouts from their season for me (as Bobby Flynn and Lisa Mitchell, who had started out strong, had quickly disappointed) and I loved Damien from the get go. Fosse and I rushed to Shaneequa's that night to watch the finale, fully aware that in a room full of people, we were the only two who wanted an Irish win. I screeched in victory, Chrispy threw his hands up in disgust, Shaneequa rolled her eyes knowing she'd be hearing about this for weeks to come and Fosse and I beamed and chair danced excitedly.

I have bought all of his CDs. I have seen him perform twice live (he's AWESOME). I made him sign his book 'To TallulahBelle love Irish', and made him write on my CD 'fiddle dee dee potatoes' because I knew it would amuse Shaneequa. He did not call security based on either of these requests and was in fact entirely awesome about the whole thing. He is waaaaay cool. Red may or may not have had to put up with me excitedly giggling every five seconds that "he's so irish" when we saw him the first time. He's my Aus Idol. I'm glad for him and I look forward to his next CD of originals.

Season Five

Oh, Natalie Gauci. Man, she rocked my world SO many times S5. Only Ben McKenzie made me happier - oh, Moppet. I still hate that he went out so early. And the hotness that was HotCarl was definitely a highlight of S5, although the trilby thing he wore whilst singing 'Waltzing Matilda' week one may go some of the way to explaining my dislike of the hats worn this year by The Messiah. I argued fiercely with people that The Gauc would win the series from a fairly early point. Most expected Matt Corby to win because the tweens loved him so. I posited my theory that the young do not own Idol, they own Big Brother. We, the over 25's own Idol. Matt Corby was never going to win. I am so disappointed that we still don't have an original CD from Natalie. Even Kate got an original. I have read lots of reasons why this may be - some say she's too much of a perfectionist to finalise recording, others say she's being shafted by SonyBMG. Either way, I'd like to see whatever the reasons are, be resolved. Natalie has an outstanding voice and I still want to hear more of it. I meandered home from a matinee performance that night secure in the knowledge that she would win and made it home with ten minutes to spare prior to the announcement. I never got around to writing about it, my interest waning quickly due to a dull season (Gauci and McKenzie notwithstanding).

Season Six

So tonight, I shall be at rehearsal. Monday night too. So I don't know when I'll have a chance to watch the show in its entirety as it will be late when I get home tonight. I'll throw the tape on briefly to see who won but I fully expect it to be Wes Carr. Whilst Luke Dickens has come a long way, it would be a weird and woolly world where he could beat a musician of The Messiah's calibre. Luke's New! Original! Song! Written! Just! For! Him! is not as good as The Messiah's is. So I imagine I'll watch it maybe Tuesday, write about it at some point during the week, fire whatserface a few more times and lament the passing of another season where I couldn't text Chanel to 19 10 10. Although I totally did that today. Just for old times sake.

TallulahBelle out.