Tonight’s post may be a bit long because there were so many people to talk about. Because of that, I won’t be including a lot of extra details on the singers, but look for that in the coming days. Tonight’s show was the New York auditions. This is the first time that American Idol has been to New York since Season 3.
There was a guest judge again tonight— Carol Bayer Sager. I didn’t know who that was, but she is a really famous songwriter. Among other songs, she wrote Groovy Kind of Love and That’s What Friends Are For.
A lot of women made it through tonight, but not many men. So, even though the men weren’t anywhere near the beginning of the show, I’m going to go ahead and talk about the men that were shown who made it through first.
The first male that we saw make it to Hollywood was Jenry Bejarano. Adopted when he was one, Jenry did not look or sound 16. Simon wasn’t there when he auditioned, due to a late arrival on day 2, but Paula and Carol were swooning over him (last I checked, girls, sixteen is underage). Anyway, he was a charismatic guy with a good voice.
Chris Richardson was another guy who made it through. I’d put him in the “alright” category. But Simon said he thought he could surprise them all in the next round. I guess we’ll have to wait to Hollywood to find out.
Finally, there was Nicholas Pedro. You remember Nicholas from last year. He’s the guy who made Paula cry when he dropped out in Hollywood because he was overwhelmed and unable to learn the words to Buttercup. He said since dropping out, he has become more serious about singing, and he wants to redeem himself from dropping out last year.
That was it for the guys. From the look of things when they showed everyone who made it through from New York, they may have been the only guys who made it to Hollywood.
So, on to the women— I found the women today started to kind of blend together after a while, so I’m going to mention the ones that stood out to me first.
Porcelana Patino went through training that seemed more fitting for a boxer than a singer. She lost weight and got fit for her American Idol audition. That’s probably not a horrible plan, actually. I actually had to rewind the dvr to find out the spelling for her name because I was so sure she was going to be a loon that I didn’t pay much attention to it. She may be a loon, but she was a unique loon who had some singing talent. So, she made it through.
Rachel Zevita is studying opera. Often, this means bad things for American Idol auditions. Yes, they have great voices, but often everything sounds kind of like opera when they sing it. Not so with Rachel. Her first song didn’t sound like opera. They had her sing another song. It didn’t sound like opera, but it didn’t sound like the first song, either. The girl can definitely sing. The question is does she know herself well enough to present a musical point of view?
Best friends Antonella Barba and Amanda Coluccio were both very pretty. Simon clearly enjoyed them. They hadn’t planned to audition together, but the judges had Amanda (auditioning first) call in Antonella. First, they sang a duet together, and it was pretty horrible. Amanda was the better trained of the two, but she almost sounded “over trained”. Antonella was sure Amanda was the better singer, but the judges disagreed, and so did I. Both girls made it through to Hollywood, though, so hopefully they’ll still be best friends when it’s all over.
The first singer of the evening who made it through to Hollywood was Sarah Burgess. The 19 year old had lied to her parents about where she was going because they do not support her singing aspirations. Fortunately for Sarah, she made it through. When she called her Dad, he didn’t sound all that angry. Hopefully, they’ll be more supportive now.
Finally, there was Kia Thornton and Jory Steinberg. I thought they were both quite good, but they didn’t talk to them a whole lot, so there’s not that much to say about them. Kia did have the strongest reaction of any of the singers to the news she had made it through. As she fell on the ground screaming and crying, Simon turned to Randy and said “there’s one problem— no emotion”. Oh, that Simon.
Jory is a Canadian originally. Like I said, she sounded really good. She had a good look. She got a yes from all four judges. I don’t really know what else to say about her. She had met an awful lot of people in Canada, including the Queen when she visited Canada, so I’ll be interested to see what her story is when I have time to look into that more.
That was it for New York. A whopping 35 made it through. Next stop— Birmingham, Alabama. I guess they figured once you have two winners from a state, maybe you ought to schedule a stop there.
