Thursday, February 16, 2012

Las Vegas Round 1

Las Vegas here we go. Tonight American Idol heads to Las Vegas to perform once more for the judges. Huge amounts of cuts are supposedly going to take place tonight. There are 70 people left. Tons of singing should be occurring, hopefully a bit less drama, but knowing American Idol there will probably tons of it. Although they say "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas", American Idol is all about showing us the good, bad, and mostly ridiculous. The singers will be singing songs from the 50s and 60s and performing on the Viva Elvis stage. It's sad that a lot of these contestants probably don't even know who Elvis is, but we shall go on nonetheless.

So let's get to it:


Group Performances
Before leaving Hollywood the contestants must form groups of 3 or 4 and learn a 50s or 60s song.

Group 1
This group features Cari Quoyeser, Chase Likens, Skylar Laine and Colton Dixon. We'll see Colton's sister later in another group. Interesting that they didn't get together. Very enjoyable performance. Cari was the weakest of the group.

Who's Staying? = Chase, Skylar and Colton
Who's Going? = Cari

Group 2
The "Savannah 4". These contestants feature members that have known each other since the Savannah audition round. The group features David Leathers Jr, Jeremy Rosado, Ariel Sprague and Gabi Carrubba. They sound great singing "Rockin Robin" which was created over 30 years before any of them were born. I'm not that old but they make me seem like I should be getting discount tickets at the movie theater. David and Jeremy are easily the most fresh and  they make the most out of their experience.

Who's Staying? = All of 'Em
Who's Going? = None of 'Em

Group 3
This group has a good mix of talent. It features Adam Brock, Erika Van Pelt, Angie Zeiderman, Shelby Tweten. We haven't seen much of Shelby, and there might be a reason. She was not so good. Angie was bordering on not being that great but had a couple moments. Adam and Erika were great.

Who's Staying? = All of 'Em
Who's Going? = None of 'Em

Group 4
This group of 3 ladies features sister of Colton, Schyler Dixon, Brielle Von Hugel and an only verbal named girl that wasn't identified on screen, but her name was Molly. They were decent, not overly exciting, but decent.

Who's Staying? = Colton and Brielle
Who's Going? =Molly. Never a good sign when you aren't featured in the song and your name isn't on screen.

Notable  Contestant Elimination Interlude: Wayne Wilson, Ashley Robles, Stephanie Renae, Aubrey Deckmeyer, Janelle Arthur, Tina Torres.

Group 5
This group features Reed Grimm, still quirky as ever, Elise Testone, as impressive as always , Haley Johnson, not that strong, and Eben Franckewitz. I haven't been impressed with Eben thus far and tonight didn't help that. I don't think he's that strong, but he keeps getting through but we'll see. Elise and Reed were by far the best of the performance, but Haley did have a nice end to the song.

Who's Staying?=All of 'Em
Who's Going?= None of 'Em. The Eben era continues on.

Group 6
After not blending well with any of the girl groups this group features only 2 members. Vocal coach Debra Byrd sees problems abound with this group that features Richie "The Cowboy" Law and Jermaine Jones. They both have very low voices, Jermaine is more natural, Richie sounds a little muppetish and sounds like he is trying too hard. Together they end up blending pretty well.

Who's Staying? =Both of 'Em
Who's Going? =Neither of 'Em

Notable Contestants Staying Interlude: Hallie Day, Baylie Brown and Chelsea Sorrell

Group 7
This is a group of people that really haven't been featured that much thus far on the show. They feature members Jessica Sanchez,Candace Glover and Deandre Brackensick, who I remember getting cut from last season, I mainly remember him because of his funky hair. Candace sounds great. Where have they been hiding her? Same with Jessica Sanchez. Deandre was trying a little too Prince for me, but overall the group sounded pretty great together.

Who's Staying?= All of 'Em
Who's Going?= None of 'Em

Group 8
Clayton Farhat, Scott Dangerfield, Adam Lee Decker and Curtis Gray. Never heard of any of them before this performance. The choreography was awesome, the voices were kinda generic.

Who's Staying?= Scott, Clayton, Adam
Who's Going?= Curtis


Notable Contestants Staying Interlude 2: Caleb Johnson, Joshua Sanders, Joshua Ledet and Shannon Magrane.

Group 9
This group features three ladies, Britnee Kellogg, Courtney Williams, and Jessica Phillips. We have seen Jessica most often, but Britnee has been around here and there, we don't know a lot about Courtney. She has the weakest voice of the 3 ladies. Jessica wasn't as strong as she has been before which is dissapointing, Britnee was very good.

Who's Staying?= Britnee and Courtney
Who's Going?= Jessica. I was just starting to like Jessica, too bad. But she leaves kinda bitterly so don't feel as bad as I did.

Group 10
Peggi Blu, another vocal coach was not too happy about this group, especially from Lauren Gray. We haven't heard Lauren in a long time, and Peggi makes Lauren cry and asks if she is on "Ridlin". Not sure if that's exactly P.C, but it was funny. Other group members are Wendy Taylor and Mathanee Treco. Lauren kicks off the song so beautifully, it actually gets me really pumped up because she sounded so damn good.Mathanee did not sound so good at all and Wendy was middle of the line. Lauren is by far the standout of this group.

Who's Staying?= Lauren and Wendy
Who's Going?=Mathanee

Group 11
After a tumultuous last go around with Richie "The Cowboy" Law, former members of MIT, Jairon Jackson, Heejun Han and Phillip Phillips, add new member Neeco Starr. Heejun  is still pretty fun and provides some awesome commentary. Jairon still isn't as strong as I wish he was but Heejun sounds very strong. We don't hear much from Phil Phillips this time around and he definitely sounds out of his element in this genre.

Who's Staying?= All of 'Em
Who's Going?= None of 'Em

Group 12
"Groove Sauce" is back from the original group round, but they are now called "Lady and the Spectacles"because they are minus Reed Grimm. This group still features Aaron Marcellus, Creighton Fraker, Nick Boddington and Jen Hirsh. As a group they were fantastic, their voices blended incredibly well. Aaron and Jen killed their individual parts and Nick and Creighton did really well as well. Probably the strongest group from top to bottom. The weakest was Nick but he was still not so bad.

Who's Staying?= Aaron, Creighton and Jen
Who's Going?=Nick


Random Cuts
Because there were too many people staying based off their group performances the judges had to get rid of people in just a straight elimination. No performing, no nothing, just saying who stays and who goes to get down to a workable number of people staying.

Notable Eliminations:
Gabi Carrubba, Schylar Dixon, Angie Zeiterman, Candace Glover, Johnny Keyser, Jairon Jackson and Britnee Kellogg.


Final Thoughts
*How many times did we have to endure the "fake out" by the judges.  Saying each member name one at a time, making it seem like people were leaving but they end up staying. Once, maybe twice it can be a little tricky, but after the fourth or fifth time it was predictable. Randy has been on the show 11 years, he can't figure out another way to do eliminations?

*The Jessica Phillips, Johnny Keyser and Schylar Dixon eliminations were probably the biggest of the night.It has to suck thinking you made it to the Top 40 and then learn that you didn't right at the end.

*I liked this round because we heard a lot of voices that we haven't heard before or haven't heard from in a long time. New voices like Jessica Sanchez, Ariel Sprague and Chase Likens mixed well with voices we haven't heard in awhile like Elise Testone, Colton Dixon and Lauren Gray. It was great to hear those voices again.

*42 People Remain, Only 24 Will Perform in the Live Rounds.Should be fun coming up.


Next week is the big week. We find out which contestants will be making it to the live rounds. Please come on back here next Wednesday for a brand new recap right after the episode. If you haven't done so already please check out our podcast BS Factor, which is located in the upper right hand corner or at BSFactor.Podbean.com. Until next time, See ya.









2 comments:

  1. I felt bad for those people who thought they made it in the first round only to be eliminated the next day. Didn't really think it was fair.

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  2. I agree, that's like "Here's the lollipop, Oh, nope now you don't". Just not right. The judges were way too lenient during the group performances that's why they got into that mess

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