American Idol: The Dirty Dozen

The auditions mercifully over, the final 36 having been weeded out at “Judges Mansion,” we finally come to the season’s first live show, featuring the first group of 12, nine of whom will see their Hollywood dream come crashing down at tonight’s results show.

Seacrest informs us tonight’s theme is “Hits from the Billboard Hot 100,” a category only slightly less broad than “Every Song That’s Ever Been Written.” Which almost always means the contestants pick a song that has some sort of deep personal meaning to them, but which is wholly unsuited for this made-or-break performance.

In fact, the night’s theme could have easily been “Rotten Song Choices,” because, with a couple of exceptions, they chose some stinkers, and the top male and female spots seem alarmingly clear.

Before we begin, Paula has some advice for the contestants: “You know what? This is all your dream, right? You gotta hit that centre stage and make magic happen in a minute 20 seconds, and if you don’t? Look to the right, look to the left, whoever’s better, you’re gonna go home. It’s a tough, tough kind of a season this year.”

The first performer was rock chick Jackie Tohn, who took to the stage sporting the same satin pants my sister used to wear to the roller disco in 1977. She sang The King's "A Little Less Conversation," which definitely highlighted her vocal limitations, but she prowled and pranced around the stage with commanding exhuberance. None of the judges thought the singing was all that great, but they uniformly liked her stage presence, Kara noting that “you can work a stage, girl!” Simon, of course, was not as enthralled, and called it “gimmicky.” And who can forget the awkward banter between Jackie and Randy? “I like the trousers,” Dawg says. “And the trousers like you!” says Jackie. Sheesh.

Next up was Ricky Braddy, who we all remember from . . . wait, have we even seen this guy before? If so, he certainly didn’t leave an impression on me. And once he started to sing, I realized why. He has all the charisma of a piece of toast. A solid vocal, but a big yawn all around. Of course, Paula gave him the standing O while Kara thought he “killed that song,” but Simon was struck by Ricky’s complete lack of personality. “No star quality” was how he put it. “Meh” is how I put it. I see a cruise ship in his future.

Then, the show’s highlight, newly dirty-fied Alexis Grace singing some Aretha. My first thought was, Oh-uh, since singing an Aretha song is almost always a big reminder that you ain’t Aretha. But Alexis nailed it. NAILED. IT. Bluesy and soulful, she somehow managed to put her own spin on it, a thoroughly enjoyable performance all around. My wife walked in the room and said, “Is that Duffy?” And she’s right, I can totally see Alexis in that mold. Kara said, “The genie’s out of the bottle,” while Paula rambled incoherently before Simon jumped in and said she could be the “dark horse in this competition,” going so far as to say she reminded him of Kelly Clarkson when she was at this stage.

The camera cuts to the audience, and . . . hey, it’s Neil Patrick Harris and Ted Danson! Are they dating? I gotta start picking up US Weekly to stay on top of this stuff . . .

Oh, and before I forget to mention it, what was up with the band last night? Consistently, song after song, Ricky Minor and his crew played like the world’s cheesiest wedding band. The arrangements were pathetic. I'd prefer to hear them sing with just piano if the band is goiing to be as lame as it was last night. Simon pointed this out a few times, but let’s hope America’s No. 1 TV show can raise the musical bar as the season progresses, or otherwise we're in for some awful, awful sounds.

Brent Keith was next, and he sang a bluesy country number called “Hicktown.” Did nothing for me (Simon agreed, calling it “forgettable”) but let’s never underestimate the country-music contingent that watches this show. As the evening’s only Nashville wannabe, he’ll probably do surprisingly well in the voting. Paula is jazzed, though, saying she was reminded of southern-fried former contestant Bucky Covington. Which prompts Simon to point out, "And where's Bucky Covington now?" Paula and Kara are all, "Ooooh!" But he's right. According to Bucky Covington's official website, he's got a busy summer coming up, since he seems to be booked at every county fair in rural America.

Stevie Wright provided the evening’s first out-and-out train wreck, a bad song sung badly. Taylor Swift? C’mon. She picked the one artist who makes the Jonas Brothers seem deep by comparison. She was nervous and waaaaay out of tune, and the song was totally lame, and way out of her league. Hey, it happens.

And now it's time for Anoop DeSai (or, as Randy insists on calling him, Anoop Dawg). The song was a snooze (“too serious, too grown-up," says Simon) but the judges keep harping about his “massive likeability,” which can carry you far at this stage in this competition.

Casey Carlson served up the show’s second disaster, tackling “Everything She Does Is Magic” by the Police. Pure karaoke, done dreadfully. As Kara and the rest of the judges pointed out, you don’t do Police songs. You just don’t. Randy summed it up best by breaking into song: “Everything about that was wrong!” But Casey took it stoically, and you could see the acceptance on her face that it was pretty much over for her.

Anne Marie Boskovich was the second contestant tonight to tackle an Aretha Franklin song, “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman,” although with less impressive results. Simon put it extra bluntly when he said she just wasn’t “good enough to sing that song.” And she wasn’t. The only thing she managed to do was to make it perfectly clear that Anne Marie Boskovich is no Aretha Franklin.

Steve Fowler chose Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You,” a horrendous song choice that he didn’t sing all that well. Randy called it “the wrong joint for you,” and even Paula said it was “the kiss of death.” Simon said, “I actually wish you had forgotten the lyrics, because it was such a pointless performance.”

Tatiana Del Toro was next, or at least some Invasion of the Body Snatchers/Stepford Wives version of the emotionally unstable drama queen we’ve come to know and loathe. Did somebody slip her some Zoloft before the show? Because she was so demure as to be frightening (the judges said they also found the new drama-free Tatiana a little scary, in that calm-before-the-storm kind of way). But she did well, a cover of Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love For You” that she performed quite well, not phenomenally by any stretch, but pretty good. Randy said she had some “nice moments,” and was surprised that “she can actually sing.” Simon weighed in with, "You are a complete and utter drama queen. Back to the singing, it was better than I expected."

Oil-rig worker Michael Sarver was next. He was fine, and as much as he’s a nice guy and all that, and it’s clear the judges love him to death, but I think this is the end of the road for him. He sang the theme song to “One Tree Hill” (my daughter told me, OK?), and he sounded pretty good, but not good enough. And his awkward “dance” attempts reminded me of Sean Penn’s brother in “Footloose.”

And the big finish went to Danny “Top 10” Gokey, who continued his winning streak of knockout performances, choosing Mariah Carey’s “Hero” and hitting it out of the park. Not my cup of tea, either song- or performance-wise, but this is the type of stuff “Idol” fans go nuts over. And didja notice that without the nerdy glasses he could pass for Robert Downey Jr’s little brother? “Blazing hot!” said Randy. “Sold-out arenas!” screeched Paula. Leave it to Simon to pour some cold water on this love parade, and he told the other judges to calm the hell down. Yes, it was good, but let’s not book him into Wembley just yet. “I like you,” admits Simon, “I’m just not buying the hype.”

We’ll find out who makes the cut in tonight’s results show, but, to continue with tradition, I’ll make my bound-to-be wrong predictions for who’ll make it through:
Danny Gokey and Alexis Grace are the obvious no-brainers for the man and woman to be selected, so I’ll go with that. The third will be the person who receives the highest number of votes after that and I think it will be a shooting match between the likeability of Anoop and the country-music support for Brent Keith.