Rock Night - 5/5/09

:welcome1: Hello to all. Ryan Seacrest welcomes us also to the show by letting us know tonight we have several "firsts". Seems earlier in the day, the set started falling down just before dress rehearsal. Thank goodness people were not on the stage. So our usual sign looks cockeyed. Needless to say our contestants were unable to have a proper run through of their songs. One other first is tonight we will have two of the contestants pair up to give us a duet. Hmmm, should be interesting.

After saying hello to the judges and the contestants, we find that Slash is the mentor for this week. Slash has had a good career being a lead guitarist for groups like Guns N Roses and Velvet Revolver. He has collaborated with several stars since his career began in 1985. Currently he is working on a solo album and our contestants will be rehearsing with him at the famous Roxy On The Strip. One other thing I might mention here is I have read that Slash is one really nice guy. So now on to the show:

Normally I am thrilled with Adam Lambert's performances but for some reason tonight I was not that blown away as he performs "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin. He looked sort of strange to my eyes with his make-up and vocally he was good but his stage presence was sort of lacking as I have seen this group perform in concert and Robert Plant (lead vocalist of Led Zeppelin) have such energy and charisma while on stage. Each of the judges were impressed however with his performance with Kara calling him a rock god. It was good but not incredible in my opinion. My grade: B+

Next up is Allison Iraheta and once again I am not that impressed as she performs "Cry Baby" by the legendary Janis Joplin. She sings the song straight like the original and although her vocals sounded okay I was sort of bored with her performance. Another factor I noticed was how limited her range is when she sings. Each of the judges recognize her good voice but are also not thrilled with the song choice as she showed no originality. My grade: B

Our first duet is next with Danny Gokey and Kris Allen performing together to the song "Renegade" by the group Styx which was a hit in 1978. I had to agree with Randy that the harmonies were good but also agreed with Kara that there were several pitchy notes when they sang separately. Simon felt Danny sang better but in reality I think they were tied for having off notes. Overall, it was okay. My grade: B

Kris Allen is performing "Come Together" by The Beatles and is once again playing guitar. Again I felt the vocals just bordered on okay although I thought his slower part of the song was a little better. Randy thought the guitar playing was better than the singing. Kara did not find this to be a great performance, Paula of course was complimentary about his artistry but Simon said it best that it was like eating a ice cube for lunch. No wow factor at all. My grade: B-

Danny Gokey makes a bold choice to sing Aerosmith's "Dream On". I had to agree with the judges that this was not a good song choice as Danny really does not have the range to perform this song. His overall vocals were good but he had a rough time at the end trying to reach the high notes. One thing I will say is he sounded better during the rehearsal clip we saw. My grade: B

Our last duet was a little better with Adam Lambert and Allison Iraheta. They are singing "Slow Ride" by the group Foghat. This was sort of a safe choice in my opinion as this song does not contain many words. However they were 'in sync" as Paula mentions and sounded basically pretty good. Randy and Kara feel they should put a duet on their future albums with each other. Simon says that he feels Adam did so well that it made Allison have a chance of staying in the competition as she sounded good singing with him. Not sure on that comment but the performance was not bad. My grade: B

So now all have performed and frankly I think all of them may be in danger for elimination. I really have no clue who might be going but do want to hear what you think. So have a good day and I will be back later for the re-cap of the results show.

Toodles!

CC, Love the grades.. I am afraid that I do agree with them this week. My take on ROCK

Adam- I expected a lot from him due to the theme and he was good but for me just not as good as what I thought he would be. There seemed to be something missing and I so disagree with the judges fawning all over his performance, but I guess it's something they do every week so why should this week be any different..

Allison- Again she did ok, I think her age was a disadvantage to her this week, I know this is her type of music but she seemed to have lost something in her song and the performance..

Kris- I so wanted him to do good but knew in my heart that it would be a tough week for him and wonder if this theme wasn't set with that in mind, I didn't think he did a bad job of the performance and i felt for him knowing that he had to have known the judges were not going to give him good marks. I thought he held true to his nature and although he didn't ROCK IT like Adam and Allison he did pretty good.

Danny- I guess the same could be said for him as for Kris, so out of their element on Rock, but with both of them, they had have known that if Adam and Allison could do the other themes they'd have to bring it on rock as well. It's sad but a fact that neither Danny or Kris did that great and I for one didn't notice it so much but a lot did not like Danny's high note at the end of his song, said it did him in..

I thought the duet's were very much mixmatched bad,,, they should have paired them a rocker in each group instead of Danny and Kris together and Adam and Allison, a bit unfair to me... I did like the duet's though, but disagreed with the judges that Danny did better than Kris, Kind of made me think they were going to do whatever they had to do to get Kris gone, Of course I'd love to see him in the finale and we all know that it's set for Adam/Danny and I think Kris has suprised them by lasting as long as he did and doing as well as he did. It's now all up to the fans and voters of Kris to keep him in, but don't think it's looking to good for him right now..

I'd say Adam is for sure save but then after last week who knows right..

Chris D performs tonight and I'm sure he'll do great and give his fans and the judges will love him as well, Lets see if he gets a standing O as well..

Thanks as always CC for the great review...

Sounds like more rehearsal could have been beneficial, huh?
~tyg

Adam - a rocker??

Allison - a rocker!!!!!!!! Though i was disappointed in the song she choose. I was hoping she would go with a Glace Slick song.

Kris - a like his performance but a think he could have show off his vocals with a different song.

Danny - He scream his guts out!!! That was the funniest thing i seen on ai in my 4 season of watching.

Hi gang! Better late than never for input, huh? I thoroughly enjoyed your recaps CC.

Here's my take on Rock night for the Idol contestants.
Before I begin I must say it was good seeing Slash. I'm usually not into this type of rock music but every once in a while someone comes along I just can't ignore. Slash is definately one of those people.

Adam: Even though I'm not a big fan of his I thought he did a very good job. Not great but good. The original can never be outdone no matter who sings it. His outfit was alittle distracting to me. For a young man with such good looks....why all the makeup?

Allison: Her performance for me was OK. I agree this song did nothing to show any of her fantastic vocal range. I will say I loved her hair. LOL Did anyone notice she got a little sassy with Simon? I certainly giggled at that.

Danny and Kris duet: Quite frankly I loved it. Yes, there were a few pitch problems but overall....it was incredible. Also, if they had the chance to do a rehersal those pitch problems might have been worked out. If these two decided to put together a "boy band"...OMG!...they would do so well.

Kris: This was my favorite performance for the night.

Danny: hehehe Mind you, I'm a big, big fan of Danny's. But this kind of music is definately not for him. He did an OK job but that last note....(THE SCREAM)....ah, yeah...I chuckled. Poor guy!

Adam and Allison duet: For me it was another OK performance. They really compliment each other but I wasn't blown away by it.

Taylor Hicks can outdo the original.