AI:6 - Memphis
Mercifully, we only spent a single hour in Memphis. I know I differ from a great many folks on this subject, but I’m really not that much of a fan of the audition phase of AI. I don’t (like seems to be trendy among the easily offended this year) find the proceedings particularly cruel; neither do I find them all that funny. Strange? Yup. Sad? Yup. Pathetic? Surely. But not particularly cruel or humorous. Ultimately, for me, the auditions are a necessary evil — one that must be endured to get to the more enjoyable & interesting phases of the competition.
We to to see only 5 out of the 23 golden ticket winners. And out of those 5, the only pick-to-click that I saw was Sundance Head. Simon was right — based on what we saw last night, I’ll be shocked if Sundance doesn’t make the Top 12/Finals. He’s got a great voice, great personality, good backstory (the showbiz father story reminds me of Benji from So You Think You Can Dance? ), some sympathy for being somewhat overweight, and he’s not ugly. That all adds up to building a powerful fan base.
As far as the other 4, I think backup singer Melinda Doolittle could be a force, if only because she has talent and she’s somewhat endearing. But she could easily be done in by her lack of confidence, and buckle under the pressure of being front-and-center. 18 y/o Danielle McColloch looks to be this season’s early entry in the “Kellie Pickler/Blonde-Cutie” role. As soon as I saw her, I thought she’d get through, if she could only avoid being tone-deaf. And she did. The two other guys who got through, Sean Michel & Phil Stacy, really impressed me all that much. Michel’s just got too much of that “Castro/Unabomber” look going, without enough talent backing him up, and Stacy just go, IMO, a sympathy pass because of the new-baby story.
Amongst the rest of the delusional & publicity-whore dreck, the only three that really stood out for me were 16 y/o Meeky Sims, who was entertainingly unintelligible in a nearly comatose, “Slingblade” kinda way, and 20 y/o Janita Burks, whose style was based on a confidentiality (sic) predicated on classily & conservatively letting her boobs flop all about the stage. While wearing sunglasses. Topher McCain also deserves mention, if only because the poor delusional guy was focused on Paula in the aftermath of having to kick out his wife for cheating on him. I felt bad for laughing when he said that he forgave her, and was willing to take her back until he realized that she took that as an invitation to keep messing around. And then he sang Footloose & busted some mad dance moves. Or something like that…
Also notable was Simon getting his diva on wrt the marching band, and Ryan calling him a bitch. Good times…
Next up: NYC
-ghp
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