HUrrah to Latoya London & Amy Adams who are the latest peepz to make it to the prestigious final Twelve in AI3! Congratulations~!!!
oops! Let's rewind back to wednesday night when the contenstants in Group 3 made their debut on our television screens & boy were they awesome~!
First up, twenty-yr old dancer Elizabeth Letendre belted a rousing rendition of whitney's I Wanna Dance With Somebody & was loved by evrybody except simon cowell who called it a "cheap performance." Cheap or not, it was a credible performance & surely had set the standards pretty high for the rest of the contestants. Eric Yoder was next and his In The Still Of The Night was quite impressive... While Randy & Paula loved Eric's voice & smooth delivery, Simon claimed he was like Clay aiken minus the "personality." Seriously I'm getting abit peeved wif all these comparisons to clay and Eric sounds nothing like clay in terms of vocal tone or texture or even power... hmmm.. but i must admit eric's singing style was abit similar to clay's... :P Whatever the case, red-haired, zany misfit Amy Adams delivered a convincing Power Of Love which ranks her up there along wif the enigmatic Trenyce who performed this number last season. It was a very, very good performance - although it wasnt awesome - but Amy, who scarily stood a head taller than Ryan Secrest, had bundles of personality to spare, & her legions of fans (zaniness always has a cult following, it seems..) have successfully put her amongst the top twelve. good for her~! Simon, once again being the wet-blanket, deemed her competent of Cabaret Idol instead of AI but i'm sure Amy will make him eat his words yet.... Jon Peter Lewis may have been branded a "pen salesman" by Simon but it was beyond the flicker of a doubt that he can sing & his rendition of elton john's Tiny Dancer was very interesting & inspiring albeit a tad unspectacular compared to what we've been exposed to so far.
Charly Lowry's husky renderings on Chain Of Fools might not win everyone over but she did elicit a grudging compliment from Simon who thought her voice had great potential if only she'd learn to "let go." I actually think she sounds like a smoother version of Kelly Clarkson but then i guess the glaringly inappropriate, pink salsa dress worked against her that night... :P Chunky Hawaiian, Jonah Moananu, followed up with a mild & unspectacular I Wish. He does have a nice voice & evrything but apart from sounding smooth & RnBish, JOnah did not prove that he's American Idol worthy. TOo bad... Leah Labelle maybe only 17 but she had enough vocal chops to take on whitney's I Have Nothing & successfully managed to sound original. However, I was slightly distracted by her weird gesticulations (she was using a mic-stand)... in spite of this, she had good stage presence & star quality and simon came up wif a splendid metaphor for Leah -- "a designer dress wif a rip on it" (or sumthing like that anyway). i think i know what he must have meant to say though; leah's got loads of potential but she's basically still very raw... so is that a good thing or bad thing?? we wont know because she didnt make it into the top twelve... so sad! Okie.. just when you thought it couldn't get any better than that, petite-sized Latoya London strode out & practically brought the house down wif a superb All By Myself. i was like "whoah.. whoah.. Wow!!" Paula & Randy gave her a standing ovation & even Simon admitted she was the best so far they've had on AI3. i thought the performance was just a step short of being shrieky but thankfully, it wasnt and the judges were practically gushing wif praises about Latoya.. i guess all subtleties had been thrown to the four winds by then...
Well, Group 3 is certainly the best group of singers for this season's AI and it was a tough choice picking out the deserving two who should make it to the final twelve. Although i'm perfectly happy for Latoya & Amy (both of whom i know will do splendidly in future episodes), i'm rather sad that we wont get to see more of such good singers like Leah Labelle, Elizabeth Letendre & even the quirkily cute, Jon Peter Lewis.. haiz... hopefully next week's group 4 is just as good or even better!
PS: i think i'm beginning to have a renewed interest in celine dion's mushy power ballads...
