American Idol went hardcore last night; the theme was rock, and the mentor was Slash.
Ryan addressed the series of Idol accidents before the show, part of the stage fell apart and although he did not mention it, the stage manager was badly injured during dress rehearsal.He did post a tweet about it after the show.
The Idols did something a little different in their performances; they sang duets as well as one performance by themselves.
Adam Lambert was first up singing “Whole Lotta Love” by Led
Zeppelin. Slash said Adam is effortless. This was definitely his
element and he sounded really professional but I wouldn’t be surprised
if Simon called it “indulgent.” Randy said it was definitely not
Broadway and Simon said it was one of his favorite performances by Adam
and thought no one could top it.
Allison Iraheta was up next and she chose to sing “Cry Baby” by
Janice Joplin. Slash said she has a natural rock n' roll mannerism and
swagger. Paula said that Allison is downright fearless and Simon said
it was a terrific but it could’ve been more original. Allison actually
stood up for herself and told Simon she thought her other possible song
choice would’ve been too safe.
After Allison, Danny Gokey and Kris Allen sang a duet of
“Renegade” by Styx. Simon said Danny was better than Kris in the
performance and Kara made fun of them because they are such nice guys
and they are definitely not “renegades.”
Kris Allen sang “Come Together” by the Beatles and Slash said he
just needed to pick up his energy a little bit. I think Kris is the
next one to go. He doesn’t have the same star power
as the others. Randy said he appreciated that Kris stayed himself in
his performance and loved his guitar performance. Paula said it was a
risky song choice but she liked his imprint on it.
Danny Gokey was up next singing “Dream On” by Aerosmith. Slash
said he had to do the scream at the end because it’s essential to the
song. It didn’t seem very natural for Danny and I thought it was
terrible! I really hope that Danny is going home instead of Kris, guess
we'll find out tonight. Kara said she liked that he took a chance and
Simon said “the last
note was like watching a horror movie.”
The night ended on a duet with Allison and Adam singing “Slow Ride” by
Foghat. It was cool because they are both total rockers, a great way to
top off the night. All of the judges loved it and thought they should
do a duet on their future albums. Simon said they won the “battle of
the duets.”
Overall, I like the idea of duets in one aspect and not in
another. American Idol is not a show to find the best duet singers out
there, this is a competition where you fight for your own safety and
power. However, it was nice to see the contestants working together on
a song and it was definitely a time saver, even though they still went
over by 3 minutes last night.