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August 23, 2004

Sunday Night’s Performances | The Judges Go Soft

I won’t go through the individual performances one by one as per normal because quite frankly, I can’t be bothered. There were quite a few decent singers, and a few more mediocre ones. You would not however have been able to tell this from the way the judges behaved. Did someone at Channel Ten spank Dicko for his fiery appraisal of Daniel Belle? Or did surly Daniel simply scare Dicko into watching his mouth this week? Either way, every single contestant was handled with kid gloves. Boo, says I.

For me personally, the biggest standout of the night was young Casey Donovan’s performance. I had begun to wonder after Thursday night’s Inside Idol whether Casey was a bit of a wannabe alternative school kid wanker. Terrible, I know, but her profile on the official site did nothing to comfort me. Her favourite musical genres were heavy metal, grunge, death metal, and jazz, and her musical idol is Kurt Cobain. It sounded ominously like a text-book case of teen pretentiousness but hey - we’ve all been through it.

I thoroughly expected to see her end up singing an Evanescence or Limp Bizkit song last night. As you can imagine then, I was shocked when Casey pulled out an absolutely classy diva-esque piece called “Here’s Where I Stand” by Tiffany Taylor (Sorry, but who?). A truly brilliant performance, I have to say. She hit the huge notes but avoided unnecessary warbling which other singers in the competition seem to think is a fitting substitute for genuine emotion. Mark Holden was moved to tears (and for once, he wasn’t just being a parody of Mark Holden Series One) and eventually pulled out a “touchdown!”. Marcia declared she was speechless (and yet miraculously managed to speak for a fair while about how good Casey’s performance was) and Dicko also gave the young music student a pat on the back. Casey’s stage presence reminded me a bit of a Mama Cass, which is meant to be entirely complimentary - Mama Cass had a fantastic voice and great performing style. Could “Dream A Little Dream Of Me” be next on the agenda for Casey?

No one else managed to reach the heights of Casey’s greatness, but a few other potential contenders emerged from the ranks. I can’t help but like Garth Ploog, despite his tendency to Young Talent Time his performances. Could he be the male equivalent of Yasmine Dia?

Even though he cried on Thursday night’s Idol show (the big woolly woofter!), I still think Daniel O’Connor is a bit of a spunk rat (hey, I never said I wasn’t shallow). Ricky-Lee’s rendition of “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” managed to showcase both her excitable stage presence, and her absolutely massive waps. Impressive! Emelia Rusciano did pretty well, I thought, and actually managed to choose a song that was popular, recent and not stereotypical karaoke fodder. Must agree with Dicko though regarding her daggy outfit, and her love of lycra is slightly worrying.

Billie McCarthy sounded great, but again I think Dicko was on target when he expressed concern regarding her ability to sing something other than jazz. Chanel Cole (hurrah for getting to mention her again so we don’t forget her genius!) managed to escape this sort of typecasting by choosing the modern masterpiece “Glory Box” for her semi-final performance. Although Glory Box isn’t really “pop” (at least, not in the Kylie Minogue’s “Spinning Around” sense of word) it did show Chanel’s versatility whilst she still managed to continue to stay true to her personal taste in music. Perhaps Billie’s semi-final performance would have been a good chance to display the adaptability required to make it through the various theme weeks during the finals. Depending on how the public votes tonight, Billie’s choice of yet another jazz song may just work against her. It’ll be interesting to see how the public vote.

So - if I were to rank last night’s competitors as per tradition, the Top Three would go as follows. Again, not necessarily based on last night’s performance which renders the rankings completely useless (but scarily accurate, it would seem).

1. Casey Donovan
   
2. Daniel O’Connor
   
3. Garth Ploog\Emelia Rusciano\Ricki-Lee Coulter (and breasts)