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November 1, 2004

Big Band Night | Gadge’s Sunday Night Recap

The obligatory first: Chanel, you should’ve been there.

Anyway, on to the actuality. I went in to tonight thinking Courtney would be the one to go on Monday, but now I’m all uncertain and left wondering what the hell will happen. My thoughts on the final two are that it should involve as little Anthony and Courtney as possible, but at the rate it seems to be going another unfortunate all-male pairing might be exactly what we get.

Anyway, Anthony has now obviously equated ‘manly’, as per Dicko, with ‘the low notes in my register’. ‘Fever’ was a valiant effort marred by it being a total chick song, and therefore both cementing the gay rumours until the guy dies or comes out, and not quite working well with his performance style. His second song was Anthony Standard - competent, only very occasionally over-flourished, and as dull as the Italian Shetland himself. Plus, dude, you’re trying to be edgy, and can’t do proper suit-and-tie even once? Sod off.

Casey’s first performance was excellent, and she looked amazing. I’d go so far as to say that if she’d performed it second, she’d have received a touchdown - that oh-so-valuable accolade from Mark that really, if you think about it, is a steaming pile of crap. And yet. With her first song, I sat back, satified in the knowledge that she’d make the final two, as I want her to. And then she really didn’t do as much singing as shouting on the second song, and screwed up really noticeably and didn’t make it work nearly as well as she could have. And it’s true - her inarticulate responses can’t be endearing and remind us of our own youth forever, and will start to annoy one and all if she can’t occasionally be a lot more lucid. Still, I’ve decided that I want her to win. She just needs more consistency.

Hayley will never, ever get a touchdown, which I’m sure makes her sad. She’s also likely to never connect with the song or the audience as much as Casey can. Yet she’s still a strong singer, and her first choice to sing was bleeding obvious and yet got by on, ‘well, it has a special meaning for her’, so I didn’t mind it quite so much.

Like Anthony, Hayley is rarely less than competent. She also comes across as too artificial at times. And yet, doggone it, I like her. She would make a good idol, and I hate the song ‘Nature Boy’ and yet I liked her rendition of it. I still don’t think she’ll make the finals, but I would like to see her for one more week.

But then Courtney came along. Now, I wanted him to fail. He’s a little too, ‘Oh, I’m the maestro who is the only one who knows anything about music.’ Which would reflect much more badly on him if it weren’t occasionally true, especially considering the final four. I mean, do you think Anthony truly knew who that funny trumpet-player was before they went to visit him and he was coached to pay his respects?

Anyway, Courtney sang his first song without any of the rasp that typifies his pub-workmanlike performances of the past, and actually managed to not sound like he was trying to be heard over a rabble of drunken Perthians. He even sang most of his second song in the same fashion, and managed to not come off like a preening prig.

So now, I just don’t know. Courtney, more than the others, has a sizeable population fan-base - apparently there’s even a Perth radio station that will match all votes for Courtney on a two-for-one basis, artificially inflating his numbers. Casey and Hayley have been in the bottom three several times each, meaning they’re nearly always on the border of going, though I would imagine if any of Chanel’s fans carry over, it’s to the other women that they’d go. And Anthony has such a firm lock on any woman who would scream like a banshee at the concert of a man who would never be interested in her sexually that I doubt he won’t make the final two, even as his one fantastic performance becomes as but a distant memory.

So I reckon one of the judges is going to have to solve this mystery. Marcia had her go last time; who’s up next in the ausculture.com spinning wheel of secret judging access?

- Gadge