Canadian Idol 6! Episode 9 – Top 20 Performance Pt 1 – VIDEO

Just saw the early Atlantic feed, so here are some spoiler impressions:

Mark Day (Gavin DeGraw – In Love With A Girl) – He sings a fairly well-known rock song with a decidedly pop vibe; also was drowned out by the band, so the overall result is not too impressive.

Paul Clifford (Matthew Good Band – Apparitions) – I’m not sure how many viewers would know one of the earlier singles of an alt rock band. I certainly didn’t, plus, what he sang didn’t have enough of a melody for my liking.

Drew Wright (Neverending White Lights – The Grace) – I thought this was a pretty strong performance; don’t agree with Zack about this being an obscure song.

Marie-Pierre Bellerose (Amanda Marshall – Beautiful Goodbye) – sounded off-key in parts but overall a pleasing performance, I think.

Mookie Morris (The Kooks – Naive) – Very good performance of a song I had never heard of before.

Sebastian Pigott (The Lovin’ Spoonful – Daydream) – Again shows his vocal limitations, compares poorly to Jason Castro’s version on AI7. Certainly if I hadn’t heard Jason sing this, I might rate this performance higher. As it stands, not enamoured with this like the judges seem to be.

Martin Kerr (Peter Gabriel – In Your Eyes) – Great tone, excellent performance. I think most of the judges criticisms were overly nitpicky.

Lisa Bell (Otis Redding – Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay) – It got a little shrieky in parts. I thought she maybe reached a bit beyond her vocal capabilities.

Gary Morissette (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Mr Bojangles) – He actually sang with no screaming parts! Very well done and should keep him around for next week.

Amberly Thiessen (Bread – Everything I Own) – Wow! Is it too early to book her for the Top 2?

Best performances:
Amberly Thiessen
Martin Kerr
Drew Wright
Mookie Morris

Good performances:
Gary Morissette
Paul Clifford

Ok performances:
Marie-Pierre Bellerose
Sebastian Pigott
Lisa Bell

Um, no:
Mark Day

For me, so far….
Mark Day I like a lot and think he sings good. OK performance only though.

Paul C. like his gravely voice but song/performance wasn’t entertaining for me. Find his eyebrow jewels sort of icky.

Drew is talented. Performance good but not great for me.

Marie Pierre whatever. Parts of this sorta bad parts great!

Mookie! Wasn’t crazy about the song..but LOVE this guy and always entertains and makes me smile. He’s got IT.
Is at the top of my fav in the competition list.

Sebastian. Quite a performance. Loved it. Not trying to compare him with Jason Castro though because they both did this song so differently. I absolutely love Jasons performance of this and was totally enchanted w/Castro’s version. But Sebastian is a diff. style, and like him. On my fav list.

Martin Kerr. Really like this guy a lot and thought he did great, but again not thrilled w/song. But he’s one on my favs list.

Lisa Bell. Low tones seem ok. I find her tone irritating and don’t usually care for her voice. To me she is sometimes pitchy.

I love Sebastian. And I can’t compare that performance to Castro’s performance of that song at all…they are so different it is like night and day. I love them both…but the way Sebastian did it, it really took on a completely different vibe. At first I was wondering what the heck he was doing with the guitar, like maybe he didn’t want to play it but didn’t know how to be up there without it, so he was just holding on to it. But, he made it really work when he pulled it out. Awesome stuff.

I think Marie-Pierre was fabulous in parts…and horrible in parts. I’m not sure it was too low for her, but she was trying to sing too softly, but wasn’t using enough air. It takes more air to sing low than high, and more air to sing soft than loud. She doesn’t have the technique that she needed to pull that off. But when she got into her wheelhouse and was really belting it out, she was fantastic. I’d love to hear her do more.

Love Paul’s voice. Mookie rocks my world. I wanted to like Drew, but I actually thought he was really pitchy in some parts and it distracted me. Mark was just okay.

Loved Amberly, Mookie, Martin and Gary. I love Jason C’s version of Daydream so I had a hard time getting into Sebastion’s very stylized version, but I love Sebastion so I hope he stays around for a long time.

The other girls tonight – meh. Not feeling either of them at all.

Mark Day needs to go. Now.

On a side note, I enjoyed Ben’s trivia about the songs before each performance. It was a nice change of pace. The judges were bugging me in the beginning with their personal exchanges and was glad when they settled in. I’m not sure I like Zach or not. It feels like he’s channeling Simon and, well, he’s not Simon. I haven’t seen other seasons of CI so I have no idea if he has always been like this or not.

I’ve only seen two seasons of CI, but as far as I’m concerned Zack is an ass. Bigger ass than Simon.

Martin is no Peter Gabriel…he should have done something with that to make it at least slightly different from the original, and I might have liked it better. Lisa…meh. I wasn’t feeling that one. Gary, to me, feels like he is always pushing too hard. I like the rasp in his voice, but he feels like he is forcing it. Amberly was really, really good, but so not my cup of tea.

Here’s my take:

1. Mark Day: He has a nice voice. However, I HATE his schtick with the whole “I was bullied in high school and now I’m funny” bit. Hasn’t this been done before? Do we really need to hear it again, every time he appears? As for the song, I think he was trying to imitate Gavin and fell short. It didn’t really match his style.

2. Paul Clifford: He takes himself way too seriously. I agree with the judge that told him to do something with more energy next time and that his voice naturally has the pretense of angst, but that doesn’t make up for lack of real angst (I’m paraphrasing loosely). Also, his last name just reminds me of the big red dog.

3. Drew Wright: I liked what he did with his voice, and that puts him higher on my list.

4. Marie Pierre…: I don’t really remember performance, and I don’t feel like going back and listening. That should say it all.

5. Mookie: I agree with what everyone else has said (judges and first two comments here). Didn’t like him the first week, but the whole hockey story made him more relatable somehow, even though I don’t play or watch hockey. Strange.

6. Sebastian: Yeah, he doesn’t have the vocals, but honestly, I don’t mind. (And I’m not just saying that cause he’s cute). He can just perform really really well. And he likes to play with how he sings. It’s one thing if a person isn’t a strong singer and is boring or weak about it, and it’s another if the person focuses on the song rather than the voice. I don’t know if I can explain this, so I have to give an example (with which some may disagree): Sanjaya and Blake from AI. Sanjaya had a weak voice (but got by because of his hair); nobody liked his singing or the music he was making. Blake, from last season, also had a less than strong voice. However, he MADE MUSIC. You could tell that he was an artist. I feel like Sebastian is the same.

7. Good voice, but I agree with Zac; the potential for greatness was there, but he never followed through.

8. Lisa Bell: I’m really upset that she changed the melody so much in this song. She just ruined it for me. If she sang it straight the first 2/3 and then twisted the end, it would have been fine, but she made me long for the original, which makes me tear up every time I hear it.

9. Gary: For some reason, personality-wise, he reminds me of Jason Castro. The performance was cute, not spectacular, but cute.

10. Amberly: (I keep on thinking her name is Tiffany Amber…) Yes, she’s good. She’s definitely the best female. I think, however, that she’s going to get a bit cocky soon. I’m going to hold off on the extreme praise for now.

General Notes: That Zac judge is growing on me, even though he has some petty moments with the first guy in glasses. And jeez, people, don’t the producers know that they’re supposed to cue in some audience booing? Do you mean to tell me that the Canadian audience is not made up of robots like the American audience is?!

Speaking of the audience, they seemed a bit bored at times. Camera people need to pick their moments for showing the audience.

Class above the rest:
Amberly Thiessen – Already has her own unique style. Very, very good.

Not great, But I’m willing to Give Another Chance:
Martin Kerr – He really thinks he’s Mr. Personality. Good voice but not for this song — at all.

Paul Clifford – Gentle falsetto doesn’t really show off the gravel-tone to his voice that made his stand out last week. A little forgettable this week.

Gary Morissette – Does well with his five note range. Cute and much more likeable than certain others.

Drew Wright – It was fine but pretty average and a bit out of his range on the upper notes.

I don’t get it:
Mookie Morris – Like Jason Castro, I don’t get Mookie’s appeal. To me he sounds like the lead singer of your favorite bar band that will never go far.

Won’t win, who cares when they leave:
Mark Day – Disastrous song choice! Should stay away from anything remotely sounding like Rock and any song with a title like “In Love with a Girl”

Marie-Pierre Bellerose – Flat notes and flat performance. Even the modulation up was a snoozer.

Sebastian Pigott – He certainly thinks he’s hot. But some performers can go pretty far on Idol with limited vocal ability and a pretty face.

Lisa Bell – Has done a lot of acting and certainly tried to sell this poor song choice. Quite out of her range.

I say Mark Day definitely should get the boot, and the other one is a toss up between Lisa, Sebastian and Marie-Pierre.

I guess I must be listening to something different, cause I just don’t get the love for Amberly. Not my cup of tea at all. I am still having a hard time picking out someone to root for. Maybe tomorrow night will be better.

waiting for amberly’s video…

Glad your doing CI for us as I’m having a good time and am hooked on watching it. My favorites so far are Drew and Amberly but that could change as the seasons young. I was sad that Shawn left last week as I would have liked him around a few more weeks. Looking forward to tomorrow night.

I freaking love Mookie! The Kooks are awesome and he is so much cooler for even singing their song…plus he really does give off a super cool vibe…

Amberly was really good as well, and Sebastian might have been good if JC’s version wasn’t so fresh on my mind….

I just watched Mookie (by accident) and Sebastian b/c he was mentioned in chat. I heart Mookie at first sight and and I love the Kooks. I can’t believe the judges didn’t know that song. They should know the music biz. It grates.

Sebastian was Ryan Phillipe meets Tom Waits meets Elvis. I kinda liked it, but felt dirty for it. He flipped the song into something entirely different and lost the vibe. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, but I wouldn’t compare his version with Castro’s at all.

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1. Thank you, judges, for being more critical tonight.

2. I love the Archie Andrews comics!

3. What are the contestants going to sing next week? I Just Wanna Be Your Everything or something else from the Jason Castro songbook?

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Mark Day- Awesome song, but his voice doesn’t really have the grit to carry this off. I wish another contestant had picked it. What’s with the awkward dancing? Very VFTW worthy. D

Paul Clifford- Gah, the Constantine stare is back again. I can’t watch. He doesn’t really challenge himself vocally with this song, I feel. I hope Paul proves me wrong, but I don’t see him having a break-out performance during the course of this competition. C

Drew Wright- Aside from a weird echo in the mix, Drew was much better this week. The vocals weren’t bad, but the performance felt a little disconnected, especially emotionally. Perhaps it’s his lack of personality or star quality. C

Marie-Pierre Bellerose- Better than last week but still boring as hell. The raspy rock parts were above average, everything else was below. D

Mookie Morris- Not as exciting as last week’s performance, but he has more star quality than any of the performers so far tonight. The mouth contortions are a little distracting, but he has a skillful way of choosing and arranging songs, and incorporating the band and back-up singers. These skills should see him far. B plus

Sebastian Pigott- I’m just going to ignore his pre-performance interview….and say that I really enjoyed his vocals. However, all the style he infused into the performance made it lose some of the joyful, feel-good characteristics that I loved in the song when Jason Castro sang it on AI7. So, this was style-over-substance for me (but I liked the style). His hips were distracting again, but maybe that’s a good thing, eh? I agree with pj, that enjoying his performance makes me feel dirty. A

Martin Kerr- The sound mix is so much better this week. His vocals are lovely in the verses, but Bandzilla overpowers his vocals during the chorus. He has a beautiful voice and nice phrasing, so I hope Canadians ignore the lame judges and vote. B

Lisa Bell- Nice voice, but the runs were a little amateur. The style of music isn’t my favorite. C plus

Gary Morissette- He’s actually singing, and I like it. Smart song choice. I was pleasantly surprised at how sincerely his performance came across. B

Amberly Thiessen- Her voice seemed to hit a rough spot when she first hit the chorus, and the performance, on a whole, was a little labored. However, I think her vocal limitations were more than made up for by the beautiful sincerity she showed. A minus

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The Goodà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¨
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2. Amberly Thiessen
3. Mookie Morris
4. Martin Kerr

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7. Paul Cliffordà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¨
8. Drew Wright

The Downright Uglyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¨
9. Marie-Pierre
10. Mark Day

*6-9 should be in danger of elimination but this is my first season watching CI, so I have no idea how Canadians vote.

Well, I’m In Love With A Girl was one of my new favorite songs…thanx mark.

My favorites tonight were of course Amberly and Mookie as usual. I also really loved Gary’s Mr. Bojangles (I’ve been a huge Jerry Jeff Walker fan for close to 30 years so anybody who covers him has my vote). I was actually surprised that he pulled it off as well as he did. I agree with the judges that Marie-Pierre has some great qualities in her voice. I enjoyed Sebastian but he’s not a singer really, just a beautiful boy with a great stage presence. Martin I think has a very good voice but I don’t think he’s all that likeable, at least not for me. Paul is one with a voice that could totally work for me but it hasn’t yet…I always find something lacking.

Amberly, Mookie and Earl were my favorites from their auditions and none (yet) has done anything to make me change my mind. I was actually scared that she was singing Bread (way too cheezy for me) but she totally owned it and made the cheese factor go down about 80%.

Mark Day was really really bad. Simon would have a field day with this dude. Seems like a very nice guy though, the grape comment was uncalled for.

Didn’t like the poser accent Mookie put on during his song, but I kind of liked it overall. At least it was a pretty original song choice.

Sebastian – I can’t get past his charisma to figure out if I like his singing or not, and I guess I’m fine with that. Damn! He’s hot! You can’t say he isn’t original. He’s my favorite person to watch on this show, definitely. (When Oliver said it was funny that Sebastian wore women’s pants I was lmao, I was thinking the same thing last week)

Does Martin TRY to sound exactly like Hugh Grant? Something about him rubs me the wrong way. I liked this performance until it got to the refrain, pretty much agree with the judges.

If I was going to pick a winner right now based on vocals, I’d pick Paul. Such a great, unique voice, I absolutely love it.

I like that Zach and Jake (is that his name?) hate each other, I guess it’s good that they are on opposite sides of the table.

Amberly is great, hopefully she sticks around till the end, though I thought Zach seriously over-praised her, did he really say it was the best performance he’s ever seen on TV period? Does Canadian TV really suck that bad?!

Uh did Sebastian just make love to us on the screen, lol. Ok that was kind of hot. He is nice to look at. I am loving Martin for speaking Mandarin, that was so cool. I am Chinese, and Martin spoke it very well, points to Martin. Ok let me go back to watching the rest of the show. I hate that arrangement from Lisa, ugh..

I think Marie-Pierre, Mark, Lisa or Drew may be going. Amberly could be a “plant”, nah…j/k, she is definitely going to be in the top 5. So the standouts tonight is Sebastian, Amberly and Mookie. The rest are ok or just forgettable. Thanks for the vids again.

The one who blew me away tonight was Sebastian. Color me surprised. I don’t find him attractive (too young), and I know he does not have the best voice out of them all, but DAYUM that was all kinds of wonderful. Different from Castro’s which I also loved, but I believe I loved this one more.

Amberly. who does have a pretty voice, bordered at times on going off pitch. It was ok, just did nothing for me. My own personal trivia, David Gates graduated from my high school, years earlier lol. Really did not care for Amberly’s version.

Canada, please get Mark off my vids.

Disappointed in Martin’s song. Lisa’s eh.

Best perfomance of the night, well ok, best performance of this season for me was:

Sebastian!!! Who wudda thunk it. :clap_tb:

The rest were just ok to blah. :thumbdown_tb:

Pretty decent show. There was risque (Sebastian) and surprises (Gary) along with some good performances and occasional/inevitable snoozers (Mark Day) and off-key performances (Marie-Pierre).

My favorites of the night were:
Sebastian Pigott – hot and original
Amberly Thiessen
Gary Morissette

In the middle, I put:
Paul Clifford
Drew Wright
Mookie Morris
Martin Kerr

Near the bottom:
Lisa Bell

At the bottom:
Marie-Pierre Bellerose
Mark Day – should leave soon and get himself a TV show.

I agreed with most of the judges comments. I love these guys. This is my second season watching regularly and find their feedback to be much more honest, constructive and occasionally playful than their AI counterparts. I especially love Zack!

Mark Day – enjoyable if I just listen and not watch him. Agree with Jake Gold/Farley that he wasn’t believable. He should just let his inner diva out instead of singing about girls.

Paul Clifford – His voice is a little too raspy for me. I do agree with Zach on this, he needs a bigger rock star persona. His voice and his looks don’t exactly match.

Drew Wright – I agree with whoever said he was a bit pitchy. He also needs to work on his performance. All in all, it was just ok for me.

Marie-Pierre Bellerose – Well, her idea of a fun song is way different from mine. She needs to stop over-thinking her performance while she’s performing.

Mookie Morris – I really really like Mookie. And it seems like he really knows how to play the guitar. He had some kind of an accent when he would sing “I know.” I’m not sure if that’s really the way he sings or because he’s kind of channeling the original singer.

Sebastian Pigott – Ok…is anyone else thinking of what Sebastian has 3 of? I like his pre-performance packages, he seems like a pretty intelligent guy. I really liked his performance. It was playful (to use his word) and sexy at the same time. It has to do with the way he looks at the audience. And using the guitar sparingly was actually pretty good here. I like his reply to Zach .

Martin Kerr – Liked this better than last week. The best part is what he said about Zach. I wonder what he thinks about Simon…

Lisa Bell – The opening seemed off. Not a fan of her or the musical genre, she’s just ok for me. Her saying “I tried” seemed off, like she tried to work around the song or something…but she picked it, so…

Gary Morrisette – During his pre-performance vid, I was thinking, if he’s been contained, I wonder what he’s like when he’s not… Well, his performance was a lot more contained than last week’s.

Amberley Thiessen – She has an interesting tone the song just isn’t my type.

I’ve liked Mookie and Sebastian since the auditions. That hasn’t changed .

I also like Zach as a judge. Actually, all of them are a lot better than Randy and Paula. But that’s not saying much. In any case, the judges are refreshingly different from the AI judges.

I don’t think the judges over praised Amberley Thiessen. She took that old chesnut and breathed new life into it.
Again Sebastien Piggott brings much more to the stage that just a distinctive, though limited voice.
And Mookie was Mookie.
Wihtout doubt, those three are in the top 10.

Drew Wright could be as long as he continues to showcase his voice, which on radio, would be instantly recognizable.
And that was a stellar job on ‘Mr. Bojangles’ by Gary Morrisette.

So for me, those were the top five.

I dont agree that Sebastian doesn’t have too much of a voice. I think he has a great voice, but the style/way he sings often doesn’t actually “sing” through too many words so don’t hear it. Something really good is in there…I hear it. It’s almost like the bros are borderline over-stylized but still hold one’s attention thats for s ure.