It’ll be 9 PM EST in no time, so quick, finish walking the dog, doing the dishes, and tweeting your choices for the Royal Baby’s name, so you’ll be ready for tonight’s first LIVE episode of AGT on NBC. The stakes are higher now, because with the acts winnowed down to just 60, We the People get to do the choosing from here on in. Hooray for democracy and low production budgets!
Tonight, we’ll see the first dozen quarter-finalists perform at Radio City Music Hall. To help you organize your files on the show, the Mercury News offers a round-up of 59 of the acts here (why the 60th is missing is a mystery–maybe there was a scandal with that one! We can dream, can’t we?). Over the next weeks, you’ll want to be able to tell Marty Brown from Timber Brown, and recognize which group is KriStef, SensEtion, or MitsMitsi. You’ll also need to retrain your caps-button reflex.
Bookmark this handy resource, especially since AGT is now the first reality competition show to let viewers vote by tweet. Use the hashtag #voteAGT, followed by the act’s name. Reserve your abuse for another tweet.
WE’RE LIVE FROM NEW YORK CITY! Just like the rats and the roaches!
The Rockettes open the show with much loud noise, smoke, and flashing lights. Just like the subway!
Aren’t those Rockettes costumes the ones somebody designed on a Project Runway challenge? Flawless cross-branding. Nick has also borrowed Tom Wolfe’s suit.
The first act is 11-year-old Anna Christine. No one ever uses last names anymore. She explains forlornly that she expresses herself in music–unusual, as most people sing in order to take out the garbage or shine shoes. She plays the piano and sings a moody, pain-filled version of The Animals’ Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. There are a disturbing number of tweens on this show who need a Xanax script. Nick points out that the audience is “standing on their feet,” presumably as opposed to their hands or heads.
Anna Christine, Top 60 performs ~ AGT 2013 Live… by HumanSlinky
A dance act called tellAvision follows. No one ever uses capital letters anymore. They blend dance and technology. I blend margaritas using technology. Their act consists of most of the troupe rushing around with placards that have words and images projected onto them as the leads perform one of those story dances. It’s basically a long Vine. Howard thinks it’s artsy-fartsy and slow-moving. He wanted more naked midget Jello wrestling.
In an aside, are there really that many people who’ve had pelvic mesh implants in the first place, let alone ones that went wrong?
Tellavision, Top 60 performs ~ AGT 2013 Live Show by HumanSlinky
Now comes a “blazing rock band,” the American Hitmen. These are the Afghanistan vets who formed a group when they got back home, although whether this was for fun or a reaction to PTSD, they don’t say. They sing A Little Help from My Friends with a lot of rasp and the mandatory lean-backwards-and-strum-rapidly-with-intense-expression guitar work. Heidi and Howard weren’t that impressed, so they’ll probably get audited for criticizing our nation’s servicemen. Tie a yellow ribbon around your phone and vote.
American Hitmen, Top 60 performs ~ AGT 2013… by HumanSlinky
Audience favorite and darling of psychotherapists everywhere, Special Head, is next. He lives on a bus in the desert, similar to a van down by the river. Tonight he will attempt to physically alter the matter in his body. I’ve achieved that with my cholesterol level. Decked out in a sparkly gold robe with henna’ed designs on his special head, he is sitting in the lotus position on a neon-lit pyramid in an Egyptian-themed set. He groans and bulges his eyes for a few moments, then slowly rises into the air. Then a large puff of smoke appears with a crack, and he’s gone. After Nick comes out, seemingly confused, a giant screen reveals Special Head standing on the theater marquee outside. He has been teleported! Let’s hope his DNA didn’t mix with Howie’s in the process.
Special Head, Top 60 performs ~ AGT 2013 Live Show by HumanSlinky
Fresh Faces, a bunch of 9- and 10-year-old girl dancers, follow him. They’re bubbly and smiley and more cloying than a can of frosting. Their set is pink and white with balloons and ruffles, and they bounce around to happy music. This is an excellent act for bringing manic bi-polar patients back to their depressive state.
Fresh Faces, Top 60 performs ~ AGT 2013 Live Show by HumanSlinky
The kid magician Collins Key is up next. He’s yet another alienated loner who sought to establish an identity by performing an act that conveniently could be showcased on national TV. For this round, each judge has been given a tablet set up to tweet. Key asks each one to name an activity, a city, a celebrity, and a body part, then claims he predicted their words, which appear on a screen behind him. A box is lowered onto the stage, which he unlocks to pull out a sheet of folded black paper with all the correct words written on it. This is suspicious since he spelled Howard’s word exactly the way he did, as “tuchas.” The correct spelling is tuchus.
Collins Key, Top 60 performs ~ AGT 2013 Live Show by HumanSlinky
Kevin Downey, Jr., a comedian, comes after that. A former switchboard operator (they still have those?), he’s now trying for his dream. He should first try for a decent barber. All of his jokes are about sex, which is probably another unrealized dream.
Kevin Downey Jr., Top 60 performs ~ AGT 2013… by HumanSlinky
Now we have to endure the little brother-sister team, Aaralyn & Izzy, wherein the girl screams gutterally while the boy plays drums. Sadly, they have 14 million YouTube hits now, so either The Exorcist is making a comeback or these kids are underwritten by Ricola. Incredibly, Howard is the voice of reason tonight, declaring it’s time for the idiocy to end. Maybe he’ll also speak to the parents about choosing names for their children. Howie thinks all those people watching the pair’s YT videos means something. Someone should explain to him that even more people are watching porn.
Aaralyn & Izzy, Top 60 performs ~ AGT 2013 Live… by HumanSlinky
Next is Alexanderia the Great, the Lady Houdini. Herdini? Her family tells proudly how she brings home the bacon and fries it up in a pan while escaping from a padlocked straitjacket. Tonight she does it inside a locked vat of water, which does not offer the most flattering angle of her behind. She’s succeeds in escaping after more than a minute. She will become world-famous and be invited to become a Jenny Craig spokesperson.
Alexanderia The Great, Top 60 performs ~ AGT… by HumanSlinky
Here are those not-actually-brothers, the KriStef Brothers. Looking like a butch Hall & Oates, they come from circus families, although I don’t remember Barnum and Bailey being quite so homoerotic. Their act, which includes a little comedy and some glitter, earns a standing ovation. Which proves the old adage that says if you can balance on a person’s head with one hand while wearing a Lycra catsuit, you will go far.
Bristef Brothers, Top 60 performs ~ AGT 2013… by HumanSlinky
Hype, a hip-hop dance crew from Hawaii, appear next. Tonight they’ll be dancing in a water fountain, which only turns up at the very end of the performance and adds nothing to the act except hat blocking bills. Heidi and Mel were disappointed. Howie defers to America. Howard thinks it just can’t win. The group members think they did a great job. The guy who mops up the stage didn’t like it at all.
Hype, Top 60 performs ~ AGT 2013 Live Show by HumanSlinky
Branden James, an opera singer who’s gay and worried that his parents would reject him, wears one of those shirts with a too-deep vee-neck, indicating that he doesn’t worry about people rejecting his wardrobe choices. He sings You Raise Me Up pleasantly before the choir comes in and drowns him out. Heidi is crying, but her mascara remains perfect. Speaking of make-up, Mel is wearing more primary-colored eye shadow than Betty Boop. Howie waxes philosophical about being raised up emotionally and spiritually, making us wonder what he would have said if Branden had sung Get Off of My Cloud.
We’re back tomorrow night again for another hour of this. See you then!
