The American Idol 15 Judges Round auditions began in Philadelphia over the weekend. Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez and Harry Connick Jr. were in town to hand out golden tickets to hopefuls who made the grade for the final season of the veteran singing show.
Unfortunately, Harry told Billboard Magazine, Day 1 was not stellar.
“Yesterday wasn’t good and it was our first day,” he said. “So far we are not as excited as we would have thought we have been.”
At the time of the interview, Day 2 was still coming up, not to mention four more audition cities, including Little Rock, Denver, Savannah, and San Francisco. “It’s a long process and we have hundreds of people to see,” Harry said, “We look forward to seeing some great talent.”
“They just weren’t very good,” Keith said of first day singers, “But we only need one.” He added, “We had a really good one yesterday, and sometimes day two is better. We do two days for every city so more often than not the second day is better.”
During his stint as Idol judge, Harry has learned that potential isn’t enough. “There is not a whole lot of change that happens from the day that they audition to later on in the competition,” he said. “Sometimes you put a lot of faith in potential and that people will grow and change, but that really doesn’t happen as often as you think.”
He added: “Every once in a while you find someone that really starts to blossom over the course of the competition, but basically what you see today is what you are going to see at the end, so that is what we are focused on — just finding great talent off the bat.”
Season 2 runner-up, Clay Aiken, took over as host for Ryan Seacrest who had a scheduling conflict.
Check out these tweets from Billboard:
The setup in the holding room where the hopefuls wait to audition.
A glimpse! pic.twitter.com/KAAowa92RU
— MicheleAmabile (@MicheleAmabile) August 17, 2015
.@JLo looked stunning this morning at the @AmericanIdol auditions! #flawless pic.twitter.com/wHg8kf9y3h
— MicheleAmabile (@MicheleAmabile) August 16, 2015
And look at Jlo!
New season of @AmericanIdol is coming. Are you ready? #IdolAuditions #Idol #IdolXV #StayTuned pic.twitter.com/E9JyKgSiOc
— Jennifer Lopez (@JLo) August 16, 2015
