Indianapolis, IN AI Live! Show – HstryQT’s Recap

Lori is a bit disappointed the producers ditched the duets and groups numbers this year. So am I! Read her recap, below…

I have attended every single Idol concert since Season 2. So that made this my 5th Idol concert. So from the first 15 minutes of the show I immediately knew that the tour directors had reverted back to their “old” way of putting on an Idol tour. This meaning the boring (and I consider, lazy) plan of: 10th place sings a few songs, 10th placer rambles and says thank you a billion times, 9th place sings a few songs, 9th placer rambles and says than you a billion times, 8th place sings, 8th placer rambles, 7th placer sings.. yea you get the picture. And that is precisely how the entire night went last night. Very predictable, boring, and lazy. It was disappointing after being involved in such an amazing show last year. Season 6 blew America away and the tour was even better: each Idol had their solo but then there were tons of duets, trios, group performances, even the girls doing their own thing and then the guys being “the band” – I mean how priceless was the guys’ performance of Hey Jude last year? Really? But this isn’t about last year (although I wish it was), so moving on.

It was easy to be disappointed in the lay out of this concert when comparing it to the amazingly tight-knit, funny, seemingly-spontaneous quality of last year’s show. But that aside, the individual performances from the contestants were spot on, and I did THOROUGHLY enjoy the show. (Just not for its predictability!) Chikieze and Ramiele opened and got things started nicely, pointing out that Luke Menard was in the audience (he’s a fellow Hoosier) – and all of the guys especially were thrilled about Luke’s presence. Chickieze and Ramiele didn’t have any overly exciting performances for me, leading into Michael Johns BLOWING THE ROOF off of Conseco Fieldhouse. I didn’t expect to get all fan-girly about Michael Johns but holy smokes is he great! His Queen covers gave you chills and Dream On had the crowd roaring, it was one of my favorite moments of the night. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Kristy Lee, but she (smartly) re-did God Bless the USA. And who doesn’t stand up and sing along and get a tear from listening to that song? So that was enjoyable (it also made me look more forward to the Olympics for some reason… hmm…). Carly also rocked the house, especially with Crazy On You. It was cute hearing her accent and she had a hard time pronouncing Indianapolis (its a mouthful for an Irish gal, I suppose). She really showed her personality and was super likable. But when it came to personality, Brooke stole the show. Brooke was cute as a button, just as you would expect. She chatted about the crazy thunderstorms in Indy last night and made you fall in love with her all over again. You got a thrill when you saw the stage floor open up and her piano pop up because you knew awesomeness was forthcoming, and it was. Let it Be brought me chills and her rendition of Yellow was just as enjoyable. Her performance sealed the deal for me: I WILL be supporting her and buying her cd, for sure.

After the intermission, which was super fun with the Guitar Hero thing. (BTW did I mention how great the Corey guy is who’s the icebreaker before and during the show? That’s the first time they’ve had someone with that role during the concert and he was HILARIOUS! I think when it comes to the production of the show, that’s the one aspect that I give the directors/planners/producers/

whoever props on as an improvement from all other seasons – keep that up!) OK that’s way too much review on intermission… Jason Castro really didn’t deserve the hard time he got this season for staying in as long as he did; he’s truly talented, has a sweet personality and its awesome in his little acoustic niche. I was thrilled to pieces that he did Somewhere Over the Rainbow – it was the one song that had the entire audience singing along, which made you smile. I apologize to all Syesha fans, but her performance was when we went to the bathroom and got more food. She’s sweet and all, but I’m just not as into her genre and her hair was also annoying me last night. Her performance reminded me of the concert with “the divas” – Fantasia, Hudson, etc – when they were all just singing at eachother and doing runs back and forth. We left early from that season’s concert for that reason. She was kind of a mismatch being stuck between Castro and Archie, but I guess that was unavoidable and not her fault. Speaking of which, David Archuleta was exactly as we expected him to be – he was inspiring, rousing, and also didn’t open his eyes or breathe and was therefore unable to communicate to the audience during songs without panting. It made us giggle and made him all the more endearing. All of Archie’s performances were kick-butt, but my personal favorite was Apologize. I don’t have much of a review for him because he’s consistently a great singer, he’s just gotta work on … well, breathing!

When David Cook came out you fell in love with him all over again. His voice and performance fills the stadium to the rafters, making him more than deserving of the Idol title. And how does he manage to rock SO much but still be SO humble? I don’t know, but he’s awesome at it and I’ll definitely be supporting him and buying his album. He said that Indianapolis was special for him because it was near home, it was where his dad bought his (rather famous) AC guitar, and his dad was in the audience. He dedicated Hero to his brother (it wasn’t made clear if he was in the audience). Oh and he also was quite personable and funny when his pants came untied and he had to put the mic down to fix it – “Don’t Boo at Safety!” he said, haha. Overall, the individual performances made the night fantastic. But for me, it was still bittersweet thinking that I was at an Idol concert that was not made up of the brilliant Season 6’ers and I was further reminded of the stark contrast between concerts when the layout fell back into the “same ole’ same ole'” of past seasons. Maybe Chris Sligh (www.frommymindtoyoureyes.blogspot.com) can enlighten us on why the producers of the show decided to revert this season, he always has an entertaining inside view on things.