In a new interview with The Tennessean, returning American Idol judge, Keith Urban proves he’s a pretty hands-on guy when it comes to evaluating the performances of the contestants.
At the time of the interview, Urban said he didn’t know who the other judges would be but that even last year — when he once referred to himself as Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj’s scratching post — he still enjoyed going to work every day.
He even went when his presence wasn’t required, often showing up at “Idol” rehearsals before the nightly shows. Urban said he was warned not to reveal on air that he had seen the contestants perform the song earlier that day, which was particularly hard when the singer delivered a lackluster performance.
“Sometimes you would see them at rehearsal and it’d just be, like, tears, like, ‘Oh, my God, this is going to be so good,’ and on the night it would just completely fail,” he said.
“I was just so devastated for them and (I would) be thinking, ‘If I say to the public that these guys deserve to go on another week, they’ll be thinking I’m a complete idiot based on that performance they just saw, but I just saw another one that was way better, so I know what they’re capable of.’ I was very passionate about all of that because I want people to be able to shine, and we all want people to see us on our best day, and all too often it happens when not many people are around.”
I recall, that sometimes the judges did mention they saw dress rehearsal, if only to say the performance improved? Still, it’s pretty obvious the judges are reading from notes or from a pre-planned script. It’s just a pretense to keep it a secret.
I admire Keith’s dedication to his job. He would have been a good mentor, I think.
Via The Tennessean
