Here’s your live blog for The Voice’s FIRST live show in the US. Check out our discussion and videos when they become available! It’s all after the jump!
Here’s an officially approved live stream link: http://www.nbc.com/nbc-live/flash/
Hm. “Portions pre recorded”??
Kicking things off, our coaches sing Queen. Adam Levine starts off with “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Serviceable but a little stiff. Cee Lo Green comes in with “We Will Rock You” and he’s joined by Blake Shelton on vocals and Adam on electric guitar. Blake sounds especially good. Christina Aguilera brings her melisma and lack of pants to “We Are The Champions”. The coaches all sing this one and sound kind of awkward on harmonies. Nowhere near as good as them singing “Crazy”. – VIDEO
Recap time!
Tonight we’re going to see Blake and Christina’s teams performing. Saving the stronger teams for next week, are we?
There’s one viewer save and one coach save per team per performance night. The other 2 team members will be eliminated from the competition.
Christina wants them to lose themselves in the performance and have fun because she’s confident enough in their voices. Blake says he’s so emotionally invested in his team, it’s exhausting, like having kids. A little trash talking between coaches.
You can vote by calling, voting online, and by downloading songs on Itunes. Limit 10 votes per method. The phone numbers are 1-855- VOICE-[01-08 based on performance order]. Social media correspondent Allison Hayslip brags about Adam Levine trending worldwide and talks about how you can connect with the coaches on Twitter and whatnot.
Blake and Christina will perform with their teams. But first, Raquel Castro will perform…after the break!
Raquel Castro sings “Blow” by Ke$ha. Christina picked it because she wanted to showcase everything Raquel can do, which is sing and dance. We have a choreographer named Hi-hat! And dancers! Christina’s shown telling Raquel to speak up if there’s places she’s running out of breath. Raquel comes up dressed in a sparkly minidress, hair teased out a la her coach. We have backup dancers doing backflips! They’re also doing most of the choreography around Raquel. Her tone’s a little harsh and she’s a little behind the song at first. Decent vocal but flat at times and she looks a little stiff on stage. But the judges coaches fall over themselves complimenting her. – VIDEO
Jared Blake is next. He’s singing “Use Somebody” by Kings Of Leon. Blake says Jared’s weakness is his struggle to figure out whether he’s country or rock and urges him to dump all the emotions of all the rejections and struggles into the performance. He’s singing pretty well. Starts out playing the guitar, throws it off stage. Won’t make anybody forget the original and not as achy and desperate as it could be but this is solid. He ends the song really close up with a woman in the audience. Not his wife or S.O. apparently! Christina compliments him but wonders if the guitar throwing threw him off a little. Cee Lo’s all happy and sunshine. Adam says this was the perfect song for his story. Blake says he’s sick of hearing about the second chance thing (ha! anti backstory, thankyouverymuch!) and that this is Jared’s chance now. He also says Jared’s shaved his head and can’t get through a metal detector – he’s gotta be rock! – VIDEO
Beverly McClellan‘s next! Singing Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m The Only One”. Is it just me or is it just too obvious a choice? She’s got a cold and had to hold back during rehearsals. She’s singing well but what is that weird jig she’s doing? She’s got the intensity for it. Christina’s ten-upping Paula on her crazy dancing! Cee Lo loves her presence. Adam tells a gloating Christina to shut up and Blake heartily agrees. Blake thinks Beverly looks sexy and hot. Gloating Christina is gloating. Christina has to explain a crack she made at Adam, and if you have to explain it…- VIDEO
Dia Frampton from Team Blake gets to follow that. She’s singing “Heartless” by Kanye West. Blake suggests she play piano for the performance. Dry ice overload! I can’t listen to this without thinking of Kris Allen’s Idol breakthrough performance but her version has its own Regina Spektor flavor and phrasing. This is pretty good. She just about holds onto her falsetto at the end. Carson Daly prompts Christina to talk about Dia’s phrasing. Christina says she liked seeing the fighter in Dia. Cee Lo thinks it’s the greatest rendition of the song he’s ever heard. Adam says it’s the most refreshing, unique thing he’s seen on the show so far. Has he forgotten his own Rebecca Loebe’s version of “Come As You Are”? Blake is also falling over himself to compliment how Dia showed who she is and how original she is.- VIDEO
Group performance by Christina and her team next.- VIDEO
Thought: Cee Lo Green is the equivalent of Steven Tyler as a judge during the live rounds of AI.
We’re back and Christina’s out to dinner with her team. Hanging out, giving advice. The team chemistry seems pretty good at dinner. The team’s performing “Lady Marmalade”. You know, this could’ve been worse. Christina didn’t take it over as much as she could have and each of the singers get their moments in the spotlight.
More patting self on back through Allison Hayslip. Question for Jared Blake, what is his biggest fear tonight. Jared says it’s going home but Allison rejects his answer saying he can’t go home until next week. OK then!
Xenia is next. She’s singing “Price Tag” by Jessie J. Blake brings Hi-hat to help Xenia loosen up. She looks really pretty. Her phrasing is still really nice. She’s still awkward but at least she didn’t look totally petrified. It’s not a real showcase song but the innocence of the song fits her so it’s a good song choice. Compliments all around from the coaches to her for breaking out of her shyness and having fun. Blake’s really proud of her and thinks America’s watching a star be born. – VIDEO
Lily Elise is next singing Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry”. With dancers. She makes her way through 4 guys, pushing each one away until she’s on her own. She doesn’t really know what to do with the verse, she’s kind of mumbling them. Once the song gets bigger for the chorus she sounds better for a bit. But then she starts oversinging. Too much volume, not enough attention to phrasing, too much vibrato, it’s like she doesn’t know what she’s singing. Then she really starts losing notes going for a rough ending. Or maybe it was rough unintentionally? Christina’s got that frozen smile where it’s clear she knows this isn’t good but is trying to be polite. Adam says he would’ve preferred the performance without the dancers and wishes the whole performance had been like that. Blake wants to know if it was Christina’s idea to have “the 4 mimes”. Christina says she appreciates how much progress Lily made with the song because she knows where she started with it. Christina thinks Lily showed restraint on this song. Um. – VIDEO
Team Blake performs next. – VIDEO
Blake has lunch with his team. Blake talks to them about how people will come up to him in airports and ask him flat out if he’s drunk. LOLZ. They’re singing “This Love” by Maroon 5. Adam’s chuckling. Patrick and Xenia start it off. Patrick sounds a little hammy, Xenia’s a little nervous. Harmonies are OK. Jared and Dia have more fun with each other and decent harmonies. Good chemistry there. Blake comes in for the bridge. He’s got a little too much voice for this one but the team’s having fun. Adam says “Excellent song choice.” He says Blake is so much bigger than everybody else. Off color jokes ensue.
Patrick Thomas’s next singing Nuts Of Wonder “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack. Blake tells him to make sure to channel emotion into it. He’s singing it to his sister, hoping she chases her dreams. He’s hitting most of the notes but he’s oversinging it. Goes for melisma and ad libs at the end and it doesn’t really work. Good voice but lacking in storytelling ability. Not that the judges notice. Christina still wants him to take off his pants. Awkward bromance commentary? Cee Lo Green thinks he’s the consummate professional. Adam continues the props. Blake likes the way he’s representing country music with class. – VIDEO
More Hayslip awkwardness. These segments may be more annoying than Carson Daly.
Frenchie will close the night. She’s singing “When Love Takes Over” by David Guetta. Wow, Christina’s actually advising her to cut down on some of the extra notes! She wants a clean, crisp performance. That’s actually good advice! She’s not moving much but she’s got good stage presence. Vocal is OK but she’s a little flat reaching for some of the high notes at first. She sounds solid in other parts, kind of seems like she ran out of breath in a few others. But the overall impression is pretty good. Cee Lo says her breath control is “above average”. Adam thinks there’s something beautiful about her. Blake congratulates her for making the room want to party. Christina loves her voice and her control. – VIDEO
Voting closes at Monday 10 AM Eastern June 13th. Ha.
Random thoughts:
Christina brought back bad memories of Kara on AI with her undressing of Patrick banter and her unfunny attempts to trash talk Adam and Blake. But she came off a lot better interacting with and encouraging her team and their team performance, which should have been a caterwauling mess was actually kind of fun.
Opinion: Beverly and Frenchie seem like locks to move forward from Christina’s team since Raquel and Lily were both mediocre at best. The only question is who will be the public’s “save” and who Christina will save. I thought Frenchie was going hard for the public vote. Blake’s team is harder to figure. Patrick seemingly got favored by performing next to last and by having Blake talk about his clear cut country identity as opposed to Jared who went earlier and had Blake talking about his identity issues and deciding he’s a rocker. Dia had a stronger performance than Xenia but Xenia’s got more of a sentimental favorite presentation. Neither Jared nor Patrick is likely to stand out in their markets outside the show. I think Jared performed better but will be forgotten because of performance order. Blake will probably save Patrick if the viewers don’t. If Dia doesn’t advance due to the public vote then it’ll get suspenseful because I think Blake might want to save Xenia.
Having them sing current songs was refreshing. Big production values but I think they swallowed up the talent somewhat.
Full Episode
