Lukas finally popped his cherry and had his first one. I would dare say he sang Creep better this time with a lot more precision and clarity through the head voice portion of the song. It's too bad MSN doesn't make the elimination song available for download. He still has a habit of stumbling around the stage like a drunk epileptic - but oh well, you can't have everything. He sounded nice.
Next up was Magni, who reprised Dolphin's Cry from last night, but instead of doing it acoustically - rocked it out with the House Band. I have to say I think encoring the song differently is first for both seasons. Some people had complained that his performance last night was too close to Ed Kowalzick's (sp) original, but this time out it was definately all Magni. I don't think I've heard him do so much of a song with stress vocals before. What both my wife and I thought was really interesting and impressive was the three of four syllabals of higher notes where Magni switched into to head-voice and almost instantaneously back out of it again to chest voice. That's fucking hard to do. Non-singers probably wouldn't notice, but it's like shifting your car from 5th to 2nd gear and back again without losing any speed. What it makes me wonder though is if Magni did it because he had to do it to hit those notes. If so, I think we may have just found the top of Magni's chest voice range, and it's not that far up there. If so, there's no way that Magni could have sung Creep, because you have to do it in full on chest voice - firewalling the throttle in 5th gear - or it simply doesn't work. Mr. Perfect actually does have his own brand of Krptonite.
Hmm...
Again, it's a real shame this won't be available for download.
I have to say I wasn't surprised by the five people who had to stand (Jill, Zayra, Patrice, Josh and Ryan) in preparation for the announcement of the bottom 3. Some might have been surpised by Ryan, but as I said about his performance yesterday - it was just a little too forced and left-fieldy. Maybe in his normal career the kind of theatrics he displayed on "Paint it black" are more common, but with his very staid wardrobe of dark t-shirts, ripped jeans and wallet chains - it came completely out of nowheres-ville. I didn't think most people would buy it, and they didn't. There's only room for one male freak-z-zoid in this contest, and Lukas is already it.
Jill was picked to sing for survival first and she did an appreciable version of "Respect" - but her claims that she "rocked it out" where nothing more than hype. Of anyone in this contest, she has the best pipes. She been able to handle Janis Joplin and Ann Wilson with ease. The only song she had a hard time with so far was Evanescence in week 2, but otherwise she's actually had a tendency to have more power than is really neccesary for the song - like on the Simple Minds song on week 4. This time she hit it out of the park vocally and as usual commanded the stage, but that wasn't where the problems were.
The first problem was the white-bread wannabe clusterfunk of an arrangement. Look, people - if you want to do funk and do it right the first think you have to do is slow... it....downnnnnn. Funky groves work off the counter-beats, the rythms between the downbeats and if things are too fast it simply doesn't groove and comes off as more punky than funky. If you happen to be a neo-punk outfit like the Chili Peppers that can work, but you have to commit to the punk. You can't half-ass it, and this was not even a quarter assed. More like flat-assed. It wasn't funky and it didn't come anywhere close to rocking. If you want to hear someone rock out an Aretha Franklin song, I'd suggest you listen to "Chain of Fools" by Little Caesar - which will rock your ass off and is also Funky as all get out. Or you could use the example of Bulletboys doing the O'Jay's "For the Love of Money" - and both of these songs are actually a lot like what Supernova is headed toward sounding like. Somewhat updated to be sure, but in that ballpark.
Let me point out that Aretha wasn't the first person to do "Respect", it was written and first performed by Otis Redding and his version is nothing like hers. She added the gospel tinge and the entire "R.E.S.P.E.C.T." with the backing vocals going "Sock it too me". Jill had a great opputunity to do something that was common last year, but almost no one has done so far this time, which is use the elimination song as an opputunity to show what they might sound like doing a Supernova-styled song. They now know what SN sounds like. Taking a cue from L-Ceasar of B-Boys reworking of classic R&B might have helped, but unfortunately Jill cluelessly pissed that chance away.
Next up was Josh, he decided to completely ignore the advice/warning from yesterday about hiding behind his guitar during a performance and decided to do it again, this time on a "Shooting Star" by Bad Company. Correction - Bad song choice. I mentioned yesterday that it's pretty difficult to rock and a guitar and sing, but it's not impossible. You just have to put some effort into it. One thing you can do is use a headphone mic like Britney Spears or Garth Brooks. Yeah, I know "Rocker's don't do that" - to which I have to say some rockers need to grow the F up. If it works, do it. Another option is to simply to dance while you play. I'm not saying do the "funky chicken", but just put don't just bob you head back and forth like Josh did - lean back, sway, swing your arms, spread your legs, stomp your feet - -fucking DO SOMETHING. You may not be able to move far, but you can move.
All this time they've been practically begging Josh to ROCK - damnit just ROCK willya - and he just refuses to do it. It's not like you have to lose "the soul", you don't. Eric Martin of Mr. Big has made that absolutely clear, and sure they may be mostly known for the acoustic ballad "To be with you" - that band used to really fucking ROCK, with Billy Sheehan on Bass, shred-master Paul Gilbert on guitar and Martin, whose career previously had been largely doing R&B and soul.
Third and last was Ryan, with his first appearance in the bottom three - just one week after he received the encore, which only goes to show that what SN digs isn't always what the fans dig. At this point it's not about individual performances, it's about the overall package and Ryan's slack jawed, sallow eyed Bill Joelish New Yorker thang isn't working for a lot of people. He's begun to show that he's a great singer, but he's just plain clumsy on stage. On this performance, which was an awesome reworking of Depeche Modes "Enjoy the Silence' was powerful and mezmerizing. This boy has been on fire since Week 4. He did here exactly what he needed to do - show Supernova how they might look and sound with Ryan leading them. In fact, I had a moment there while watching Ryan where I finally thought - "Holy Crap, this guy could win this thing!"
Yet again, it really sucks that you can't get these songs - because I really want this one - badly.
Unfortunately the only thing holding him back is the fact that he's a klutz, and I've finally figured out exactly how he could fix the problem. A now former friend of mine once dragged me kicking and screaming to see Dream Theater. And I F#&KING GOD D*#N HATE DREAM THEATER. He knew it, I've told him this many times - but I am generally a loyal friend and he had no one else who would go with him - and he really didn't care how I or most other people felt most of the time (Wonder why he's an "ex"? Wonder no more). So I went. Yeah, I was a dumbass. Now sure those guys can really play, and I appreciate guys who can play - but after the first 15-minutes opus it's about as interesting as watching people shove beams of wood into a chipper. I'd seen these guys ten years before and just couldn't take it - I may have paid for the tickets, but back then I walked out.
This time was no different (except that my ex-pal was paying this time - which goes to show just how desperate he was for company - anyones company), I spent most of the performance in the lobby hanging with the vendors, and noticing that most of the band photos had the singer standing waaaayyy in the back, like he was a hired hand or something. (Clue! He basically is and acts like it)
But before I went outside I figured out Dream Theater's biggest problem, their singer James Lebrie has the stage presence of squished gerbal that's just been rescued from Richard Gere's butt. Lebrie has a habit of aimlessly pacing the stage, back and forth - forth and back - while he sings. Even he looks bored, like he can't wait for his obligatory back-stage blowjob to begin. The worse part was made evident when Dream Theater's original singer stepped up for a song, and totally blew La Brie away. There was one simple thing he did that put him light-years beyond Jamie-boy, besides the fact that he doesn't whine when he sings, and that's the fact that when he moved around the stage - he did it in time with the music. In fact, everything he did was either in response to, or to emphasize something going on musically. It's just too bad their previous guy is a) balding and b) pot-bellied while Labrie is well-maned, slim, trim and as interesting to watch as roadkill on the interstate.
Ryan's got Labrie Syndrome(tm) - he stumbles around the stage like he's looking for his car keys or something, and he's always out of time with the song. Even Lukas's drunken stumbling is at least close to the beat -but Ryan literally looks lost, because musically- he is lost.
Still Ryan has got far too much juice after his last two performances - so tonights exiting hamsters were both Josh and Jill. I have to say - they had to go. They're both hopeless, and I don't care what Dave says - they're probably going nowhere after this. They have just peaked and it's all downhill from here.
Don't believe me? Who was the number 9 and 10 performer from Season Two of American Idol? And just remember, American Idol is much more popular than Rock Star. Unfortunately J&J just missed their oppurtunity to sign up for that show - auditions were held the day before they were released tonight, at the freaking Rosebowl. (By comparision The LA Rock Star Auditions had about 220 people - total)
Vyan
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