Rock Star: Week 8 Elimination

Well this show wasn't much of a surprise on stage, but things in the Rocker pod certainly grew interesting.

Ryan and Dilana pretty much had it out - and I have to say that Ryan won easily. While he may have seemed a bit like a weasle when it came to calling out Dana in previous weeks, even calling Patrice a "Bitch" at one point - he was dead-on when it came to Dilana and her back-stabbing bullshit. She's clearly grown a huge ego in the last few weeks, we could tell when she tried to button-hole Tommy in Vegas "Just cut the other 7 and give me the job". And some of the shit she said to Ryan was just ridiculous - "You would have been nothing without the House Band last night" - because he had practically cracked the whip on those boys during rehearsals to get the song exactly where he wanted it. They were crying "Uncle", and then she gives *them* all the credit? What the fuck kinda shit is that?

To his credit, Ryan was gracious. But what he said was absolutely true, that Dilana may have been nice when she was in front of the SN boys -she certainly hadn't been in the house. And her mock reaction shots of feigned surprise and annoyance at what he was saying were just priceless - especially when the subject came up a second time in reference to all the crap she dished during the press clinics.

Turnabout is fairplay Dilana, and this time it was gorgeous behold. Gotta say I loved Magni's SNAP - "You're just doing the same thing, over and over again - we're evolving". BULLSEYE! Lukas in response to the comments made to Jamie of Star 98.7 was also incredibly gracious, he's certainly learned to "rise above it".

Not that any of us in blogistopia have to - what's up the with Demented Princess Leia hair buns anyway, Dilana? Jesus, Fashion Tragedy Much?

Clearly Dilana has her fans and they're going to support her no matter what. We've long passed the point where individual performances really matter at all - if someone has gained a huge fan base, they are protected no matter what stupid asshole behavior they manifest - if they haven't they're basically screwed, and don't let them show a kink in their armor and they're done! Buh Bye.

For tonight's special Supernova debut song - Toby got the nod. The song was better than last weeks, and Toby did a good job - but the song actually showed some of the weeknesses in his voice and tone. It's just grating, plus he doesn't have much control in the lower ranges. Weak and pitchy down there. His stage presence pretty much made up for that, and his again displayed something that Ryan doesn't seem to have - coordination. Just about every move was in time to the song, not that he was literally dancing like Dilana was last week (doing the MJ kick and all) but he ROCKED. It was cool, but I still like Patrice and Ryan's original songs better than what I've heard of Supernova's material. Which is a bad sign for them, but a great thing for Patrice and Ryan.

This time we had four rockers in danger - Patrice, Toby, Magni and Storm. Now look, there was nothing wrong with either Magni or Storms performance yesterday -but somebody has to be in the bottom and someone doesn't. In this case Dilana, Ryan and Lukas weren't - so it's safe to say that they are the front runners. According to the Wikipedia Supernova page - Ryan also also tied with Magni with the most number of encores so far (two). Of the top three only Ryan has actually been in the bottom 3 (Week 6), while Storm, Lukas and Dilana have never performed an elimination song - yet.

Magni was up first and performed "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix - which is a favorite of mine. He did a good job, he's a much better vocalists than Jimi was - so that partwasn't a challenge. The challenge is performing while wearing a guitar at the level that Jimi used to - and Magni wasn't quite up to that. He just happened to have picked the one Hendrix song that has the shortest and simplist guitar solo -- and he actually played it in tandem with Rafeal. (HELL, Yes) I'd been waiting for all these pretenders to actually play something beside strumming pussified barre chords for this entire show and finally - finally - somebody got up there and actually played some real guitar.

Too bad no one could hear him.

Magni's guitar simply wasn't in the mix. In fact, I'd bet that none of the rockers guitars have actually been in the mix during the entire show so far. I certainly haven't actually heard them, and since they've only been playing chords that are simple and identical to what the other two guitarists are doing - you can't really tell. It's an old trick I've seen used before -- put the guy whose skills you don't entirely trust in the monitors so he can hear them and think he's rocking out, but not in the house mix. Works almost every time. Damnit, if I were Magni and I was going to do a song like this one, I'd either let Rafael do all of leads or else tell him to sit the fuck down - I'll do it - all of it. That was some bullshit right there. If the man can play - let him play - if he can't don't jerk his chain. Either way - he killed it as usual and went immediately back to the pod.

Patrice was next, and did her usual thing - which is to over enunciate every damn syllable. I don't know what her problem is, it's just like Zarya's accent - only this isn't her Texas drawl coming out in the song. I didn't happen last week when she did her original, but when she does cover song - BAM - there it is again. Annoying as hell. Plus it pretty much ruined a great Pretenders song - "Middle of the Road". She didn't even catch the "purrrr meow.." part just before the harmonica solo. Feh.

Lastly was Toby - Storm again got a pass, and boy did she look disappointed and annoyed - Toby got up and performed Plush. Again, great stage presence - even letting Magni sing a chorus with him - but a reedy voice that simply doesn't have anywhere near the richness of Scott Weiland. And that's a bad comparison since the direction that Supernova really needs to go - is that of Velvet Revolver. Old school with some modern hip twists. I'm not sure they realize that yet, but either way - Toby aint their guy.

In the end the hamster released from the cage was Patrice after four appearances in the bottom 3 - no big surprise. She's done extremely well to have survived so far and was clearly the weakest of the remaining performeers but somebody has to go and now was her turn.

After this, it's going to get nasty.

Vyan