Friday 18 November 2011

The Worst Version of Amazing Grace Ever

X Factor USA is big. They really do need a big voice to do the intro. Where is Peter Dickson when you need him? The present announcer sounds like he's wrapped up in a duvet in an Alaska storm, hiding in a cabin from that woman who was running for Vice President a while back. I was quite scared to watch the results show as, by my reckoning at any rate, Stacy should be singing again. And that worries me as my brain tends to react pretty badly. It's not just that she sings dreadfully out of tune but that she does so so very loudly.

Steve appears and doesn't mention anything at all about Leroy missing the one bit he had to do in We Will Rock You. Instead he is announcing that good old Leroy is the first act saved. He looked well-relieved.Then Lakoda Rayne get the good news. That's nice and Paula's relieved.

Looks like we'll be getting another batch of promo shots. Drew tells us that she's never had an professional pictures taken. That does make you wonder who did the glam shots we've been seeing for the last few weeks. Maybe someone in the audience took a few shots on their phone for them.

In what must rank as The Most Understated introduction this year, Steve mumbles something about Rihanna's global exclusive launch of a new track. She jumped around a lot and sang hey hey hey a few times but her mic was picking up the track she was supposed to be miming to so, despite sounding like a great number, maybe Steve's deadbeat intro was about right. Off she goes with Steve calling her a glorious glorious lady. I can only assume the autocue man was unwell, or also worried about Stacy singing again and had taken the day off and they'd forgotten to arrange a replacement. Steve should most definitely not be let loose on stage without a script. The trouble is, even with a script, his pace of delivery is so slow that I reckon I could learn sign language by watching the late night repeat with the little chap doing the signing  bottom right.

Some act must have dropped out at the last minute as we then get a strange reintroduction with the scary film theme to the judges and top ten. Weird, and very out of place. Oh well. Third through is [silly delay] Chris Renee. Chris Renee? Good grief. I had him down for the bottom two. Melanie gets through. Good. Then Josh. Good. Marcus gets through. Drew too. Quite a relief there. Rachel, Astro and Stacy. Can't be Astro. No way. Good grief! He's in the bottom two as Rachel gets some satisfaction after all. Now that is a surprise. In a way, though, surely that must mean Stacy goes, even if she does Purple Rain in the nude.

We know LA will vote for little Brian, as will Simon. Paula might wobble and force a deadlock. Actually, after listening to that dreadful version of A-May-ZZing Gra-ay-ay-ce surely even Paula will vote for the boy. God that was horrible. Even the applause the noisy crowd usually deliver (and often for no reason at all) was embarrassingly muted.

Brian / Astro starts off asking whether he needs to perform at all! That could have been taken two ways! For a moment I thought he was saying that Stacy was so crap that he didn't need to - now that would have been funny. As it was, I think he meant that he thought his time was up. Just being in the bottom two - that's below Chris and Leroy - must have hit the lad hard after all the big confidence stuff so far. Anyway, he did perform. A pretty tedious and dodgy take on Don't Want To Say Goodbye that on another night would have meant he was going home.

LA took a while to support his guy. Nicole, obviously, supports Stacy. Paula sends Stacy home. For a moment, Simon's questioning provides an awkward moment for Brian who very nearly blew it but he survived and the screeching Stacy goes. Looks like Voting Land are going to need something different from Brian. That could be difficult for him.



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