Friday night the The Voice on Tour rolled in to Connecticut, home state of the first season winner, Javier Colon. The show was at the Oakdale Theater in Wallingford, CT one of only a handful of performances that the Top 8 would be doing.
Doors to the theater opened at 7:30 and everyone filed in to their seats and sent text messages to the screen to get a chance to win a Sprint Tablet. Around 8pm the warmup guy from Karaoke Battle USA came out on stage. What? Yes. Bill, the warmup guy from last month when I went to see Karaoke Battle USA tape was there to warm up the crowd. For a concert?
Honestly, we could have done without this. When he went through the crowd in the beginning asking favorite moments, ok, maybe that was a bit amusing. However, what is Carson Daly doing? He could have recorded video clips to be played in between sets. Or better yet – don’t mess with the momentum of one performance to the other and just let the contestants keep the energy up! (Everyone wasn’t sure if they should sit or stay standing when he came out on stage and it just made things very awkward)
The show started with the entire Top8 performing a mashup of George Michael’s songs Freedom and Faith. The top 8 for those of you who don’t recall are made up of Nakia, Vicci Martinez, Xenia, Dia Frampton, Frenchie, Beverly McClellan, Casey Weston and of course, Javier Colon.
After the song, Bill came out and talked about Team CeeLo. Nakia did a song, then Vicci followed with 2 songs.
Bill came out and talked about team Blake. Xenia did a song, then Dia did two. (Which had most of the crowd sitting since they were not very upbeat)
Bill came out and talked about Team Christina. Then Frenchie came out and did a song and then Bev did 2 songs.
Finally, it was time for Team Adam. Bill did his reading about the team, then Casey came out and did a song and then Javier came out and did 2.
After each performance the contestants thanked everyone for voting, watching, and making the show such a success. It was nice because they were stumbling over words at times so it seemed like these things were not rehearsed and rather from the heart.
After we were introduced to the teams, it was time for the contestants to come back out and sing again. Each contestant had just 1 song this time in the order of Xenia, Casey, Frenchie, Nakia, Beverly, Vicci and Dia. Javier once again had 2 songs.
The contestants also did back up for each other at points. Beverly and Nakia dueted for Beautiful (and walked through the aisle right past me!) and Javier was on guitar. Beverly and Casey played guitar during on of Xenia’s performances. Vicci and Beverly played buckets on Casey’s Black Horse and Cherry Tree performance. Everyone came out to back up Frenchie on Like a Prayer.
After Javier’s second to last song, Bill came out and talked to Javier a bit. He told him how people from his school were there (he talked to one of the nun’s from Javier’s school before the show started) and that he wanted to hear Javier sing something from Oklahoma. Except that the nun said that he performed in Showboat! Javier corrected him and did do a bit of Old Man River. He also gave the slip of paper with the chosen finale song – Don’t Stop Believing.
The 8 then came back out and all did a rendition of Michael Jackson’s Man In The Mirror.
I have to say, I was very impressed with all of the contestants. And Vicci is SO tiny and she really puts all of her body in to every note (and maybe then some!). Xenia seemed over powered by the band at times, but really has grown so much since the beginning of the competition. They all put on a great show and it was a really fun night!
Setlist under the cut!
Top 8 – Freedom/Faith mashup
Team CeeLo
Nakia – Forget You
Vicci – Jolene
Vicci – Rollin In The Deep
Team Blake
Xenia – Price Tag
Dia – Heartless
Dia – Inventing Shadows
Team Christina
Frenchie – Love Takes Over
Beverly – Beautiful
Beverly – Baba O Reilly
Team Adam
Casey – I Will Always Love You
Javier – Time After Time
Javier – Stitch By Stitch
Xenia – Breakeven
Casey – Black Horse & Cherry Tree
Frenchie – Like a Prayer
Nakia – Sex Is On Fire
Beverly – The Thrill Is Gone
Vicci – Dog Days Are Over
Dia – Losing My Religion
Javier – Fix You
Javier – Don’t Stop Believing (text vote winner)
Top 8 – Man In The Mirror