American Idol – Page 12

Idol – Top 24

Katie February 24, 2012 0 Comments

It is time to reveal the top 24! I feel like there are very few contestants I have any sort of connection to. Usually by now I have a few favorites…

I was going to start by making a list of potential favorites – starting with Lauren Gray – and then they said she didn’t make the cut. Oh, judges… you are really making me wonder if I should even bother watching this season!

Actually, there are quite a few from their clips I am thinking are good that aren’t making it through – so this group better be better than those and not just filling a quota!

And one… whom I CAN. NOT. STAND. going through. Heejun. Argh.

Thursday night was more of the same. In fact, when David Leathers didn’t make it through at the end, I tweeted that I wondered if I’d even watch this season now. The only one I care about is Phillip Phillips, and even him I’m not all that sold on.

THEN… came the twist.

One of 4 guys is going to be coming back on Tuesday making it a top 13 boys. Who is one of the choices?! JOHNNY. I seriously squealed when his picture popped up on the screen. My mom loves Jermaine Jones but she conceded that she thinks it’ll be “my guy” coming back.

Let’s hope so. At least then I’ll have a reason to watch! (Who am I kidding, I’m going to watch either way, but I’ll be a lot more happy about it if Johnny is back)

American Idol Television

Idol – More Hollywood & Vegas

Katie February 20, 2012 0 Comments

Idol was 2 hours on Wednesday which messed with my schedule for sleeping a bit… but oh well.

I really liked the 2^nd group that did “Hold on Im Coming”, they had some great harmonies and I am glad that the judges let them all through! I don’t know who was in the group though because I was multi tasking and not paying enough attention. (Remember when I said I scheduled things really badly? This half assed re-cap is just another example of that)

Is this group singing MMMBop mixed with Blu Cantrell? Ha. They’re actually pretty good and it looks like they are having fun.

And here we go with the fainting again. It’s so crazy how many people this girl ended up getting sick. And I truly believe that these people who forget lyrics should be kicked out immediately. It’s not fair to the others who did practice and learn their parts.

I love how cut throat it is though – that some groups won’t even help out their group members with the lyrics. I would think that would make you look better to the judges… that you knew your part and more and were helping out.. but I guess no one wants to try that!

And wasn’t “those girls and that guy” the one with the cop who wanted to sing 2 songs for sure – and now that is not even what her group is singing? Be flexible people. That girl was so effing annoying and then didn’t even get what she wanted in the end – except for probably a bunch of viewers who are rooting against her!

I also can’t believe that after that girl fainted for what looked like a 3rd time – her group tried to keep singing! (That was my favorite doing it too – wasn’t it? ugh. lol) I mean, I get that you really want this – but if you were doing well I think that the judges would let you continue after the group member is taken care of (although to be honest they were a bit of a mess.)

Then it was time for solo performances again. This is when you really have to give it your all. I’m glad they are finally showing us some people that we haven’t seen yet. I can’t believe we are so close to the live rounds!

It looks like a couple of my favorites have made it through! And I’m still hoping the spoiler list is wrong!

Thursday night was the performances in groups in Vegas! Unfortunately my DVR decided that I didn’t REALLY need to watch it :/ Fortunately the performances were up on americanidol.com so I could see them!

(Another thing that was funny – is I avoided episode spoilers by not checking my twitter or facebook feeds after the concert to avoid anyone talking about results. What I *did* check? My blog stats. And keyword activity. Which said… “Why was johnny sent home on idol?” ACK. So then I knew that the spoiler list I had seen – might be right – since he was not on it. What HAPPENED?!)

American Idol Casey James Concert

Country 92.5 Concert For Kids

Katie February 15, 2012 0 Comments

Tuesday night Country 92.5 took over the Cadillac Ranch in Southington, CT for their annual “Concert For Kids”. All the proceeds would go to St. Jude’s. Tickets were $35 and posters were $25. A purchase of a poster meant that you got to meet all the acts after the show.

Performing were Courtney Drummey (a local CT talent), Casey James, Gloriana, Lee Brice, Neal McCoy and Uncle Kracker. Courtney opened the show with a 4 song set.

Then it was the interesting part, at least for me. Apparently the set up of “guitar pull” is pretty popular in the country community – but since I woudn’t call myself a country fan I’d never heard of it. All the performers are on stage at the same time so they can interact with each other, play with each other, etc. It also leaves more time for the show and less for set up, since as soon as one act ends the next can start up. The order was Casey, Gloriana, Lee, Neal and then Uncle Kracker. Each sang 4 songs which took about 2 hours. Then at the end they all jammed together for a few songs.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but it ended up being a really great show and a lot of fun! I especially liked at the end when they were all performing together they sang “hey jude” but instead of saying “hey” they said “st” for St Jude’s, since that’s what it was the fundraiser for. Really cool.

Once the show ended, we waited about half an hour for all the acts to come out for t signing. Casey was first so I told him he was the reason I was there and that I was a fan from Idol. He told me his CD is coming out March 20th and I told him that I already had it preordered through Walmart. He seemed surprised and said I was the first person who told him that! I said quick hellos to the other acts as the line started moving at that point (perfect timing that I was “stuck” in front of Casey though so we got to chat a bit longer) and made my way home. It was so great to meet Casey, I only wish I could have gotten a photo with him – but hopefully he’ll be back promoting the album!

Pictures are going to have to be posted a bit later – I did a really bad job scheduling posts this week! I was in Albany last night and got home and went right to bed – no time to post photos even though I had them uploaded. (Can’t sneak it from work at lunch because I upload to Facebook and that is blocked!) Hopefully this weekend (at the latest!) I’ll have some posted.

Setlist under the cut – but I can’t remember for the life of me what Lee’s first song was! I think I’ve got everything else figured out though 🙂

Idol Hollywood

Katie February 10, 2012 0 Comments

Johnny kicked off Hollywood week. I think he’s my favorite. We’ll see how many more I add to that list throughout the next couple of weeks of Hollywood. I also really like Baylie. Oh, wait… are they only re-showing us the people we already know and like? I don’t think I need to re-mention everyone I already liked lol There were a couple people I was a bit bummed to see go, some I didn’t think were that great that probably shouldn’t have been in Hollywood got cut as well.

Of course, our DVR made us miss the drama at the end of the episode. Although we were watching it “live”, we had 2 shows set to record at 9pm which is the max. So once 9pm rolled around, the channel automatically changed. I am not sure why Idol is still having trouble being in their alloted hour – even when the episodes were pre-edited and aren’t live?

Fortunately it sounds like we didn’t miss much as the outcome of her fall opened up Thursday night’s show. (And luckily the girl was ok!) Although then we see a preview with even more people passing out! Wow! I wonder if they forget to eat + nerves makes them pass out?

The group episodes are always my favorite because they bring the drama. What was with the girl asking everyone if they liked cops? I wouldn’t go around asking everyone if they like engineers! If you can sing you can sing who cares what your current day job is?

Also that one kid complaining about the cowboy… just do what you gotta do and stop with the complaining! I think the only thing he does on camera is complain! He made me so angry haha.

Now that you’ve made it through all my whining… We are giving away a David Cook “This Loud Morning” DELUXE cd. Enter below!
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American Idol

Idol Thoughts – Last of the Auditions

Katie February 4, 2012 0 Comments

This week we had the last week of auditions! Unfortunately I spoiled myself and looked at the top 24 list that had leaked. I tried to forget what I saw and for the most part it worked. I don’t know why I ALWAYS look, I get so mad at myself afterwards. Although, I don’t really have any clear cut favorites yet, so I am hoping that Hollywood week will make me fall for a couple of contestants, at least!

Wednesday night we were in Portland (although GetGlue gave us stickers for Portland AND Gavelston. Not sure what happened there.) There were a few that stuck out to me during this hour – Jermaine Jones (though he sang a Ruben song), Britnee the mom of 2, Romeo Diahn and Jessica Phillips. I was so glad that Jessica was a good singer – obviously she is a great person staying with her boyfriend after he had a stroke and did not remember her – but it seems like she is good all around 🙂

Thursday night was in St. Louis, where Carrie Underwood was discovered! (And I can’t get over her accent in those old clips. My goodness! She is so cute.) And forget what I said earlier about no clear cut favorite. Hellooooo Johnny. Reis Kloeckner was pretty good as well. (I guess all the boys were hiding in St Louis!) The last girl was also good as well. I just wasn’t paying enough attention to the TV to catch her name. (Lauren?)

American Idol

Idol Thoughts: Episodes 3,4,5

Katie January 28, 2012 0 Comments

THREE episodes of Idol this week! How fun! What wasn’t fun was staying up from 11pm to midnight to watch the “special SUNDAY episode” that ended up being reaired at a normal time on Tuesday. Wish I had known that was going to happen ahead of time because I would have gone to bed a bit earlier! (Actually, who am I kidding? We would have watched a different show instead – we were up until 1am as it was trying to make a dent in the DVR to no avail). Only two names added to my list from this episode – Ashley Robles and Ali Shields. Jim Carrey’s daughter might have potential too, but we’ll have to see what she does in Hollywood.

Wednesday night we were in Aspen, CO. I wasn’t entirely paying attention to this episode – but I did like the girl with the 60s/70s vibe and the girl with bipolar. Otherwise I wasn’t entirely impressed with the talent they passed through to Hollywood – but during hell week anything can happen.

Thursday brought us to Houston, TX. Skylar Lane – may be country but I like her – and I like that she’s not a girly girl even though she could come off as one. Bailey..I don’t remember her from Ssn 6 (but I do remember the jersey girls. yuck) but I do like her now! Kristine Osoirio was good as well. (And the few Jennifer thought were good but the guys weren’t, I agreed with Jennifer.) And finally a decent boy! Cortez Shaw. I thought we were seriously lacking in the guy department the past few episodes! Ramiro Garcia is good too – but another one w/ a sob story.

American Idol Media

Tim Urban Media Post

Katie January 25, 2012 2 Comments

Clips of almost every song he performed… and a few are a bit more than clips. Enjoy!

Tim Urban Torrington High School

Katie January 24, 2012 10 Comments

Tim Urban recently tweeted that he was going to be performing at a high school in Connecticut with someone to contact for more information. I contacted Brittany, one of the students in charge of the event and she offered to hold a ticket for me. Originally the show was supposed to be on Saturday evening, but we got a pretty big snow storm Friday night in to Saturday afternoon so the show got moved to Sunday afternoon instead.

I got to the high school early and was able to go in and see part of rehearsal. Tim was rehearsing with Brittany and her sister Jennifer and then Brittany and Jennifer did a song alone and then left the stage. I got a spot in the 4th row for the show and waited for 1pm to roll around for the show to start.

Tim came out first and said he was introducing Brittany and Jennifer, who sang Adele’s Crazy For You. Then they did a trio with Tim and sang Disturbia. Then it was time for just Tim.

I have to say, Tim was hilarious and it was a really fun show because he interacted with the crowd (even though he really couldn’t see us due to the bright spotlight.) He played a lot longer than I thought he would and although he only did 1 original song (which will be on his album which he said should be out soon) it was a great set and I was thoroughly entertained. If you weren’t a fan of his during idol, check him out again if you get the chance because I definitely think he will win you over.

He talked a lot in between songs, about how he was from LA and doesn’t see snow a lot so the amount of snow we got was “crazy”, but we probably think it is nothing. And how he is from Texas and Washington so he says “Y’all guys” which is a combo of y’all and you guys. He also mentioned that Simon was mean, Randy was weird, he didn’t know anything that Kara said to him and that he liked Ellen and she hugged him… He screwed up the chords during Daughters… which I think I have on video and will be posting soon. He was just a lot of fun and at times it was more like we were just hanging out than watching a show.

I have a bunch of videos to go through that I’ll hopefully be posting soon so keep an eye out for that! (Either later today or in the next few days!)

Setlist under the cut!

THIS! Is American Idol

Katie January 20, 2012 0 Comments

It’s finally here! American Idol is back! I am so excited. Episode 1 brought us 2 hours of auditions from Savannah, GA and Episode 2 had 1 hour from Pittsburgh, PA, the first time auditions had ever gone to Pittsburgh. (I love all those bridges.) It also brought us some stickers on Get Glue! It turned out I forgot to check in for the “coming soon” sticker, but it gave it to me anyway along with a whole slew of others on the first night and a Pittsburgh sticker for night 2.

Right now, like most of the viewers, I am on team Phillip Phillips. (And you thought Aaron Kelly’s mom being Kelly Kelly was funny – at least she married in to the name!) Of course, I expect myself to find multiple other favorites throughout the audition process but for now he is the one. So much so in fact, night #2 just seemed kind of blah in comparison to him closing out #1. (Let’s just hope he lives up to the hype too – I know a lot of times I think that contestants will really be going places but they fizzle out in Hollywood rounds)

Some others that I thought were pretty good were… from Night #1 – David Leathers, Shannon Magrane, Amy Brumfield, Stephanie Renae, Schuler Dixon (though I am not in to her brother and I don’t like that he was able to audition and make it through without having registered or anything!) and of course Phillip Phillips. (Did you notice his Dad was Phillip Phillips Sr?)

From night #2 some names I wrote down were… Samantha Novacek, Travis Orlando, Emma Van Pelt (was that her first name?) and Hallie Day.

I am trying to pick some sort of schedule for posting and for the most part I will try to post my thoughts on Fridays. HOWEVER, I was a bit slow on scheduling out my months so some fridays already have previous obligations locked in. So don’t be surprised if they show up on Saturdays and Sundays as well. (Not to mention things might get shifted if I can’t watch live due to being at other concerts, etc!) But I will be trying real hard to post at least something about all the episodes somewhere around once a week. (I’m also going to be trying to blog about The Voice so that’s a LOT of TV watching and sometimes re-watching and note taking and blogging – but I am up to the challenge!)

The next episode will be on special on Sunday after the big game! As if my Sunday nights were not busy enough with TV watching 😉

American Idol Concert

Kelly Clarkson Stronger Tour January 13

Katie January 14, 2012 0 Comments

This review may contain spoilers for Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger Tour. If you’d like to be surprised about the show, it might be best to not read this review.

Friday night Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger Tour kicked off at the MGM Grand Theater at Foxwoods in Mashantucket, CT. For this show I had the best seats I’ve ever had at this venue, about 15 rows from the stage, but off to the left.

I had thought Matt Nathanson would be opening, but at 8:20 a song was playing over the loudspeaker and the ladies next to me informed me it was “her song” (Kelly’s) and the curtain went up and there was a screen around the stage and then a bunch of newspaper clips and headlines scrolled by and it was time for Kelly!

She kicked her set off with what I think is my favorite song off the new album, dark side. Then she went in to a couple of older singles – Behind These Hazel Eyes and Since U Been Gone. Before the next song she explained that she did some we’d know to get us into the show, but then was going to do a song she didn’t do that often to make her sister and fans happy and she did hear me, gone and then you love me.

Then she ran off the stage and the screen went around again. Next thing I know she appeared in the crowd and sang Florence and the Machine’s Heavy in Your Arms. For this tour, each night she is taking a request from twitter – and this is the part of the show where she did it. Connecticut’s request was from Javier and he requested Cee Lo Green. She sang “Forget You” and encouraged us all to sing along. Then she did a medley from her older albums since she had been doing this for 10 years and has 5 albums.

The screen went down again and she came out and said that this song was added to the setlist the night before and that “jesus, lord” there are a lot of songs on the set list! But she wanted to add it anyway. She said she did a show with Carrie Underwood and Carrie came out and sang this song and she thought that she wished she had a song like it, but she doesn’t, so she is stealing it from Carrie and sang “I know you won’t”

Then Dont You Wanna Stay started coming from the band. I wasn’t sure how she’d do a duet, but Jason Aldean popped up on the screen and sang his parts and Kelly sang hers. It was pretty neat. Then she did Let Me Down and Already Gone. She went in to Breakaway which she said was one of her most popular songs and encouraged us all to sing along with her.

Next up a video played with her trip to Africa and she sang a song she was inspired to write while there, which I think was called You Still Wont Know What Its Like. I loved seeing the the footage from her trip to Africa, the kids were so cute and looked like they were having so much fun!

Then it was time for her single and the title track from the album (and tour), Stronger! And then she went into My Life Would Suck Without You.
That seemed to be the end of the show – there were chants Kelly! Kelly! and she came back out and did Never Again and said it was one of her favorite songs and sometimes you had to go through bad situations to get good songs – not that it was a good song but it was one of her favorites and she didn’t want to come off as egotistical. Then she teased about it again before going into a song she wrote when she was 16, Because of You.

The next song, which I figured would be the last, was Mr Know It All. Except when the song ended, there was some mixing and the song went “mis..mister…mis…” and then Kelly sang out “MISS INDEPENDENT” ! And that was what she finished the set with.

Such a great show, and Kelly can SING. I can’t believe it has taken me 10 years to finally have seen a full headlining show from her!

After the show, I met up with my Dad who had been gambling and was down about $30. He brought me over to his new favorite machine and I sat at the one next to it and we figured we’d play for a bit before heading to the car because the parking garage would probably be a mess. Next thing I know I get 4 bonuses, which means I won the “minor” kitty which was $18 and change. Then I got 10 bonus spins and somehow ended up being at $72+ after that was done! (I think I had about $15 before I went in to the bonus round) I played down to $70.25 and ended up taking home $50. Not bad! My Dad also ended up winning and won about $25 making him down only about $5 for the night – which was also not bad considering he was playing for about 3 hours!

Some photos to come a bit later – I have a bunch to do so I’m not sure when I’ll get around to uploading them!