[American Idol] Season Premiere - Audition #1 Boston: The Man of the Hour, A Cancer-Survivor

American Idol is back! - again, for it's 9th season!

Personally, I doubt it would be struggling to have as great season as last year's, as ya know Adam Lambert rocked it out - and even considered by many: saved AI last year. Hmm...I must say that I'm agree with that statement.

But, well - here comes another promising season!
Another season that's promising us a new talent to see - or somebody to be seen.

They put a brief recap of last season's finale for opening this season. I liked it, they said, "Glam Rocker vs The Guy Next Door" to represents a lopsided finale between Adam and Kris (no offense, Kris). And when they said, "A new winner is crown (Kris appears)...A new star is born (ADAM APPEARS)", hahaaa...! I think that's only a smoother metaphor for the fact that "The runner-up outsold the winner on album sales, bitch!!!" Hahaha....(no offense, Kris)

Yup, enough for that. Now here's the first audition city: Boston.
It was actually taped just weeks after Paula Abdul left (I will write a post dedicated for her later). And Ellen DeGeneres, the new judge who replaces Paula's spot this year wasn't scheduled to judge for auditions. So, we'll see rotating guest judges for 7 cities of audition, includes: Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne & Mary J.Blige.

For Boston, we got Victoria Beckham. Honestly, I think she wasn't a good judge, her comments didn't help at all.

And the lucky person to be the first to be seen this year: Janet McNamara. She plays American Idol video game - I bet she won't play it again forever, after the judges said big NO for her out-of-tone, full-choregraphy rendition of Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine".

The judges, a bit surprisingly (at least for me), praised Ashley Rodriguez's rendition of - according to Kara, a very difficult song - Alicia Keys' "If I Ain't Got You", very much.
I do think she did pretty good job, but I don't think it's awesome. So I was a bit surprised when the judges showered her with really high praises.
I don't think she will make Top 12, however.



The man of the hour was: Justin Williams. Did a really great rendition of "Feeling Good", the best auditon of the day for me. He turned the song to dinamic range, down to the low, belt out some chest notes and ending with a beautiful falsetto. No wonder, though, since he's a vocal coach. I browsed about him and found that he was already made it into Hollywood last season, wow, I didn't know since I started to really watched last season since Adam got the rest of my life on "Black or White", haha. I don't know why he didn't make it through, I'll search for it soon.
The judges gave him good reviews, GOOD - not awesome like Ashley's, though Justin's audition impressed me much greater than Ashley's.
Justin is my favorite so far, and I predicted him as the first Top 12 finalist.
FYI, Justin is a cancer survivor. Great. But I'm trying not talking much about the "sad stroy" behind contestants, I know everybody sicks enough about it. Although I do consider Justin's story not as cheesy as others, since it would motivates and inspires many people.



And then, a girl did a cover of my Mariah Carey's "Vision of Love".
No, not a great rendition like Tamyra Gray did on the first season, Lisa Olivero sang it out of pitch and drew criticism from the judges. Simon even called it, "craziest version of Mariah Carey I have ever heard". Actually, I thought it was a bit out of pitch, but not really bad. I'm agree with Kara, that she needs more practice, especially when do a very-difficult-song-to-sing like this.
Hmmm...listen, folks! Don't do Mariah, except you can really take it.

Jennifer Hirsh showed a unique voice that I'm pretty like.
And there was a boy named Bosa Mora whose parents were from Nigeria. I think he did great and has a good prospect to make it to Top 24, he reminds me of Chikezie from season 7.

Well, that was all I wanted to say from Boston. The second city of audition: Atlanta.
Stay tune, guys.