Idol Chatter & Voice Views

American Idol enters tonight with two purposes: to crown a new champion and celebrate 15 years of Idol history.

That’s likely to add up to the best finale in years.

No guest stars hawking new music that has nothing to do with the show. Just wall-to-wall Idols, with dozens scheduled to perform.

In other words, a dream episode for longtime fans of this show.

Before we get down to the live blog, some tidbits from the last 24 hours:

* One of my favorite tweets today came from Chris Daughtry: “Well @DaltonRapattoni … Look on the bright side… You made it farther than I did Next move is YOURS sir.”

* If you didn’t hear, the original Idol has declared her champ: “I have never voted for anyone on @AmericanIdol not even 4 myself,” Kelly Clarkson tweeted at the end of Wednesday’s show. “BUT I will be voting for @laporsharenae tonight. I need her future record!

* Apparently not all of the former Idol finalists were invited to tonight’s party. Jessica Meuse from Season 13 tweeted that she wasn’t invited. “I would’ve loved to be there!” she added. Shame. By my count, there have been about 165 Idol finalists. If the show could find room for William Hung … just saying.

* The Season 15 contestant with the biggest smile on his face when tonight’s show opens might be MacKenzie Bourg. Check out the iTunes singles chart. At 7:30 p.m., he was at number five, his self-written “Roses” easily beating out all three songs Idol had written for Trent Harmon, La’Porsha Renae and Dalton Rapattoni.

* Finally, a huge thanks to everyone who’s followed this blog throughout the years. Keep in mind, the blog won’t end. The Voice is still going strong. And American Idol might end, but the Idol music won’t. In the past week alone, I’ve written about new music coming from Haley Reinhart, Pia Toscano, Allisan Iraheta (Halo Circus), James Durbin, Caleb Johnson and Jena Irene. Keep making great music, folks! And thanks again.

And here we go …

We start off with this year’s Top 3 singing “One “Voice.” And they’re soon joined by dozens and dozens of past finalists. My only complaint. It was too brief. And I would have loved the camera to have scanned each and every face.

Next up, Brian Dunkleman, co-host for Season 1, shows up to razz Ryan Seacrest about the fact that he’ll soon be out of a job. And to congratulate Idol for struggling along without him for 14 seasons.

Performance 1: Trent and La’Porsha will reprise “It Takes Two,” the duet performed by Kelly and Justin back in Season 1. Nice, fun performance.

Performance 2: Surprise, Kara DioGuardi kicks off a performance of Pink’s “Sober.” And she’s joined by Jordin Sparks and, I believe, Tamyra Gray. Then we cut to Colton Dixon at the piano, singing “Story of My Life.” Next up, a snippet of “No Air,” featuring Justin Guarini and, of course, Jordin. Enter Kimberley Locke and Allison Iraheta. Cut to Tamyra singing “Girl Crush.” Allison takes the lead on “Untouchable,” with a guest appearance by the “Pants on the Ground” guy. Then Pia Toscano blesses up with “All By Myself.”

Performance 3: Kelly Clarkson delivers a pre-taped medley of her hits — pre-taped because she’s so close to the birth date of her second child. The best part of that, the a cappella snippet of “A Moment Like This” that ended the performance.

Performance 4: The Idol rockers take the stage. That includes Bo Bice, Caleb Johnson, Constantine Maroulis, Chris Daughtry and James Durbin. Love that Chris got to perform a snippet of his new single “Torches.”

Performance 5: Keith Urban is performing “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” And his special guest — Carrie Underwood. This is fantastic. Love the song. Love them on it.

Performance 6: That transitions into a medley by the country gals, Diana DeGarmo, Skylar Laine, Kree Harrison. They’re performance of “You Belong with Me” is unfortunately off key. And here come the guys, Bucky Covington, Ace Young and Constantine. Bucky is the only real country singer. And here comes Kellie Pickler and Lauren Alaina. Well the highlight of this so far was Kellie and Lauren on “Done.” And here comes Scotty McCreery to help close it out.

Performance 7: Harry Connick will perform a duet with a student from a school for music in New Orleans. The perform “What a Wonderful World.”

Performance 8: Another medley with Katharine McPhee and Casey James performing “Need You Now.” We switch to Carly Smithson, who sounds great. Next: Clay Aiken, singing “Annie’s Song.” Really nice. Amber Holcomb gets to sing with Ruben Studdard. Jessica Sanchez gets the spotlight next. Dang, Jessica. Sing it, girl.

Performance 9: Jennifer Lopez sings her new single, “I Ain’t Your Mama.” Then she transitions into “Let’s Get Loud.” And, of course, this gives Jennifer a chance to shake her butt at the Idol cameras one last time. Now, that’s talent (if you can’t read the sarcasm, it’s there).

Performance 10: Fantasia, LaToya London and Jennifer Hudson are singing “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The intro is a cappella. Then Jennifer sings “Remember the Music. Now Brandon Rogers, Clark Beckham, George Huff, Danny Gokey and Elliott Yamin take the stage for a performance of “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.” Switch back to Fantasia, who’s singing her new single, “Ugly.” Yep, there’s a tinge of country in there. And, of course, an Idol soul segment wouldn’t be complete without Taylor Hicks. So here he comes to join LaToya on “Knew You Were Waiting for Me.” Taylor even breaks out his harmonica. Time for Joshua Ledet to sing “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World.” Finally, the soul patrol is joined by Melinda Doolittle and Candice Glover for a non-Christmas rendition of “Joy to the World.”

Performance 11: A tribute to David Bowie, courtesy of Phillip Phillips, Lee DeWyze, Kris Allen, David Cook and Nick Fradiani. OK, that was less special that I had hoped. Still great to see them all on stage again.

And Ryan invites back Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul. And they present Ryan with an American Idol sign, in honor of the fact that he managed to last all 15 seasons. Of course, just when they’re complaining about Simon, he shows up. Simon apologizes for Paula being so mean to contestants over the years.

And just when Ryan is hoping for no more surprises, William Hung dashes on stage for a short version of “She Bangs.”

Performance 12: Carrie Underwood takes the stage again for a performance of “Something in the Water.” Great performance by Carrie. Just surprised she didn’t sing her new single or something from her new album.

And it’s time to learn who wins the final season of American Idol.

The lights are dimmed.

The last American Idol is … Trent Harmon. He’s absolutely in tears over the news.

And now Trent will singing “Falling,” his winning song. He ab libs a bit about “trying to sing” through his emotion. But joined by his colleagues on stage, he quickly regains his composure.