To date, we’ve seen lots of former American Idol standouts in background roles on Season 15.
Clay Aiken, Ruben Studdard and Taylor Hicks were on hand at preliminary rounds, helping judge the talent.
Kris Allen and Lee DeWyze were backstage, providing pep talks to contestants as they prepared to audition in front of the celebrity judges.
This week, former contestants are jumping front and center. Heck, they’ll even be performing.
During the next two weeks, American Idol’s Top 24 will be split into two groups, with 12 performing one week and 12 performing the next.
And each week, six former Idol “stars” will be on hand. They’ll mentor the contestants for a Wednesday night solo performance. Then they’ll join them for a Thursday night duet.
This week’s featured former Idols will include Ruben, Fantasia, Scotty McCreery, Lauren Alaina, Caleb Johnson and last year’s winner, Nick Fradiani.
Nick will perform with Gina Isabella and Thomas Stringfellow. Fantasia will pair up with Jordan Sasser and La’Porsha Reae. Lauren will duet with Emily Brooke and MacKenzie Bourg. Scotty will sing with Jenna Renae and Jeneve Rose Mitchell. In one of the night’s oddest pairings, Caleb Johnson will duet with Sonika Vaid. He’ll also team up with fellow rocker James VIII. And Ruben will team up with Avalon Young and Stephany Negrete.
Next week, former winners Jordin Sparks and David Cook will be on hand as well as Constantine Maroulis, Chris Daughtry, Kellie Pickler and Haley Reinhart.
I’m particularly thrilled to see Idol include Haley in this round. Her journey from near elimination to third-place finish was one of the best Cinderella seasons ever by an Idol contestant and I still think she should have won Season 10.
It’ll also be interesting to watch the ratings for these episodes and whether the performances by past stars lure back old viewers.
American Idol ratings have been down again in Season 15; the season premiere drew an estimated 10.9 million viewers. That’s more than any other show in its time slow, but was also down about half from the Season 11 premiere just four years earlier.
Check back Wednesday and Thursday nights for live blogs with song by song grades as the first half of the Top 24 perform.
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