Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Heading into opening night on American Idol, the judges had praised this year’s crop of female singers.

The way Tuesday’s show started, viewers must have wondered what they were raving about.

We were four performances in before Lilly Scott took the stage, looked comfortable and delivered the first semifinal-worthy performance of the night.

Here’s the link to my song-by-song blog. Grades for the performances also appear at the bottom of this blog.

Meanwhile, here’s my opening night rundown on who deserves to stay, who deserves to go, along with a prediction for Thursday night.

Hey, this is Idol. The singers deserving the boot aren’t always the ones who go home.

Best of the night: Crystal Bowersox, which didn’t surprise me at all. She whipped out the harmonica again. She turned in a wonderful vocal on “Hand In My Pocket.” She’s clearly the girl to beat at this point. She gets a minus behind the A because the selection of an Alanis Morissette song was pretty predictable. And, like Simon, I think she’s capable of even better.

Gotta tell you, I was also very impressed with Michelle Delamor. Kara gave her a lukewarm critique, but on the night when on-the-mark vocals were few and far between, I thought that was a darn good version of “Falling.” What’s she been doing singing at corporate functions?

Deserves to go home: I thought this was plainly clear. Haeley Vaughn and Lacey Brown should pack their bags.

Love “Landslide,” but between the Stevie Nicks version and the Dixie Chicks version, there was just no way Lacey was going to come off well singing that song unless she changed it up dramatically. She didn’t. And she didn’t sing it well.

As for Haeley, wow, she almost made William Hung look good. I mean, that version of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” wasn’t good enough to merit a golden ticket, let alone a spot in the semifinals.

Please save them: Two of my favorites — Ashley Rodriguez and Janell Wheeler — seemed bitten by a case of opening night nerves. I still have high hopes for both. They look like Idols, and they’ve sang well in the past. Just hope they get another chance to show what they can do. For Janell, that marks two shaky song selections in a row.

Surprise of the night: Katelyn Epperly, hands down. She seemed quite sure of herself on the stage. She’s got a quirky look. (Again, who cares what Kara says?) And she nailed the vocal on the Beatles’ “Oh, Darling” after watching most of the performers who went before her get beaten up by the judges.

You know what? I was also surprised by Katie Stevens. One of the youngest contestants, she showed no sign of opening-night jitters. And, apparently, I thought her vocal was better than the Idol judges. That’s a heck of a lot of pressure on a teen, closing the first semifinal show.

Best line of the night from the judges: Simon Cowell to Haeley, after her performance: “You were like a wind-up doll. You never stopped smiling through the whole song. That’s why the vocal was all over the place. It was just, for me, a complete and utter mess.” Ouch. Classic Simon.

Prediction for Thursday night: Lacey and Haeley deserve to go home, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Paige Miles finds herself in trouble as well. After getting no airtime during the leadup to the voting shows, she wound up singing first Tuesday night. And her performance wasn’t very memorable.

The grades:

Crystal Bowersox: A-
Michelle Delamor: B+
Katelyn Epperly: B+
Lilly Scott: B
Katie Stevens: B
Didi Benami: B-
Siobhan Magnus: C+
Janell Wheeler: C
Ashley Rodriguez: C
Paige Miles: C-
Lacey Brown: D
Haeley Vaughn: F