Idol Chatter & Voice Views

OK, I’m chalking up a lot of what we saw the last two nights to opening-round nerves.

Because the standout performances, the performances we’re going to remember later this year — like we did with Adam Lambert’s “Satisfaction” a year ago … well, I’m not sure we saw one in round one.

What we saw Wednesday night were lots of guys with unrealized potential. Even some of the early standouts — Andrew Garcia, Michael Lynch — didn’t sparkle quite as brightly as we’d hoped. Right?

That said, the difference between season eight and season nine is that this year’s semifinalists still have two more chances to “wow” us.

After round one, I’m still waiting to be wowed by one of the guys.

Here’s the recap:

Best of the night:

Honors go to the guys with guitars. And, no, not Michael Lynche or Andrew Garcia, though both certainly did well enough to hang around for another week.

My favorite on opening night was Lee DeWyze, who has a great tone to his voice and demonstrated it on “Chasing Cars.” Thanks for sticking up for him, Simon. For a while, listening to Kara and Randy, I was wondering if I was hearing the same performance they were. I’d listened to some of the music Lee has available on iTunes and came away impressed. He didn’t disappoint Wednesday night.

My other favorite, trailing closely behind Lee, was Casey James, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he let his hair down or the first few buttons on his shirt undone. Fact is, if Kara keeps on raving about the guy … well, it’s already beyond annoying. That aside, he has a good voice, sang the song well and picked a song that suited him. On Wednesday, that ranked him as one of the best, and he even managed to keep his composure in spite of the antics going on at the judges’ table.

As for Andrew and Michael, both sounded fine. Neither is in danger of going home. They might have suffered a little because more was expected of them than most of the other performers.

Deserves to go home:

Honestly, there are plenty of choices here. If I could chose, I’d send Todrick Hall packing because he comes with baggage the show doesn’t need and because Simon was dead on right: his performance was all style over substance. And he made a mess of a perfectly good Kelly Clarkson song.

Then I’d tell Joe Munoz to pack his bags. Between the lack of airtime, a subpar vocal and a totally forgettable performance, I don’t think he has much of a future in the competition.

But, hey, John Park and Alex Lambert ranked right up there if I was making a list of “please, I never want to hear that again” performances. Whatever spark Shania saw sure disappeared for John Wednesday night. And Alex sure didn’t stir up any memories of Adam. Just the opposite. He looked a little petrified on stage, then admitted as much.

Please keep them:

I’m putting the Pennsylvania guys here. Because on a night when several contestants were really bad, they showed the potential that makes me think they deserve another chance.

Aaron Kelly seems like a truly nice young man and showed wisdom beyond his years by sticking to his forte, country-pop, something Janell Wheeler would have been wise to do on Tuesday when the ladies performed. And while his vocal wasn’t flawless, it seemed better as the night wore on.

And on a night when inspired performances were few and far between, at least Tyler Grady tried to inject some energy into his rendition of “American Woman.” Was the vocal fantastic? No. But it was better than many of the rest.

Surprise of the night:

The positive reviews Joe Munoz got after singing Jason Mraz’s “You and I.” For a while, I thought that lackluster vocal was why we’d seen so little of Joe to this point. That he was truly cast in the semifinals as cannon fodder, as I’d suspected all along. Then the judges started talking about his potential. Must have been something they saw in Hollywood Week rather than in that performance.

Best line of the night from the judges:

No one had performed yet. Ryan was looking to the judging panel for tips the contestants can use to conquer a bad case of the nerves. And it was Simon’s turn to talk. “I watched some of the rehearsals earlier on,” he said, “and I saw an awful lot of nerves. If you lose it tonight, or forget your words, your career’s over.”

Gee, Simon, I’m sure that helped. The good news: No one forgot their words.

Prediction for Thursday:

Good critiques or not, I think Joe Munoz could be in trouble in week one. He needed to come out of the gates with a memorable performances to overcome his lack of airtime to this point. Didn’t happen. I suspect Tim Urban might also be in trouble. Partly because Simon proclaimed as much. Partly because he got so little airtime as well. That would be a shame, because his performance was far from the worst Wednesday.

For a look at the recap from round one of the ladies’ semifinals, go here.

For the song by song blog for the guys, go here.

The grades:

Lee DeWyze: B
Casey James: B
Andrew Garcia: B-
Michael Lynche: B-
Jermaine Sellers: B-
Aaron Kelly: C+
Tyler Grady: C
Tim Urban: C-
Todrick Hall: D+
Joe Munoz: D
John Park: D
Alex Lambert: D-