Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Check out tonight’s episode of American Idol and you might just see a gal from southcentral Pennsylvania performing.

About 70 of the 300 contestants who made it to Hollywood advanced to the Vegas round, with the final cuts in Hollywood revealed last night.

Of those who survived what Idol billed as the “hardest” Hollywood Week ever was Naomi Gillies of Lancaster, Pa.

We met Naomi, 22, in the Portland audition episode where she sang Aerosmith’s “Cryin'” to earn her golden ticket.  I’ve embedded her audition clip below.

But since then, we’ve seen precious little of the student at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.

The Breakfast Club at radio station 100 The Rose reports that she was in an all-girl  group that sang “Super Girl” by Alicia Keys, but only because Naomi talked to them on-air earlier this week.

Idol didn’t show her group performance or her final individual performance.  But judging from a Facebook post, it sounds like Naomi got to participate in that on-stage jam session with Steven and Randy before the group round.

Nevertheless, Naomi was in an understandably joyous mood on Twitter last night, proclaiming:  “I’m going to Vegas, baby!”

And on Facebook, she wrote that we should tune in tonight for “some craziness.”

You can learn more about Naomi in this profile I posted after she was featured in the Portland episode.  It also includes video of her performing a couple of cover songs.

Meanwhile, here’s her audition.