Getting off the Metro train and walking the scorching hot streets of D.C heading toward the Verizon center, excitement and anticipation bubbled up in my gay little stomach like a bad meal at Taco Bell–but in a good way. People piled into the venue with their hats, shirts and signs while shady scalpers heckled people on the sidewalk.

There was a moment of freak out because we saw someone standing in a corner holding a sign that said “Elliott Fans Sign Here!” and a group of people huddled over there signing it. Putting this together with the little fact that Elliott wasn’t at the White House this morning had us going into panic mode. Oh hell no. First Katharine McPhee–now Elliott? I’m gonna need a refund. But we went in and one of the ticket scanners told us that Elliott was there. Phew.

We go in, and after a few minutes of random commercials on the screen and walking Pop-Tarts taking pictures with “fans” the show starts. The door opens…Mandisa enters the stage and does a rousing rendition of the diva-queen Whitney Houston’s I’m Every Woman. It’s pretty much the same rendition she gave on the show, and she tried her very best to get the crowd amped as possible but the excitement died down toward the end of the song and into her next If I Were Your Woman.

Ace Young gave us an orgasm-inducing Father Figure was just as good if not better than his original performance, and it was great to hear him sing the entire thing. Except next time I’m gonna need it to be a little less ABC Family and bit more HBO. Thanks. His next song Harder to Breathe by Maroon 5 actually restored what little faith I had in Ace’s full voice–as his falsetto is what always made me love him.

Lisa Tucker comes out and there’s moderate applause. She gives an uninspired rendition of Signed, Sealed, Delivered that couldn’t end soon enough. That was followed by two of Elton John’s best songs Your Song and Someone Saved My Life Tonight in which she accompanied herself on the piano. That shit was a little too wannabe Alicia Keys, and not in a good way. I suppose it was supposed to be impressive, but it was really just boring. I know 12 year olds that can play those tunes.

She introduces her “best friend” Paris Bennett who was one of my faves on Idol, but her set was so incredibly weird. One minute she’s singing Gladys Knight’s Midnight Train To Georgia (which, by the way did not live up to her rendition of it on Idol), the next minute she’s trying to be Beyonce. Like…really trying. Hard. The beginning of her Crazy In Love stint took moves RIGHT from the music video. Yeah, honey–those don’t work in real life. Only in Beyonce music video land. There were so many things jiggling and wriggling I could hardly concentrate on the sub-par vocals. C’mon, Paris. Where’s the Be Without You? Do I Do? Put your little booty-shaking away and just sing something.

Now this is the funniest moment of the night. Bucky comes on stage–and literally hundreds of people got up and left. Not the entire concert I’m sure, but everybody and their Grandma Norma started heading toward the bathrooms and concession stands. Kids near me starting playing “patty cake” and I blurted out “anyone got a deck of cards? I’m in the mood for solitaire.” It was pretty sad. He gave us a lackluster performance of Superstition, some country song that I actually liked until tonight, and then began You’re The One That I Want from Grease. I heard a collective groan. Yes! Kellie Pickler came to save the day. They end their duet and Kellie begins her set.

I’d have to say I liked Kellie’s song picks the best–even though maybe that’s just because she picked songs she sang on the show. Ones she knew that people knew and enjoyed from her. I’m The Only One, Walking After Midnight, and Something To Talk About were the songs Kellie sang and all three were very enjoyable. The best part though, was when she told us a story in between songs about her messing around in the Library of the White House. She said she kept pushing all the books in to see if it would make the shelf turn around to reveal some secret room. Bucky told her she was doing it wrong and tried pulling the books instead. She said she told President Bush and he thought it was funny. Love this girl. Please come back to The View. The Hasselbot’s making me wanna die.

Intermission. A few minutes in we hear slight cheering. We look up on the screen…there’s no one important. The cheering gets louder, and louder, and louder. “What the hell’s going on?” I said. “It’s Elliott’s mom!” my friend yelled over the screaming crowd. Mrs. Yamin herself was strutting the main floor to make her way to to her seat and apparently everyone recognized her. Aww.

There was a really cool thing up on the screen that gave you a number to send text messages to–your message was then displayed on the screen. Of course we had nosebleed seats so we spent most of intermission trying to make out the orange blur that was the phone number. By the time we finally did make it out and sent in “I hate Bucky”, intermission was over and we just payed 30 cents for nothing. Damn.

Chris Daughtry takes the stage and the crowd goes crazy. I’m gonna need to meet this man so I can rub that shiny bald head and faint like a little schoolgirl named Susie. We all kept waivering between rocking back and forth, seizuring, and being stunned by the hottness that was his majesty. He sings Renegade, an excellent Wanted Dead or Alive in which the crowd participated, and then the Prince of Soul Elliott Yamin joins Chris for a duet that put the rest of the Idol match-ups to shame.

I was disappointed Elliott didn’t sing A Song For You which probably would’ve had me in the aisles crying my eyes out but I still enjoyed his set. He sang Moody’s Mood For Love, the song that made America fall in love with him back in the semi-finals, and Elvis Presley’s Trouble. Both of the songs were quite good and I’m all for anything Elliott Yamin but I feel like there could’ve been much better song choices there. And he had a cute hat.

Oh my God. It’s time for Katharine. Jesus Christ. This isn’t just her first time to the stage tonight. It’s her first time to the stage the entire freaking Idol tour. We’re such lucky bastards. All I hear is the “2! 3! 4!” and I start freaking out. “It’s Katharine! AAAAHHH!” You could tell from the crowd reaction as she took the stage to sing KT Tunstall’s Black Horse and the Cherry Tree that her presence was greatly missed. You could also tell from her vocals on the song that her cords were still strained. She was noticeably holding back and at times it was hard to tell if she was even actually singing. But give the girl a break–she had laryngitis AND bronchitis. Despite the okay performance, Katharine finished the song to a crapload of applause and cheers. People just kept going. The cheering didn’t end.

She wiped away tears and thanked everyone for their support as well as apologized for her absence. She explained that this was her first appearance on the Idol tour and that she was actually supposed to be at the Pittsburgh one but her flight from New York (she, like Pickler, also did The View in NYC) got delayed. “We were in the airport for 9 hours!” she says. Katharine tells us that the doctor’s orders are that she can only sing 2 songs, and that the second song will be Somewhere Over The Rainbow (surprise, surprise right?). This song goes much, much better, and her rendition is as beautiful as ever.

Continuing to hold back a little, as she did on The View the earlier day, her acapella “When all the clouds…darken up the skyway, there’s a rainbow highway to be found” still took me out of the crowd and into McHeaven. Katharine’s return was clearly one of the events of the night, and I feel so, so bad for Kat fans that didn’t get to see her on the earlier tour dates. If she hadn’t been there in D.C. I might’ve taken it out on Bucky’s face. Not that there’s much more damage you could do there. Incest puts you in pretty bad shape. At one point I heard a little boy behind me whisper to his parents “I think the doctors told Katharine she was sick but she stayed off longer anyway ’cause she wanted to.” Uhm, you do know I’m a 6 foot tall black man with heavy shoes right little boy? It made me sad actually, to hear that because it just goes to show how much influence parents have over their kids’ opinions. The boy was too young to have that much hatred for anyone. It’s just not something a little boy would think of on his own–it was clearly something he got from his parents, who I heard earlier in the show call Kat a “Diva”. They just kept repeating it “Diva!, Diva!”. Right, and your kid’s the 8 year old?

And now we hear Taylor singing Jailhouse Rock…but we see no Taylor. What the eff? Whoa! Taylor emerges from the elevated seats in the arena surrounded by security guards as he makes his way through the crowd and to the stage to finish a truncated version of the Elvis tune. He wasn’t boring to say the least. If standing seizures and jerk-jerk to the left and the right is your kinda concert, you would’ve enjoyed it. If not…uh…just think of Chris Daughtry and it’ll all be better. Taking It To The Streets was fun and got us dancing around–but it was difficult to enjoy it when there are two eight year olds sitting behind you squealing like pigs who smell bacon frying in the kitchen. “SOUL PATROL! SOUL PATROL!” Dude, I’m gonna “soul patrol” your flimsy little asses into oncoming D.C. traffic if you don’t stuff a sock in it. I have no problem with cheering–as we did our fair share throughout the whole show. But when you sound like a broken dog whistle or Mariah Carey’s ad libs in a bad 90s pop song, there just needs to be a rule against that shit. “Be warned: Annoying cheering will result in submersion into a pit of fire. -God”

The idols came out at the end for a few more songs–we sang, we danced, we waved our arms back and forth. And then the night was over. I still say the best Idol concert performance ever was La Toya London, Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia, and Jon Peter Lewis covering “Hey Ya” a few years back, but hey–what can ya do? The show was fun, and that’s what American Idol is supposed to be. Well worth the 50 bucks even if there was an ugly Laguna Beach wannabe sitting in front of me texting the entire time. Your pimp can wait, sweetie. Chris Daughtry’s singing.

Gotta run, but thought I’d leave you guys with some interesting stuff.

Pink’s new video was premiered over in Europe, and luckily someone capped it. I’m thorougly disappointed American radio has shunned Who Knew (one of the best pop songs in recent memory), especially considering talentless hacks like Rihanna and Ciara can shell out number ones like Britney Spears pops out babies, but hopefully they’ll be kinder to Pink’s new song U + Ur Hand.

***

I really wish people would stop making comparisons between American Idol and the Presidential election. Ryan Seacrest–stop constantly spouting how many tens of millions of votes came in for Idol–it says nothing as to how many people voted–just as to how many crazed teenage girls called in hundreds of times and voted.

But with that said–apparently Mr. President has invited the Idol finalists to the White House. Interestingly enough, though, winner Taylor Hicks does have a White House connection. Susan Whitson, Laura Bush’s press secretary taught Hicks in 9th grade.

***

The pitiful bastard of network television, NBC, has picked up minor hits Last Comic Standing and America’s Got Talent for additional seasons. Kevin Reilly, NBC Entertainment President says:

“Both of these series have been bright spots on the summer television landscape, we think they’ll be around for a long time.”

In other NBC news, for those of you who have either heard of or actually checked out that rejected pilot that’s been getting mucho hits on YouTube “Nobodys Watching”, it has been picked up by the network, and they’re hoping those thousands of YouTube viewers will tune into the hilarious comedy. We’ll see how it turns out.

***

One more thing. OMG OMG OMG. They’re making another Ninja Turtles movie, and it comes out next year. Mommmyyy. Can’t wait. Better be as good as the other ones.

Here’s the trailer:

Top morning talk show “Live with Regis and Kelly” will celebrate the Fourth of July in true All-American style — actually, all “American Idol” style.

On July 4, hosts Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa will take a look back at the outstanding “Live with Regis and Kelly” performances of “American Idol’s” top singers, including Kevin Covais, Mandisa, Kellie Pickler, Paris Bennett, Chris Daughtry, Elliott Yamin, finalist Katharine McPhee and of course “American Idol” winner Taylor Hicks.

Source:USA Today

For a glorified karaoke album, this isn’t bad. Thanks at least in part to the curative effects of studio technology, nearly all 12 Idol finalists sound competent on these full-length versions of songs they performed in the finals or preliminaries. A few are pretty impressive: Paris Bennett on Gladys Knight’s Midnight Train to Georgia, Mandisa on an accomplished carbon copy of Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman, Chris Daughtry on Jon Bon Jovi’s Wanted Dead or Alive. Interestingly, the least appealing performance (aside from When I Fall in Love by the hapless, hopelessly outclassed Kevin Covais) comes from newly crowned Idol Taylor Hicks, whose drab Michael McDonald impression on Takin’ It to the Streets rates far below his best TV moments. Best by a long shot: runner-up Katharine McPhee, whose version of Aretha Franklin’s Think avoids slavish imitation and shows off grit, style and verve that former Idol champs Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Fantasia would be hard-pressed to match.

— Ken Barnes

I said from the beginning that this Idol season was a little weird. What made it great was that there were so many talented people. Not just people that were okay–but so many people that were great–which is rare. Normally we have a few good people (Kelly Clarkson, Tamyra Gray), and then everyone else is just average (Jim Verraros, Ryan Starr–everyone ever). We came into the top 12 with so much promising talent: the sultry Ace Young, the power belter Mandisa, the jazzy Paris Bennett, the adorable country girl with a rock tinge Kellie Pickler, alterna-rocker Chris Daughtry, the harmonica toting jazzer Taylor Hicks the pop-soul yet sophisticated vocalist Katharine McPhee, underdog funky white boy Elliott Yamin, and then a few that just need to die.

The problem, though–is that although there were so many people that were very talented–there weren’t that many stand out performers or performances for that matter. Were there fantastic performances? Yes. But there was no “All By Myself”, there was no “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, no “Summertime”, no “Alone.” This is precisely why Tuesday night’s finale was the worst in Idol history. Well–that and the fact that some of the best performers wre voted off too early.

The ideal finale would have been Chris Daughtry and Katharine McPhee like most people predicted–or if not–interchange one of those two with Elliott Yamin. But this finale–it just lacked spark. It didn’t live up to the event that it is. Part of that had to do with song choices (”Levon”? Honestly), and part of that was the orrid singles for the two of them. Katharine’s ridiculously generic and might I add too low for her voice “My Destiny” was dreadful. It gave her nothing to work with. Way to sabotage Kat in the same way you did poor Bo Bice with that disgusting piece of music you guys called a song you had him sing at last year’s finale.

Katharine’s first performance was good. But good is not what you need in order to win American Idol, especially when you’re coming in as the underdog. Taylor was clearly the favorite. She should have picked “Come Rain or Come Shine” or the Aretha Franklin classic “Until You Come Back To Me”. Mistake number one.

Then she sang “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”. Was is a great performance? Yes. Was it magical? Yes, unlike Taylor’s mediocre “Levon”. But guess what? You performed it last week. We all remember it. Thanks. You should’ve done the song that helped you get into the top 12, the Streisand hit “Since I Fell For You”, or what got you into the competition at the beginning “God Bless The Child”. Mistake number two.

I would say mistake number three was picking “My Destiny” (possibly one of the worst songs ever written), but to quote Kat’s response to her “I Believe I Can Fly” comments, she “didn’t pick it!”

Oh well Kat. Be glad you had some hot outfits and cute shoes.

So basically…Katharine McPhee barely contributed to a showstopping finale, which means we nearly wasted approximately 15 minutes of precious television time, when I could’ve tuned into the CMA Awards and seen Carrie Underwood perform “Jesus Take The Wheel”. You could’ve at least shown us some panty.

Overall grade for the night: B

Download mp3 of ‘My Destiny’ here.

Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. Need I add, that you shouldn’t be in the finale, and that you wouldn’t be had America voted right two weeks ago, eliminating you instead of shoo-in Chris Daughtry? Is he talented? Yes. But the only time he can give a 1st rate performance that has me dropping to my knees in applause and worship is when he jerks and seizures on stage, shouting “Hey!” and “Yeah!”, then doing that weird thing he calls belting where he growls like a pre-pubescent Mufasa. And even then I’m just clapping. No knee-dropping like when Carrie Underwood sang the hell out of her last song in Season 4.

I’ll admit, “Livin’ For The City” was a much better choice than Kat’s room temperature “Black Horse And The Cherry Tree”. You could tell he really energized the room–if not by the performance itself than by Paula Abdul’s drunken turbo-bobbing with her hands waving from side to side. Someone’s not biased. Not even a little. Round 1 rightfully goes to the Silver Fox.

But seriously–”Levon”? Give me a break, dude. Off-pitch here, bum note there–eh–looks like round two’s going to Kat McPhee sweetheart.

Now this is where Kat got completely screwed. There’s no doubt that just in terms of range, intonation, vibrato–the technical aspects of singing–Katharine has the edge. Which would lead you to think that when it comes to the usually generic debut singles the idols are given, she’d have the advantage. But think again. Though her performance of “My Destiny” was commendable, the song itself, and the arrangement of it were too far gone for her to be able to salvage anything. Taylor’s song however, “Do I Make You Proud”, was not only a better song, but he sang it better than Kat sang hers, and seemed to do it with much more conviction.

And of course, to cap off the night, Simon seals the deal by saying that Taylor has won American Idol. Which–who knows if it even made a difference–Taylor was already the fave. But it would be interesting to see if maybe the votes would at least be closer had he not given a particular idol his stamp of approval. After all, poor Clay Aiken didn’t get that, and that could’ve kept him from his rightful win over Ruben–who?

Overall grade for the night: B+

Download mp3 of ‘Do I Make You Proud’ here.

Judging from the Dial Idol results, which has Taylor with 47.8 percent of the vote and Katharine 38.9 percent, Simon’s right. Not that we needed those results to state the obvious.

The question is, does it matter? I asked Maxie Pulliam, a young college student from California, who she wanted to win, and her response was “Ehh, honestly, no one’s gonna buy Taylor’s CD”. Is she right? Obviously Taylor has lots of fans–otherwise he wouldn’t have made it this far. But wait–so did Ruben Studdard. And where is he?

Given the fact that Idol is a tad more popular than it was 3 years ago, and the fact that Taylor doesn’t buy his clothes in size “trash bag”, it’s likely he’ll fare at least slightly better than idol alumus Studdard. But I suppose it depends on what Taylor’s definition of success is. Will he ever be a Kelly Clarkson? Hell no. He’ll never have that kind of mainstream success–the type of music that he would do (that is–if he stays true to himself) just wouldn’t be played enough to be number one at Top 40 radio. But that’s okay if that’s not what Taylor wants for his career.

Maybe Ruben is content with merely selling 500,000 copies of a good gospel album that he loves as opposed to selling 3 million copies of some oversung generic melisma-d out Christmas album (cough, Clay Aiken, cough).

At the end of the day, neither of these two (Kat and Taylor) will be lining up for food stamps anytime soon. But my prediction is, they’ll both have success. Katharine’s will be on a bigger scale because her style and image are more mainstream, but they’ll both be successful in the different ways that they are meant to be.

Taylor, just hope your album is better than that horrid “The Real Thing” (sorry Bo).

American Idol, please find some better contestants next year. And try to make sure those ones actually make it to the finale. In other finales, where my favorite didn’t necessarily win, I was at least entertained. Tuesday night was a pathetic snorefest. Looks like someone’s gonna lose to “Amazing Race” yet again. Sorry, Paula. You don’t need anymore shiny shit anyway.

Best Vocal Performance: Katharine McPhee (”Rainbow”)

Most Original Performance: Taylor Hicks (”Proud”)

Best Overall Performance: Tie

Winner of American Idol 5: Taylor Hicks.

This week was exciting enough just to get to see Rod Stewart (who by the way has a really hot wife for someone that damned old), so the performances were kind of icing on the cake. And truthfully, I didn’t expect Tuesday night to be as splendid as it ended up being. Each contestant shined (minus one “butchering blonde”) and the judges were actually coherent and poignant (even PAULA!).

Chris Daughtry. “What A Wonderful World” Not too sure about the valet parking boy vest, but I admire Chris for his bold and risky choice of song. Many will probably call it a boring performance, but what made this performance magical was it’s simplicity and tenderness. Often on this show, we become conditioned to praise the “glory notes” and oversung shouting of the songs–we forget how great a performance can be when someone has a beautiful voice and just sings a song from the heart. Chris did that.

Grade: A-

Download mp3 here.

Paris Bennett. “These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)” Aside from the fact that she looks like Lynette Scavo on the way to a meeting, the performance was very classy, and beautiful. We’ve all known since her audition that she has the perfect voice for jazz and the blues, but this performance set it in stone just how brilliant of a vocalist she is. Not since Fantasia’s “Summertime” have we seen something so authentic you almost forget you’re even watching television.

Grade: A

Download mp3 here.

Taylor Hicks. “You Send Me” Like everyone else, I was slightly worried at the beginning of the performance which was pretty average. But I knew Sam Cooke is perfect for Taylor and had faith that he would pull it out at the end, and boy did he. We saw a return to the infamous “jerk” but his vocals were stellar. As I’ve said before, when he’s on it, there are times when his performances run through me like blood and make me feel something. I’m not quite sure what, but i just feel floored. It’s a rare thing when an artist has that kind of capability.

Grade: A

Download mp3 here.

Elliott Yamin. “It Had To be You” I’m not sure exactly what to say about Elliott this week, and maybe that’s part of the problem. I very much liked the song and performance, but maybe like Simon was pointing out, it lacked enough personality to send him to the head of the pack. It’s not necessarily a performance I’m going to knock down my roommate to get onto my iPod Video tomorrow morning. The very beginning of the performance started out very cute and charming, but soon after he seemed to go into what I like to call performer auto-pilot, which kind of cheats the viewer. This is why, though Elliott Yamin is one of the best vocalists ever on American Idol, he will probably be in the bottom three tomorrow again.

Grade: B

Download mp3 here.

Kellie Pickler. “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” When the first words out of your mouth after your performance are “I butchered it”…odds are, you didn’t do too great. Second, how the hell do you not know words and lyrics are the same thing? But intelligence aside (I’ll leave the parodying to P!nk), the performance was near awful. I cannot in any way understand why she picked that song. She doesn’t have the voice of Kelly Clarkson but what she has going most for her is her personality. Why then, pick a song that I’d hear coming out of the mouth of Diana Krall after watching “Tuesdays With Morrie“? Then of course she wears that “Too Wong Foo” metallic pink dress that makes me want to slap my head onto a window sill, slam the window shut, then shove my decapitated head up my own ass. Or wait, maybe it was the performance that did that. The beginning started off well as Paula pointed out, but after that it went so downhill not even the midgets from that show on TLC could see it anymore. Sorry Kellie. Welcome to the bottom three.

Grade: C-

Download mp3 here.

Ace Young. “That’s All” Think what you want about the new hair-do, it reminds me of a greasy waiter in a backwoods Spanish restaurant. But compared to Ace’s horrid nasally disasters of the past weeks, this was actually a pretty decent performance. And of course, he pulled out his signature falsetto (which by the way, is half responsible for him even still being here–the other half is the face) that made the performance nearly whole. I still think he’ll be going home tomorrow, but at least he’ll be leaving on a good note like Bucky.

Grade: C+

Download mp3 here.

Katharine McPhee. “Someone To Watch Over Me” What’s with the Celine-Dion-belts-it-out-on-the-deck-of-the-Titanic necklace? I feel like I’m watching Divas Live (the original–not the new crap where somehow plastic-thin voiced Ashanti is invited). I agree with Rod’s assertion that Katharine’s genre of choice should be the standards–she’s got great instincts and knows how to put a story into a song. I don’t agree with Simon however, that she made the others look like amateurs. If anyone stood apart from the others tonight it was Paris or Taylor. But with that said, Kat was still great.

Grade: A-

Download mp3 here.

Best Vocal Performance: Paris Bennett

Most Original Performance: Katharine McPhee

Best Overall Performance: Paris Bennett and Taylor Hicks

Going Home: Ace Young

A member of the veteran rock group Queen has implied that he may have been used by the producers of American Idol to undermine the chances of one of the contestants.

Guitarist Brian May said on his personal blog Thursday that an encounter between him and contestant Ace Young shown on Tuesday night’s show did not occur as represented. He said that after his conversation with May was taped, “it was edited in such a way that it looked as if I was purely negative.”

May said that, as aired, it seemed that he was commenting on May’s altered arrangement of ‘We Will Rock You’ …”after we had played together, which was not the way it happened, making me look like I was against the whole thing.” He said that the conversation actually took place when May played him a demo of what he had in mind.

“We then discussed how we could improve his ideas and … came up with a kind of mixture of his thoughts and ours, which was the basis for the arrangement that you saw the house band play on the night! It was actually pretty damn good, I thought.”

Looks like May is no big fan of American Idol anymore. He apparently lost a lot of sleep over the unfair portrayal of his role in Ace Young role on the show.

“I’m afraid this is an illustration of exactly what I have been quoted as saying about the program … that the critical process would be better off done in private, like we do in auditioning for our musical …”

I had a few thoughts while watching Wednesday’s Results Show: Chris’ brother is hideous–I guess all the good-looking genes swam to Chris’ side of the pool. Kellie, zombies don’t say “boo”. Sorry, wrong bump in the night. But also, I was extremely shocked with the bottom 3.

Two people most definitely deserved to be there: Bucky and Ace. Ace, because he was absolutely horrid Tuesday, and because he completely chose the wrong song just in general, and for his voice. Bucky, because overall he just does not measure up to the rest of the contestants vocally and a a performer. Half the time when I’m watching him perform I feel like I’m watching my ‘Brokeback Mountain‘ DVD. Mumbling through your words didn’t work for Heath Ledger either, hon’.

But Elliott–that was utterly ridiculous. Elliott’s “Somebody To Love” was arguably the best and most spirited vocal performance of the night, and considering some of the other marginal performances on Queen night, like Katharine’s shout-fest “Who Wants To Live Forever“, or Kellie’s Night of the Living Dead just-okay “Bohemian Rhapsody“, I don’t understand how he could have possibly gotten the 3rd lowest number of votes. Bottom line: Elliott should not have been in the bottom three, and it better not happen again, or I will personally knock on every American door and bitch-slap all of you and your children.

Despite the fact that it was an hour-long show, and there wasn’t a celebrity guest to perform this week, it was a really exciting results show. We got to learn more about the contestants and their families, and it was nice to see the bottom three perform again–as awkward as it was when Elliott stood there not knowing what he was supposed to sing.

I already knew Ace would be in the bottom three yet again, but I was still just as scared when Ryan announced it. My thoughts: “Oh Jesus, this means we have to hear Ace sing “We Will Rock You” again? I’d rather him be safe than have to endure this again. Time to go slice off my index fingers so I can sew sew them into my ear drums.

Another thought: Can someone just smash a bottle on Paula’s head and get it over with? Her drunken dancing and swaying back and forth makes me wanna go on a mass murder spree.

I love hearing about Kellie’s family–as her personal story is what made me love her in the beginning anyway. But how exactly can one be “tickled to death”? Please help explain that to me.

Slightly surprised that Bucky is in the bottom three, as I always want him in the bottom 3 but it rarely happens. Once again I am reminded that this means he must sing yet again.

Oh god, here we go with the tossing the mic from hand to hand. I guess he confuses that with inspired performing.

Ryan announces that Bucky is leaving, and I could not have been more thrilled. My hopes and dreams for the past 4 weeks have come to fruition.

Yes! Finally Bucky Covington is out of my life!

Can’t wait for the love songs next Tuesday.

Ace better do a strip-show if he wants to stay another week.

I was so incredibly excited it was Queen week, and thank God it was. After the debacles that were the past two weeks, we needed a breath of fresh air, and that it was.

Bucky Covington - “Fat-Bottomed Girls“. Good song choice for Bucky, but that doesn’t mean it sounded good. It was a pretty decent performance–but at this point in the show, you should be excellent every week. There’s still yet to be a Bucky Covington performance that knocked my socks off, and that’s what it’s all about. I want someone to honestly explain to me what not only makes Bucky different from the rest of the contestants left, but what makes him better>.

Download mp3 here.

Grade: C

Ace - “We Will Rock You“. How do you say…complete and utter wrong choice of song? I know Freddie Mercury’s ballads are a little hard to live up to vocally, but there’s so many songs that fit better into Ace’s style than fucking “We Will Rock You“. Honestly, what was the logic behind this? The sad part is, he doesn’t even realize it sucked. He thinks he “rocked”. Well we’ll just see when you’re in the bottom three tomorrow night, sweetheart.

Download mp3 here.

Grade: D

Kellie Pickler - “Bohemian Rhapsody“. Kellie Pickler goes Dominatrix? The hair’s scaring me a bit–it looks a little too Axl Rose goes to beauty school. And those boots look like something I’d see on RuPaul at a Bon Jovi concert. But all that aside, the performance was pretty good–definitely better than the crap she’s done the past two weeks, even though I would’ve liked to see her exert a bit more energy and show some more vocal range. She’s not going anywhere this week, though.

Download mp3 here.

Grade: B-

Chris Daughtry - “Innuendo“. I’m not sure how I feel about the emo eyeliner–it’s a little My Chemical Romance, but I really enjoyed the performance and he finally after weeks of me saying this–he finally showed what a great voice he has like he did with “Hemorrhage“. And of course, he looked sexy doing it–as always.

Download mp3 here.

Grade: A

Katharine McPhee. “Who Wants To Live Forever” I honestly think she should’ve stuck to the first song. Just from the little bit I heard in her rehearsal, it sounded much better than her “Who Wants To Live Forever” shrill shouting. She tried to take a big risk, so I’ll give her that. But not every risk is a good one. Case in point: Lisa Tucker singing “Because of You” or Jasmine Trias singing “All By Myself” (that should never…ever…happen…again). I don’t wanna say she oversang the song–because that’s kind of how the song is written. I might say however, that the song was too big for her–in the way that “The Voice Within” was.

Download mp3 here.

Grade: C

Elliott Yamin - “Somebody To Love“. Thank you Elliott! Dear God, his performance was so great. There were a few moments where he lost it a little bit, but it was so energetic, so fresh, so genuine–that it doesn’t matter. I loved it. It was the first performance of the night that made me stop and pay attention. It gave me chills. Bravo, Elliott. Bravo.

Download mp3 here.

Grade: A

Taylor Hicks - “Crazy Little Thing Called Love“. This performance gave us one of the most hilarious moments in American Idol history. As if the whole kicking the mic stand thing wasn’t done enough times already, the silver fox tried it tonight and missed. I almost dropped my fruit punch when he went for it again. But I soon forgot it all, as his performance was nearly flawless. He was into it, he got the audience into the song, he showed great vocals, he completely delivered the song in every sense of the word. And Simon can go eat rotten salmon.

Download mp3 here.

Grade: A

Paris Bennett - “The Show Must Go On“. I’m not so sure about the outfit, the song choice, or the cleavage (love the hair though), but Paris definitely sang it tonight. Like Randy said, the beginning was a little rocky, and even towards the middle when you thought she was gonna take it and run it didn’t quite get there, but at the end she pulled it all together (like she almost always does) and she quote “worked it out”.

Download mp3 here.

Grade: B

Best Vocal Performance: Chris Daughtry

Most Original Performance: Taylor Hicks

Best Overall Performance: Elliott Yamin

Going Home: Ace Young