Maybe it was the bright, sunshine-y day that basked the Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles with a warm, welcoming glow for yesterday's American Idol Top 2 performance finale extravaganza. Maybe it was the way Top 36-ers Casey Carlson, Kendall Beard, Kristen McNamara and Hollywood week washout Emily Wynne-Hughes all hugged each other outside the Nokia like they were the best of besties. Maybe it was the way the aforementioned foursome attracted a small mob of onlookers content to grab a photo and autograph from anyone involved with American Idol at all. Maybe it was the gaggle of well-dressed youngsters I saw happily packed like cattle just inside the Nokia's glass facade as they patiently waited to be transformed into Swaybots and herded to the lip of the Nokia's stage. Maybe it was the Idol swag being hocked both inside and out of the Nokia, including an Adam Lambert T-shirt with his first name in an '80s metal rock font and a Kris Allen T-shirt with his first name in a '70s disco boogie font. Or maybe it was the guy wearing the yellow T-shirt with "WHO'S YOUR MAMBA" in purple lettering, standing on some kind of raised platform smack in the middle of the massive lines of people waiting to get inside the Nokia, proselytizing at the top of his lungs not about the L.A. Lakers' impending playoff game next door at the Staples Center, but...wait for it...the Ten Commandments.
Whatever the reason, by the time I got to my seat way back in the wayback -- literally in the far right, rear corner of the indescribably massive Nokia Theater, so far away that wee Kris Allen was dwarfed by my outstretched pinkie -- I was in such a wide open-minded mood that even as I type this, I just can't get on the last-night's-performance-finale-was-a-serious-disappointment bandwagon. Yeah, "No Boundaries" was a melody-free, word-clogged blob of a song, but haven't we all come to expect our Idol finale songs to be uninterestingly bad? Sure, Adam and Kris were apparently forced to sing songs we'd heard from them before, but they still both managed to get me all with the goosebumples, and I don't think I've ever heard a better version of "Ain't No Sunshine" than Kris' last night. And, OK, "A Change is Gonna Come" and "What's Goin' On" aren't the hippest, most current songs in the pop music canon, but both our boys handled them with style to spare, and I daresay Lambert's achingly felt, blisteringly sung rendition of his Civil Rights Era classic was pretty damn interesting (not to mention quite moving) given all the buzz surrounding Adam's sexuality and recent advances in gay rights.
If it seems like I'm stalling from delivering unto you all the Idol on-the-scenery, you're not far wrong: You could've halved the distance of my eyeballs from the Nokia stage, and I still would have struggled to scrounge up my usual helping of scrumptious insider scoop. So with 25 minutes before air, I hopped on the nearest camel and trundled my way up to the front of the Nokia so I could at least scope out the scene among the lucky 56,000 or so stationed within the first mile of the stage. I may be exaggerating, but just a bit.
My first order of business, of course, was to walk to the edge of the stage to greet one Debbie the Stage Manager, back from her miraculously brief convalescence after falling from the top of the Idol Thunderdome at the CBS Television City two weeks before. Ever the trooper, Debbie proudly showed me the righteous scar on her leg, reported that she is indeed fine, with no permanent injury, and thanked me -- and, in turn, all of you -- for the kind words of support. Here's five more: She is one tough cookie.popwatch.From:ew.com/popwatch
No comments:
Post a Comment