AI8 - San Francisco Auditions (1/20/09)

In San Francisco a couple got engaged - and married! - while waiting in line to audition. Alrighty then... this should be interesting!

Tatiana Del Toro (23, Puerto Rico, #3325) - Sang "Never Loved a Man." Wow, not sure what to say... incredibly annoying laugh, big ego (she's a model as well as a singer), very dramatic. Decent voice. Gave them her portfolio & one of the judges commented that a photo was "naughty," and she replied "Thank you!"

Jesus Valenzula (29, CA, 5393) - father of 2 boys, with a good voice but the boys got him through, not the voice. He first sang an R&B song, Simon said no, then some of the judges wanted to see the boys. He brought them in and sang "Unchained Melody." 3 yeses.

Short clips: John Twiford (21, CA, 5811) - somewhat long wavy hair, sang "Overjoyed," is a music teacher. Very good voice!

Allison Iraheta (16, CA) - redhead, sang "Natural Woman" & sounds a bit like Pink.

Raquel Houghton (28, CA) - tall & thin with long, straight dark hair; sang "Son of a Preacher Man."

Adam Lambert (26, CA, 1877) - another spoiler and I lurve him already!! Check out this YT video of him singing "Dust in the Wind;" I think he has amazing range, control, beautiful tone... granted I love guys with voices like this. There's a clip of him talking about how he's sung since 10 & his folks put him in musical theater because he was hyper & he fell in love with it; he's been working in Wicked for the past year & a half; here's "As Long as You Love Me." Back to the audition: he sings "Bohemian Rhapsody" and Simon calls him theatrical... but still says yes! Paula calls him "brilliant" (even before he said hers was the 1st pop concert he attended) and he advances with 4 yeses. So far so good... he seems smart, so we'll see how he plays it. I don't expect him to do anything like this performance of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" on Idol, but it does show a side of him that won't be popular with Simon, among others. ;-)

Last is Kai Kalama (26, CA, 5913) - for the past year he's been singing at night and taking care of his mother during the day as she has some sort of "seizure disorder." Sings "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and is also very good. Simon said he has "the personality of a ship singer" (while he's singing, which was a kind clarification) but he gets 4 yeses.

12 advance to Hollywood from San Francisco, and we saw full clips of 4 with short clips of 3 more; not bad. Tomorrow, Louisville!