With a wave of "American Idol" light sticks, Mellon Arena was transformed last night into "AI-7" central as the tour rolled into town with a new format that all but fell flat on its face.
This year's show featured a cheaper stage than last year's production and brought each performer out in the order that they were eliminated from the show.
This set up a scenario of the first-half performers becoming the opening act for the second- half performers. If that wasn't bad enough, they all -- with the exception of "The Davids" (Archuleta and Cook) did a three-song set of note-for-note copy-cat performances of top 100 songs that were fan favorites on the show.
Speaking of those performances, the night opened with Chikezie, who surprisingly enough had a nice connection with the audience. He was followed by Ramiele Malubay and then Michael Johns, who's set included Queen's "We Will Rock You/We are the Champions."
The trio of girls were next beginning with Kristy Lee Cook's country-flavored musings, Carly Smithson, who took no prisoners when she came straight out of the gates with Evanescence "Bring Me to Life," and Brooke White's neo-hippy (barefooted) presentation of "Let it Be."
Overall, these performances were lackluster and flat as the singers went though their scripted concert to the "t."
What happened to the all of the charisma? Without a doubt, it fell in the lap of the 17 year-old wunderkind David Archuluta who in the second half of the show managed to give a genuinely nice and untainted performance in the middle of this debacle. Say what you want, that kid just puts a smile on everyone's face.
Jason Castro and Syesha Mercado sang well, looked good and did everything they were supposed to do. (yawn). While American Idol winner David Cook cranked out his mini-set of restyled hits into a power-ballad lover's paradis, with covers of "Billie Jean" and "Hello" in the mix.
The skinny on Cook is this -- he was rightly picked as the American Idol and I can't wait for a solo album to hear what he is made of.
You've not heard the last of young Archuleta and the dreamy Castro whose uniqueness and tremendous vocal talents will help pave their ways in today's finicky music biz. Mercado is iffy because there is very little room at the top with R&B queens Rhianna, Beyonce and Alicia Keys firmly holding court.
What can you say about the rest? Last year's show gave us the opportunity to see the finalists perform on instruments with each other and mix it up a bit. Not all of it worked, but it was the next step in the natural progression of these performers and it was interesting. It's a shame to stifle the energy of this young group and deny the fans some new stuff while presenting this overblown karaoke routine that is currently on tour.
Well, maybe next year.
First Published: July 30, 2008, 9:00 a.m.
