It was Broadway night on "American Idol," as Andrew Lloyd Webber was the guest mentor. Although we don't consider ourselves big Broadway fans, we're familiar with much of composer Webber's work. I've been a fan of "Jesus Christ Superstar," since it came out in the early 70s and we owned the album in Massachusetts and three of us went to see it in Boston. Stephanie owned a Webber compendium CD when I met her, we went to see "Phantom of the Opera" with Nancy in Columbus and Vincent then listened to the CD on the way to the school bus stop every weekday morning for weeks, Vincent performed some selections from "Cats" in Tallahassee (and Stephanie and I had also gone to see this in Columbus), and for New Year's Eve three years ago in Bradenton we went to see the movie version of "Phantom." (Stephanie had also seen the movie version of "Evita," with Madonna and Antonio Banderas, in Columbus.) So, perhaps it should have been no surprise that we recognized all but one of the songs. Strongest I thought was Syesha Mercado, who started things off with the one song we did not recognize. A collective favorite was Carlie Smithson's stirring if a little shouty version of the "Jesus Christ Superstar" theme song (one of three gender-bending songs from the night) and David Cook was solid with "Music of the Night" from "Phantom" (as was Brooke White with "You Must Love Me" from "Evita").
2 comments:
Bizarrely, the night's two best performers - Carly and Syesha - were the "bottom two," and voters tossed Carly. Neither of these two performers have always been perfect, but both are better some of the performers who remain.
But, I suppose we have to look at voters cutting Carly in the context of the whole season, not just her performance in this one show. Plus many voters may be more familiar with songs from Webber's more recent work, not "Superstar."
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