Image Credit: Michael Becker/Fox
“Oh is Justin Bieber coming tonight?” asked the perfectly coifed woman named Eileen, prior to the start of last night’s American Idol. Eileen looked about the Idoldome in a mild panic, her green eyeshadow matching her jade jewelry matching her dusty green denim outfit, i.e. the Hip Grandma Look, which only accentuated the beautiful strangeness of her question. Finally, Eileen threw back her head in a jarring roar of laughter. “I don’t think he’s coming!”
So basically I’m saying that American Idol takes all kinds, from hip-and-possibly-arch-villain grandmas, to young adults brandishing signs that read “Decadent deliCASEY yummy,” to Modern Family‘s Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who sat one row behind me and appears to be a big fan of Casey, Pia, Jacob and Haley, in roughly that order. But before we dive any deeper into the behind the scenery of the Top 11 (take two) performances of the Elton John catalogue, I feel compelled to reiterate quickly something longtime readers of our Idol On the Scene columns have heard many times already: Things sound very different inside the Idoldome than they do on your TV.
Last night I sat much closer to the judges than I ever have before — close enough that if you squinted at the far corners of your TV whenever the show cut to friends and family (who are always seated in the same four seats and then rotated out at the next ad break), you may have possibly glimpsed me with a panicked smile that screamed “ohsweetjeebusIdonotwanttobeoncamera.” Anyhoo, very quickly into the show I realized that the closer to the judges table you get, the louder the Idoldome becomes, and by not a small order of magnitude either. Possibly this is due only to increased proximity to Steven Tyler’s fashion sense. But regardless of the cause, it meant that more often than not, my ears struggled to discern the contestants’ voices from the rumble of the house band and the cheers of the audience. Oddly enough, this problem was most acute with three of Season 10′s most distinctive voices: Scotty, Pia, and Jacob. I’m honestly not quite sure what to make of that other than increasing my admiration for anyone who can get up on that stage and perform amid the aural and visual chaos and somehow not fall into convulsions of anxiety and panic.
As for the evening’s other highlights:
What the Heck Happened To Cory?! My colleague Tanner Stransky tells me Cory the Warm Up Comic was MIA last week at Idol, as he was again last night. Instead, we were treated to the comedy stylings of Jay Flats the Warm Up Comic, who introduces himself to the audience by getting everyone to say, “What up, Jay Flats!” (I did not.) Jay Flats’ warm up routine seems to consist of getting people to clap a lot, do the wave, and then pit the men and women against each other in a dance competition, in which we learned definitively that men, no matter what their age or background, will always dance inappropriately in front of a crowd of strangers. During the show’s ad breaks, Jay Flats often handed his mic over to audience members to get them to sing, with wildly varying results. One audience member turned out to be not only a former Season 7 Idol contestant who made it to Hollywood Week, but also Stefano Langone’s cousin, because why not? Also, fun fact! At certain points during the evening, Randy, Steven, and exec producer Nigel Lythgoe turned to watch one of the audience members perform, sometimes all three of them at once, their faces stuck in a polite grimace. Jennifer, however, never once joined them; she steadfastly kept looking at the crew setting up the next (official, you guys) Idol performance instead. Although part of me wants to believe her face was also frozen in a polite grimace.
Scotty’s grandma! She got a big smile from the camera man after Scotty’s performance was over; got a kiss on the hand from Nigel during the ensuing ad break; and got a hug from exec producer Ken Warwick later on. She also got to stay in the front row for the entire show along with the rest of Scotty’s group, a privilege none of the other friends and family received. In other F&F news, when it came time for Casey’s folks to relinquish the official F&F chairs to Jacob’s crew, Casey’s mom and Jacob’s mom gave each other a big, genuine hug.
Disappearing Howie! After Howie Mandel’s totally spontaneous plug for his Fox special that j’refuse to plug here, he conveniently disappeared from his Idoldome seat. The celeb situation is indeed frequently fluid at Idol, what with Marc Anthony arriving before the show and working the crowd like he’s about to open at the Copa, only to leave early on and have Leah Remini swoop in to take his seat, because, again, why not? Then again, Jesse Tyler Ferguson stayed put, as did Broadway legend Ben Vereen (who, at the end of Jacob’s performance, raised a gospel hand in approval). Some people are here for the show, dammit.
Did Pia knock Randy’s ass out of his chair? No. But the Idoldome did cheer like crazy at the prospect of it after Jimmy Iovine made the suggestion. Also, S. Ty did forcefully kick the air when Pia launched into chorus, but with his right foot, i.e. the one farthest from Randy. Still, just knowing Steven’s random flailings could take out his fellow judges at a moment’s notice is comfort enough for my snark demon, Smirkelstiltskin. In other Pia news, someone left their mic on during pretty much Pia’s entire judging panel critique, which was far more audible inside the studio than on TV and perhaps contributed to the general “We want you to sing uptempo ballads in which you stand still while also moving!” sense of needless confusion.
Nigel teaches the Idoldome to dance! Okay, not really. But in the ad break before James’ flaming performance, Nigel did commandeer the mic so he could first tell the peanut gallery to stand up and wildly cheer when James began his song amongst them. Then he teased that James would be working through the entire audience. And then the So You Think You Can Dance judge and exec producer instructed the audience on how to do the “arena stomp” while the Durbs rocked through the second half of “Saturday’s All Right For Fighting”: For future reference, the proper steps are stomp, stomp, clap, done to the beat, and, as Nigel implored, “Not too fast!” Alas, Nigel made it seem like we should start arena stomping immediately after James descended the Thunderstairs, which it turns out wasn’t the case and in my estimation led to a mess of confusion when James finally did try to lead us all in the arena stomp. Obviously, Tabitha and Napoleon would’ve crafted a better routine for us.
Thia’s fog! I found it mesmerizing.
Those were my highlights from inside the Idoldome — what were yours at home?
Read more:
‘American Idol’ recap: Haley and the Jets
‘Idol’ coaches talk the Top 11 taking on Elton John
Behind the scenes at EW’s photo shoot!
All ‘Idol’ on-the-scene reports
All ‘American Idol’ recaps
EW.com’s ‘American Idol’ Central
Oh, good question: highlights from tvland . . Anytime Steven Tyler speaks . . Casey’s barber excursion and then sweet and understated performance, Haley singing from the piano, James owning the stage, and Thea singing simply and beautifully.
Can Smirkelstiltskin come out to be judgey more often?? He rules.
“Possibly this is due only to increased proximity to Steven Tyler’s fashion sense.” Bwahahahahaha! Love you, Adam B!
Must not drink whilst reading Adam’s snark fest! I know better but did it anyway. Now I have to clean off my screen.
LOL!!!!!
Adam, you always make me laugh! I have one additional observation — during one of the Stefano?), we saw the reincarnation of the Swaybots [or as I texted to a friend of mine "Swaybots! Shoot to kill!"]. Was that a Nigel prompt, as well?
No one should ever do this blog but Adam B!
I can see why contestants are voted off. I used the 888 number with 1 before it and message said you do not need “1″ before number so I tried leaving it off and operator said you have to dial a number like 0 or 1. Neither would work. How do you let Idol know why some of us can’t vote.
They’re 1-866 numbers not 888.
Maybe because they are 866 numbers, not 888?
Wow.
@Marlene. You can see why contestants are voted off? They are voted off because voting them off until one is left is the point of the show.
“James’ flaming piano.”
Adam, I’d love to hear about the inside-the-dome reaction to Haley.
I’m not Adam, but the response to Haley’s performance was strong and positive. As compared to a much quieter more polite reaction to say, Naima or Thia. But maybe not as strong as the response for Pia. Stronger than for Lauren I think, though I thought Lauren blew all the other girls away in terms of her interpretation and sweetness of tone. Or at least, that’s from what I heard. Sitting in the peanut gallery above and behind the stage, we couldn’t actually see anything.
In response to synf. You are not dialing an 888 number it’s an 866 number. (it in print on the screen and repeated after each contestant) Maybe if you werent so caught up in your self at 33 and a CEO you would know better. Go back to school.
LOL. You know that these spammers tend to copy and paste either lines from the article or lines from someone else’s comment and include it in their own as an attempt to trick you to read what they said, right? I would have thought you were joking, but your explanation of when the numbers appear made it sound like you were actually sincere and took away from the funny.
I am so old and out of the loop, but my personal opinion, for what little it’s worth is: James is SO very good. I know it’s the style, but if this young man would stop with that idiot straight up hairdo, maybe his ears wouldn’t look like a VW going down the road with both doors open. He’s like me – he doesn’t have very attractive ears. As my grandpa would say, those hairdos look like a “billy goat that’s been butting a wash pot”. Who has a clue what I’m talking about?
Please, stop calling Steven Tyler “S. Ty.” He is Steven Tyler, or he is one-half of the Toxic Twins, but he is never “S. Ty.”
so he could be called “Toxic” for short then?
Just noting that he already has an established nickname. His name is Steven.
Adam! I kept scanning the crowd (as that was all I could see from the awful peanut gallery Section X obstructed view seats they stuck us in) wondering if you and Smirky were there! Wish I could’ve said hello, but of course, those of us who waited four hours outside in the sun to get in couldn’t possibly be allowed to mix in with the “invited guests”. Sigh. I also had the “no way to avoid the camera” moment when James decided to start his song within hugging distance of me. (No, I did not hug him, but the girl next to me did, along with a few others in our section as he was trying to get ready for his song.) However, the closeness allowed me to examine the exquisite patched detailing on the side of his jeans. Very cool. As was he. Especially when acknowledging every squealed “love you, James” that everyone in the section felt obliged to say. I remained silent but smiling as I didn’t want to be one more distraction for the poor guy when he was trying to prepare to sing AND stomp down stairs simultaneously! But as I saw from him at the Paley event – he was very very gracious to all of his fans, turning to wish the birthday girl a happy birthday when he overheard it proclaimed behind him. Just a good good guy. And tall. Beyond that moment, everything else about the experience of seeing Idol in person this season was terrible. From the lying audience coordinators who kept saying “we’re taking you in in ten more minutes”… for almost two hours. To the obstructed view nosebleed seats that allowed us to see the top half of the backs of a few taller contestant’s heads when they stood at the very front of the stage. To the Jumbotron that only worked 50% of the time, so we really had no idea what was actually going on in the room. To the announcement of “hey folks in that top back section – since you’ve been so great we’re treating you all to ice cream!” Some happy response from the crowd… who are then each handed a coupon for a small ice cream dessert… at McDonald’s. Yup, they popped for a whole dollar treat for all 100 of us stuck up there in the bad seats. All I kept thinking as I tried to avoid vertigo spells whenever I tried to look down to actually see something – though we were warned by production that we were not allowed to stand up and look down when the singers were actually singing – thanks so much, guys! – was that I would be having a much better time staying home and watching this on tv and reading the behind the scenes recap on ew. Learned my lesson and won’t do this again even though it took me years on the waiting list for tickets just to get this one. I’ve been to Idol before in earlier seasons. I didn’t mind being off to the side or in the back row… if I could actually WATCH THE SHOW! This was a complete waste. All of us in that line outside seemed to get shoved into the bad section. So caveat emptor if you get a “ticket” to the show. Stay home and read the ew blogs – you’ll have a much better Idol experience. Oh, but as an addition to Adam’s comments – Nigel always enthusiastically applauded the amateur singers (good and bad) that Jay Flats had sing which I thought was kind. It was interesting to see which performers Nigel sat on the side to watch and groove to (including Scotty – yay), and which he didn’t. Mike Darnell was also buzzing around the audience during every break with his wacky hair and straw hat combo. But that was Nigel giving the mic instructions for the “James dance”? I thought it was the warm up guy. But since I couldn’t see anything of what was actually happening, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. But we had a production guy come up before that to order us… I mean explain to us… how we were supposed to behave and dance for James’ performance. I obeyed out of respect for James, not the Idol crew who treated us like garbage all day. Yes, Idol, the sunstroke, sore feet and $1 McDonald’s ice cream are the gifts of the day from you! Cheers.
I love that you shared the experience “from above!” Thanks!
Too wordy. Please stick to the point.
You’re kidding, right? wg’s post is one of the most on-point posts I’ve ever seen. The guy was there too! If your attention span doesn’t allow for reading a long reply…scan over it.
It must be tough to write these things. The best tidbits seem to be about the other audience members.
First AI pimps and kisses Casey Abram’s A&& and now EW is also kissing the Pimped one’s a&&.
Casey should have gone home already.
Casey is going to be a big flop just like Taylor Hicks.
He is only getting attention because he is a sick Chewbacca.
Please don’t compare Casey to Taylor Hicks. Casey will make it in the music business.