The show started with the usual intro: what’s happened in the last week? Magni’s wife and son came to visit (and were there for the performance). Dilana found the songs. She was the only one who wanted the one with Gilby on guitar. Yada yada yada...
After the recap, Dave Navarro chastised the rockers for not fighting for the chance to sing with Gilby. I mean, he verbally spanked them all for being stupid. He said “if it were up to me, Dilana would win it right now.” Bold statement.
And that was actually a nice lead into the first performance: Dilana Smith singing The Who’s “
Won’t Get Fooled Again.” I have to say the one thing I don’t like about this show (hey Mr. Producer, Mark Burnett! Pay attention here!) is how they’ll take a great song like this which is normally eight and half minutes long and cut it down to a two or three minute version. The beauty of longer songs is how much is in there. I understand it’s an audition, but come on. That being said, Dilana killed it. I like the way her voice was a nice contrast to how Roger Daltry normally sings it. They had a camera on the end of Gilby’s guitar which made for a few great shots of the performance. They really worked well together. I thought it was a great performance. It wasn’t her best, but that’s only because it’s going to be really hard to outdo her earlier performances of “
Ring of Fire” and “
Lithium.” After her performance Dave said “as if it didn’t suck to follow Dilana before, now you have to follow Dilana with Gilby Clarke.” Gilby said “Dilana, I’m sure everybody knows this, but you’re a star. And after that, I have no doubt a woman can front our band.” Wow. I wonder if she’s going to drop the ball over the next few weeks or if she’s going to keep it up.
Next up was Jill Gioia singing Tracy Bonham’s “
Mother Mother.” I have one question for Supernova (aka ‘Tommy Lee’s Unit’): when are you going to vote her off? She tried to change it up by sitting at the beginning. I was actually enjoying the first half because she had toned down her banshee shrieking, but sure enough she belted out one loud shriek at one of the later choruses. I’m begging you Jason and Gilby. Gag Tommy Lee so he can’t vote tonight and kick her off. We know he’s the one keeping her, because he loves the ladies. The only good thing she did was finish her performance in the middle of the crowd. I literally spent the entire time wondering when she would be kicked out. Dave said he didn’t want to say anything bad, because he felt like he was watching Carmella Soprano on stage. Maybe that’s why she’s lasted so long. The mafia won’t let them kick her off.
Then we cut to commercials, now I normally don’t talk about the commercials because I fast forward through them, but I had to go back and watch the Victoria’s Secret bra commercial with Heidi Klum. Wow, she is still hot as ever. Excuse me, I need a minute.
And I’m back. BTW there was a Verizon Wireless commercial for the new ‘Chocolate’ by LG phone. Can anyone tell me what that song was? I want it. It sounded real badass.
And back to the show. Brook Burke said “and somewhere in this auditorium is Ryan Star.” Next thing you know, there is a camera on a hooded man in the audience walking and singing. Obviously it was Ryan. Did anyone else think that the stuff on top of his head looked like black feathers from a Sesame Street character’s head? I did, but then I looked again and I thought only of Garth Brooks’ fatass rocker persona from back in the 90s: Chris Gaines. So anyway, we have a hooded muppet in all black walking to the stage singing. He gets on stage and at the chorus rips off the hood to show that he’s actually shaved his face! Kidding. He had painted the area around his eyes black. It looked like a painted on Zorro’s mask, which is kinda cool because he was singing The Rolling Stone’s “
Painted Black.” And you know what? He rocked it! At the end of the performance he leaned over and kissed some chick in the audience. All the judges were blown away. Dave said “unbelievable,” and “Ryan Star has just shown us that he is a contender.” And I’ll be honest, throughout the last few weeks, he’s gotten better and better with each performance. Jason Newstead said he hoped it was just the tip of the iceberg.
Another one of my favorites was up next: Storm M-Fing Large. She did Queen’s “
We Are The Champions.” Her vocals were unbelievable. She was not over acting. She’s letting her vocals and the song itself do the ‘talking.’ She really showed her vocal range on that song. I also liked the way she changed the arrangement a little. All the judges like her performance, but Tommy said that he hoped she would still “go bananas.” Storm said “ok, I’ll spank the crap outta you.” Nice.
Next up was Zayra Alvarez singing Mott The Hoople/David Bowie’s “
All The Young Dudes” with Magni on acoustic guitar. As usual her outfit was more interesting than her actual performance. She had a gold body suit that started down by her feet and stopped just above her breasts. She had dark, shiny elevator shoes with stiletto heels. And of course, she had a black top hat. It’s like she’s trying to be David Bowie in this costume, BUT I really want to call her the Anti-Bowie. Why? Because I can’t understand any of her lyrics, and I know the song! Bowie is always crisp and easy to understand. Zayra is singing with rocks on her brain and marbles in her mouth. So guess what, I didn’t like her performance. Dave said “if this show was called Rockstar:Planet Pluto, you would win by a landslide,” and the crazy bitch took that as a compliment! Gilby said she has great showmanship, but she needs to watch the keys, because she was flat. Not where I’m looking Gilby. Oh, you mean her vocals?
Josh Logan jumped on stage next to sing Stone Temple Pilots’ “
Interstate Love Song.” He’s about to start and “
The Unit” stops Josh so he can come play drums. Surprise! Josh honestly looked like he thought it was a joke. I thought it was a perfect song for his voice, and he didn’t let the fact that Tommy Lee was on drums inflate or deflate his performance. It felt natural watching that. Dave said it was a good performance, but asked at this stage is ‘good’ enough? Gilby said it was a great job. I think he should be safe from elimination.
Magni came up to sing Live’s “
Dolphins Cry.” It him alone on stage with a guitar. And they put a spotlight on his wife and child in the audience too. It was actually really cool. He’s about to start playing, and the crowd is screaming. He hushes them and then rocks the song. I was honestly too mesmerized by the performance to write any notes. It was awesome. Gilby said “you have inspired everybody.” I think having his family there really charged up his batteries for this performance.
Patrice Pike came up next to sing John Lennon’s “
Instant Karma.” I have to say that I like her, but I don’t think she has the right voice to stay in this much longer. She’s really starting to lose me. She was playing guitar during the performance and singing at the mike stand. Towards the end of the song, she grabbed the mike stand and walked to the end of the stage. That was actually kinda cool. In the end, she didn’t get much applause from the audience. And I have to say that when I compare her vocals to the competition she really doesn’t have much of a chance.
Lukas Rossi came out to sing Radiohead’s “
Creep.” I’ve read the entertainment weekly online recap of this show and they keep referring to him as the Lemur King from ‘
Madagascar.’ You know what I kinda see it. My initial reaction to his performance was thinking that he’s really into this song, and it doesn’t feel fake. It was a great performance. His body actually shook while he sang the song. He was really intense. And his vocals were on. It proved my skepticism wrong. The judges loved it, especially Jason who’s been trying to get him to actually sing for weeks now.
Toby Rand sang The Talking Head’s “
Burning Down The House.” I thought that he looked great and natural singing that song. It sounded great too. Before the last verse, Zayra (now in an all black outfit obviously hiding her gold thing) brought out a megaphone with an Australian flag on it. Toby sang a verse through the megaphone and then sang on the mike for the last bit. At the end of the song he used the siren option on the megaphone into the mike. That was awesome, but Dave said he loved the performance until the megaphone just because he doesn’t like props. Jason contrasted that saying that he did like it and that he enjoys them as long as it doesn’t happen all the time. At the end Jason gave Toby a standing applause.
The initial bottom three were Jill, Zayra, and Patrice.
Here are my picks for the bottom three:
Jill
Zayra
Patrice
If it’s someone other than that, I will be really surprised. Those were the weakest performances.
Ok, I’m done now. Have a good one and remember “
camo thongs are so you don’t see her coming!”
BTW that’s Rachelandthecity with him. Yes, he has a mullet. Yes, it is business in the front and party in the rear. And yes, he has lines shaved in the side. If he's going for shock value, he's definitely got it. If he's going for some strange ass, I doubt he'll get it. Anyway, I’ll be back Sunday. This time I’ll bring plenty of cash. They wouldn’t let us have separate tabs. And that was fun with people coming and going. It was really fun when I went to the ATM and it wouldn’t work. Now I owe Serrabee for what I ate and drank (the muffaleta at the Deli is not good by the way).
Or if you want to be a douchebag and not help out a worthy cause, the 
How was it confirmed? Well there was one alumnus (or is it alumnae?) of this chapter from the 90s who said "it's not their finest hour."
We picked up beer and booze at Porter’s Liquor in Augusta, AR. That’s the last stop for beer on the way there. He got a 4 pack of San Salvador’s premixed margaritas (or ‘road pops’ as we call them). I saw that they had a new mango flavored style. I love mangos. I love margaritas. How could this go wrong? It was a weird kinda sweet. Too much of a “fru-fru chick drink” for me. It got better the more I drank, but I just didn’t really like it enough to get it another time. Next time, I stick with the tried and true regular margarita. We got to the house and started grilling hot dogs and burgers. We stayed up drinking and watching the Three Stooges.
