Canadian Idol 6 - Episode 6

Ben and the judges having a little heart-to-heart. They touch on the 15 male/9 female ratio in the final 24 chosen last week. Jake gets a compliment from Ben on his recent weight loss. Jake responds with the opinion that this year’s is a more experienced crop than usual.

Burning Love is the first song. The band smokes. Love the drive of this tune. Back-up singers are pitch-perfect. That I notice these things probably isn’t good news for whoever that chick is doing the singing. Oh, it’s Lindsey.

Jake calls it “bad bar singing.” Sass puts her finger on the problem: good energy, but the key was too low. Farley thinks the energy came through. Zack calls it a perfect example of what not to do.

The hell with them, girl. You picked Burning Love. You get some of my quota of votes tonight.

Matt Kerr does Blue Rodeo’s, Lost Together. He’s never bad, but tonight he seems like he’s forcing it a bit. What does impress the hell out of me is the way he handles himself after the song is over. Wise cracking, ad-libbing: the guy’s a born host.

Gary Morisette belts out Good Golly Miss Molly, accompanying himself on guitar. Unoriginal but well controlled blues shouter voice. Alright for a white boy, but the first judge to tell him he needs to find his own voice agrees with me. Where he breaks the mold is actually taking a 12-bar lead guitar break. And he smokes. And he is sooooo out of place here. Don’t know how long he’ll last in what is, at heart, a singing competition. But hey – if you haven’t already got a band together, Gary, after you get dumped here, I’m available. And I got a van, man.

The first thing I notice about Tetiana is that she is looking particularly well endowed tonight. In fact, after doing a version of Feelings that no doubt delighted cocktail lounge acts all across Canada, Tetiana slips a hand inside the neck of her blouse as if to adjust something that is not quite in place. The camera cuts away to Zack. Their exchange is great:

Zack: It’s a bizarre, bizarre song choice.
Tetiana: I took a shot at trusting myself. (as Zack advised her to do last week)
Zack: Well, sometimes you’re right, sometimes you sing Feelings.

Sorry, Tet. You know I love you, but it was funny. And Jake called you the best thing of the night so far, right? It’s not like I’m gonna point out that you reacted to that faint praise with a bit more emotion than is probably warranted considering random chance gave you a 25% probability of being the best so far, you know?

Mitch MacDonald sings Gavin DeGraw’s Follow Through, and for the first time in the competition I enjoy his voice. It must be the song that does it. Mitch has a late Sixties British Invasion type of voice, I realize, and Follow Through has that Herman and the Hermits/Monkees kind of bouncy insouciance.

Paul Clifford is one of two finalists with a British accent (Kerr is the other). He is also the guy who has made the top 200 three years running now, but is in the top 24 and competing live for the first time. He does Broken, a song I haven’t heard before, by a band named Seether. Last week Paul sounded like an unmannered John Fogarty. This week he channels Cobain (don’t we all?). The judges treat him like an old friend. Don’t they know that they have crushed this man twice and now stand between him and his life’s ambition? Watch him, guys. Paul will slice your spine in half, the long way, first chance he gets, don’t you know? Farley tells Paul his voice can be recognized over the radio, and that’s what’s important. Maybe Paul will spare him when the time comes.

Earl Stevenson does Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower. This kid continually surprises me. He sings his own melody for this song and knocks me out, as he did with the harmony singing and as he did in his first audition. Blue-eyed soul at its best. The judges love him.

Lisa Bell tries the Doobie’s Long Train Running. Zack called it, “okay, but not enough.” Jake disagrees. He thinks she needed to show Canada that she has a good, strong voice and she has done that. I say she didn’t win any fans, but I don’t think she lost any, either.

Mookie Morris tells us he is named after Mookie Wilson. While he regales Canada with the story of how he came to be named after a player for the Montreal Expos, I remember the them in their prime, back when they had Mookie and Steve Rogers and Bill Lee and Warren Cromartie and Andre Dawson and Gary Carter and they broke my heart when they lost the play-off to LA.

This Mookie almost makes up for that with a version of Twist and Shout banged out on a Red Rickenbaker. Mookie’s voice is in great form and he’s got a good slide going in his Beatle boots. Star Power. And the judges see it.

Speaking of star power, Oliver Pigott shows the first sign of weakness in the Pigott Brother’s assault on Canada. After a series of flawless performances, he has chosen tonight to do I Hear You Knockin’, an up-tempo rocker that is quite a change of pace from the ballads he’s been serenading us with since episode 1. The band kicks into it and Oliver, wearing a hood-up hoodie, embarrasses himself by playing at being sexy. The judges don’t cut him any slack, either. Good. It was getting too easy for him.

Our final performer of the night is Katherine St. Laurent, who has cleaned up real good. A sleeker hair style compliments her fine-boned, elfin face. Her natural shyness makes her seem oddly sophisticated. She does one of my least favorite songs, Total Eclipse of the Heart. She is such a striking beauty, I forgive her. So do the judges. Will the RoC?