Canadian Idol 6 - Episode 17

Dead songwriter week, singer’s choice.

Theo Tams starts us off with Bob Marley’s No Woman, No Cry. Canada spoke and Theo listened – his hair no longer resembles Carmen Diaz’s Something About Mary do. In fact, he’s out front for once and looks good. A quiet breakthrough for Theo – the first time I see him as a pop idol.

Mitch MacDonald does Heatley’s Angel Eyes. His odd chipmunk timbre is even more pronounced than usual. Zack calls it, “Uniquely annoying.”

Earl does Light My Fire. Surprisingly (and smartly) he goes the Feliciano route. He gets his trademark shoulder-dipping cool jerk working and slides all over the melody. Sloppy as hell, but the crowd loves it and they let him get away with it.

Sebastian Pigott has another poor showing. Three bars into the Elvis version of Love Me, he loses the key. Sass mentions it sounded like maybe he couldn’t hear himself, but they way he looks, who cares? The male judges remind him of his poor showing last week and do more than hint that he should think about film and/or modeling as a career for sure – but not music. Ouch.

Joplin’s Move Over is Katherine St. Laurent’s choice – a brave one. She hammers it. Sass, who seems a little giggly tonight, complements her looks. That makes two in a row – she did her usual drooling when Pigott finished. Katherine is looking better and sounding more assured every week.

Blind Melon’s No Rain is a great pop melody and a great fit for Drew Wright’s voice. His best performance of the competition to date.

Mookie Morris picks James Brown’s I Feel Good. His vocals are nothing to brag about, but he does it with style and confidence and a sense of fun. Sass is totally channeling Paula Abdul, yelping like a cowgirl.

Amberly Thiessen does the second Bob Marley song of the night. Her Redemption Song is impressive as hell. Thiessen has a sixties-ish look about her that doesn’t hurt. Baez lives. This girl could beat the boys.

Mark Day wraps things up with Luther Vandross’ Dance With My Father. It is the first performance where Mark has looked like he’s taking the task seriously and he displays a depth that has been missing for the past few weeks.

That’s everybody. Hard to imagine Sebastian dodging the bullet this week. We’ll see tomorrow.