Thousands make clear love for 'Idols'
Monday, August 21, 2006
By Brad Burke
Journal Star critic
A REVIEW There were no phone numbers to remember or eliminations to forget. No Paula to cheer or Simon to jeer. And for once, Seacrest really was out - as in out of the building.
American Idol, the tour, is not "American Idol," the show. It's more of a showcase, a chance for the top 10 finishers from the fifth season of the top-rated Fox series to wink and wave at the text-messaging masses who helped them vault from nobodies to somebodies in one year.
Still, if you sat among the more than 9,000 screaming fans packed inside the Peoria Civic Center arena Sunday night for the 2006 American Idols Live Tour, you might have thought the competition still was raging.
Impassioned "Idol" worshippers wore homemade shirts touting their favorite contestants. They hoisted signs pledging everything from adoration ("Bucky, You Rock") to undying love ("I Love Ace") to third-party undying love ("My Mom Loves You, Ace").
Most of all, they cheered for their favorites as if volume alone could re-determine Season 5.
If it could, maybe Taylor Hicks wouldn't have been the one dancing in the confetti blizzard. In the two hours that each Idol took the stage for brief mini-sets, it was clear that the current American Idol was not the crowd favorite on this night.
That honor fell instead to the more traditional heartthrobs: Ace Young, who seduced the audience with his tender rendition of George Michael's "Father Figure"; Bucky Covington, whose Southern rock standards were crowd favorites; and Elliott Yamin, who gamely battled through a bluesy set despite a malfunctioning ear piece and sporadic pitch problems.
And then there was Chris Daughtry, the one-time front-runner whose baffling fourth-place finish still festers within his followers' guts like bad Chinese food.
More of a rocker by trade, Daughtry shined in the less constrictive environment, busting out his guitar on rousing renditions of Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" and Styx's "Renegade." And while his duet with Yamin on Nickelback's "Savin' Me" was strained and out of tune (perhaps a result of the latter's faulty ear piece), he rebounded on a slick cover of Guns 'N' Roses' "Patience" alongside Yamin, Covington and Young.
The evening may have seemed like a boys night out, but a few females impressed. Lisa Tucker emoted nicely at the piano, while her "best friend" Paris Bennett strutted the stage like a tinier (and much, much younger) version of Mick Jagger.
And let us not forget Ms. Runner-Up herself, Katharine McPhee. Her heart-stopping version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" prompted countless fans to scream "I love you!" so loudly that she had no choice but to respond with a smile.
They did love her, perhaps more so than Hicks, who took the stage last in all his fist-pumping, spastic-stepping glory.
Rolling Stone once said that if Hicks was executed for being a singer, "he'd die an innocent man." That's a bit harsh, but it's clear that he's more showman than musician. At one point he strummed a guitar that, upon close inspection, didn't appear to be making any sound (to me, anyway). Style over substance? You be the judge.
In many ways, you were. Had the partisan Civic Center audience declared Season 5's winner, I'm guessing it would have come down to Daughtry and McPhee. And this time, there would have been no shocking dismissal for the rocker.
"If I come back here next year, will y'all be here?" Daughtry asked the crowd near the end of his set.
Yes - and minus the "I Love Ace" signs this time.
Brad Burke can be reached at (309) 686-3262 bburke@pjstar.com.
