9 perform - 2 to go home

Performance night is over. Decent night overall. Nobody was dirt horrible, but definitely a few weak ones.

Here are my rankings.

Top Tier
1. Crystal - didn't know the song well, but liked it. Very bluesy, good vocals, even her stage presence was better. The song was peppy and cool.
2. Casey - from sheer vocal and my preference of style, thIs was pretty good. Girls, don't let Casey fool you, I think he's a good singer too, not just a pretty boy.
3. Lee - pretty good.  Seems to be getting more comfortable on stage.
4. Big Mike - great vocals, good song, stark performance, but nice.

Next Tier
5. Siobhan - not bad, she's just grating on me a bit.
6. Katie - pretty good vocals, but I'm just not buying the sassy "I'm gonna act older" thing.
7. Tim Urban - look, I found very little to like about this whiney, pleading,annoying performance, but he wasn't that bad. Clearly trying to appeal to his teeny bopper base.
8. Aaron - sigh.  It was the karaoke moment of the year.  OK vocals, but everything else was cheesy and bad.
9. Andrew Garcia -  Surely his time has come. If that were ever to be on the radio in my car, I would wreck on purpose to stop it.  Maybe just a fender bender.

So, my bottom 3 are Tim, Aaron and Andrew, with Andrew and Tim leaving. I think Aaron will survive.

Vote in the bottom 3 poll.

So, how will you handle the scoring this week when two are kicked off?

Week 2 Standings - A Free Pass - Still 9 Left

Oh my!

That has to be one of the most shocking results shows ever.

I'm sorry, I know I picked Mike to win, maybe stupidly, but he was better than Aaron, Tim, and Andrew for sure this week.

Man, I was close to 8 weeks as a lame duck pool numbers runner. These updates would be pretty boring without a horse in the race.

No way Andrew, with his Michael Buble goes urban version of Can't Buy Me Love should have stayed over Mike.

Anyway, I guess there is no need to post anything. Officially, nothing changed in the standings.

Was I the only one who thought David Archuleta was pretty good?

As for Jason Derulo, well, he was Michael Jackson-like, only not as good. Rihanna was OK I guess, just not into her.

Week - 2 - Steve's Rankings

After watching the show last night, some normally weak people did well. You'll see a shake-up in my normal rankings.

Overall, nobody just blew me away, but it was a fairly solid night. Maybe it's because almost everyone loves the Beatles and it annoying to hear them done differently.

1) Katie
2) Casey
3) Christal
4) Mike
5) Siobhan
6) Lee
7) Tim
8) Aaron
9) Andrew

My, how responsible we are this year!

Just wanted to thank everyone for getting their money in promptly.

At this point everyone has paid, with no badgering whatsoever on my part.

So, don't email me that the fees paid hasn't been updated.  It was as yesterday.  Officially, everyone has paid.

Thanks.

9 Left - Standings

I have posted the standings for the first week. Check out the Picks and Standings section over at the left and click on the week you want to look at. I will leave them all up, with the latest week at the top.

Also, vote on who you think will be the last three standing, after this week's performances.

Since no one picked Didi to go home this week, we are all officially tied.  However, if you look at the potential points you'll see that there was some separation.

Alan has gained a slight advantage over everyone, since he picked her to finish 9th.  George, Lauren, Diana were dinged the most because they had her 5th.  The rest of us had her going out in the 6-8 range.

Still a long way to go!