Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 on “American Idol” and the judges use(d) their one (and only one) save of the season to rescue Michael (“Big Mike”) Lynche from elimination. The bottom three vote getters were announced as being Mike Lynche, Aaron Kelly and Andrew Garcia. The only one of that trio who was a surprise (to me, anyway) was Big Mike, who had sung “Eleanor Rigby” the previous night.
After performances by one of Kara’s new sings (Jason somebody who reminded of a younger Jamie Foxx), who gave a performance with a lot of technical amplification that ended with Kara crowing, “Jason only had 4 days to get this together and you just killed it,” and Simon saying, “Absolutely great. Well done!” the show moved on to David Archuleta, who played the piano and sang “Imagine.”
I was struck during David’s performance that he was always criticized during the “David(s)” season for singing with his eyes closed and, this time, he sang with his eyes closed, again. It apparently hasn’t hampered his career, which he said features writing and recording. David looked slightly older and his hair looked slightly less curly, as he riffed (“Brotherhood of man”) through “Imagine” and said, “I love Ellen.” He wore a black shirt, light pants and a white and black striped rep tie.
It was at this point that Ryan Seacrest gave Kiran the order to: “Dim the lights. Get to the results.” The bottom three, as noted above, were announced as being Andrew Garcia, Aaron Kelly and Michael Lynche.
After this, Rihanna came out in what looked like a black wet suit with beaded Joan Crawford shoulder pads going on stylistically (Patti LaBelle Space Age Suit Memories). The tight-fitting spandex garment left little to the imagination as Rihanna sang a new song from her forthcoming “Last Girl on Earth” tour, a number entitled “Rock Star 101” that had, as a lyric, “To be what you is you gotta’ be what you are,” (good to know that proper grammar is still alive in the land) and the repeated lyric, “Hey, Baby, I’m a rock star.” This reminded me of the post-divorce song of another current songstress (Pink?) who exulted in her status as a pop icon. Rihanna had a short multi-colored hairstyle and I wondered aloud if she was completely done with Chris Brown as she sang, “Big City, Bright Lights.”
One hundred and thirty-two million votes have been cast this season, and it came down to Big Mike having to sing for his salvation. His wife sobbing in the audience, he sang a falsetto song he had previously used in the competition, rather than “Eleanor Rigby,” which, according to Simon, was the reason he was in this position in the first place.
The judges were unanimous in “saving” the personal trainer, so next week 2 singers will be eliminated from the show at once.
Stay tuned!