Everybody's down on their knees

What up? RockStar:INXS, that’s what. It’s another elimination night (August 31st). Who will still be in the running to be the new (and soon forgotten) lead singer of INXS? Who will be sent back to the Broadway choruses? Stay tuned (can one really be tuned into a blog?).

Brooke Burke welcomes us to the show. She’s whored out again in low-slung jeans, shredded black ribbon tank and black bra. She claims last night’s show was ‘epic.’ Hi contestants! Hi INXS! Hi Dave ‘Maybelline’ Navarro. I usually don’t mention Dave’s ‘outfits’ but you should know that along with the muscle shirt and pants, he is wearing a black leather jacket’s sleeves. No jacket, just the sleeves.

Now a truly wonderful moment. Tim says that the band have been keeping track over what has happened on the Gulf Coast with Hurricane Katrina. They have played New Orleans many times and the people have been awesome to them. He wants us all to know that they have made a contribution to the Red Cross and that their thoughts and prayers are with everyone down there. And after this nice, heartfelt sentiment, Brooke robotically slurs, ‘OurhearsgoouttoeveryonethanksTimandDave. All right, back to business…’ Great segue.

Like every week, the band is facing their most difficult decision yet. Brooke claims that last night’s spectacular brought everything to a whole new level (third circle of Hell). We flash back to last night when Dave told J!D! he was stunned that he didn’t bother to learn the INXS song before the recording session. He thought that INXS were going to tell him what to do. Suzie says that they took a long time in there. Mig says J!D! has a method behind this behavior and not to knock him down until they’ve heard the finished product. Ty was (fucking) awesome, J!D! pogoed to Elvis, Marty toned it down, Jordis almost made Jon cry (in a good way), Mig showed off his upper register to mixed reviews, and Suzie rocked the house with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’

So who gets tonight’s encore? Ty, Suzie, and Jordis all raise their hands. Who’s it going to be? Dave says last night was ‘epic’ and though it was a tough call, he and INXS decided that they want to hear Suzie sing again. But wait, there’s more. Eee. She gets to pick who ‘opens up’ for her with their encore. She picks Marty. Eee. Off we go into ‘Wish You Were Here.’ I start to think about what to have for dinner, what am I going to wear to the benefit tomorrow, do I have enough cat food, I wonder if Marty does his own eye makeup… whoop, song’s over. Garry Garry looks like he’s going to cry. Suzie’s up now. Nice green leather jacket, not so nice wide leg jeans. Suzie sounds even vocally stronger tonight and it looks like she’s really enjoying herself. She also was rocking so hard that one of her long earrings fell off.

Before we find out who was in the bottom three, we go back to the Rock Haüs to check out the post-show party. Everyone is all ‘yay’ and ‘excellent.’ Red wine and veggie wraps all around! But talk soon turned to elimination. Mig does some math and figures out that half the people there are going to be in the bottom three. Suzie doesn’t want to be one of them. Mig thinks he’s going to be one of them. Suddenly we’re outside smoking with J!D! and Suzie. J!D! pissily (spell check doesn’t like that word) says Suzie had no right to say what she said. Which if you check the second paragraph, was only that they were taking a long time in the studio. Huh? Suzie looks at him like he’s the passive-aggressive nut that he is. In another smoking bunch, Ty says he’s sick of someone getting ahead of him because he’s been too nice to him. Wha? Back to J!D! saying that he doesn’t know if he can forgive Suzie for that comment and he thought she had his back. Way to blow things waaaay out of proportion, Ass!Hole! In a side interview J!D! claims that he’s toned down himself so he could fit in with everybody here. There’s a frightening thought. She again tries to apologize and he brushes her off with a ‘later.’

Suzie joins the other smoking group and is crying that she doesn’t want to be anybody’s enemy and wants to be compassionate. Ty notes that bullies don’t pick on people they feel will stand up to them, and that Suzie is stronger than she gives herself credit for. Marty? Is disturbed from the bottom of his forty year old heart about Suzie’s night being ruined by J!D! Back to the live studio. Dave’s impression of the evening? ‘Pretty trippy.’ Dr. Dave also wants to know why Marty feels so bothered. Marty thought that he seemed insecure about his performance and that he took it out on Suzie. As he says this J!D! makes his face of ‘what the? I’m so confused and misunderstood.’ Tool. Also they need to remember that the drama here belongs on the stage because this is about finding INXS a lead singer. It sure isn’t about entertaining me, that’s for sure. Dave also notes Ty’s upsetness. Ty thinks that J!D! is a great enough singer that he doesn’t need all the other bull(shit). Dave wants to know how Suzie is feeling. She feels bad for hurting his ‘professionalism’ and that he felt she didn’t have his back and his upsetness hurt her back. But they worked it out. Oh, whew. Not like this show could stand a little drama of a feud. Let’s see what J!D! thinks! He came in with the win at all costs approach, but he's really just here to sing.

Dave wants to know if Jordis thinks she will be in the bottom three tonight. Jordis says she thought she was in the bottom three last week for sure. She was ready then and she’s ready now. How about Mig and his big elf ears? He doesn’t want to be putting his head on the chopping block at this point and going home. He does want INXS hear him sing their songs, but maybe in a few more weeks. Dave wants to hear from Marty again. How was his taste of the bottom three? He notes that he went from the top three to the bottom three in one week and he thinks he’s going to be in the bottom three this week. However, he’d be proud to be in the bottom three and sing for INXS.

Brooke asks the contestants who thinks they are in the bottom three as of last night. Everyone but Suzie raises their hands. Then she puts her hand up in a half-assed way. Actually, last night after the show the bottom three were J!D!, Ty, and Marty (BOO from the audience). But as the rest of the world got to vote, one more person joined this group. It’s Jordis. Suzie and a confused-looking Mig are safe this week.

The first of the bottom three called to the stage is J!D! He says he’s been dying to do an INXS song. He gets ‘This Time,’ a mid-tempo upbeat thing. J!D! doesn’t put very much power behind his singing and he’s horribly off-key on the chorus. He tries to compensate by doing the Belinda, the Total Eighties Dance, and the Pogo. Overall a pretty underwhelming experience. Afterward Kirk asks him how it felt to sing an INXS song. ‘It’s like, trying to describe my favorite summer as a kid, man. It’s impossible,’ he says in a ‘choked-up’ voice. I ain’t buying it. Dave thought it was awesome that he was pointing to his ‘brothers and sisters’ in the Peanut Gallery. Because pointing rocks!

Two losers left on the list. Ty, come on up to the stage! He gets up there and says while he wants to sing an INXS song, he’s a little heartbroken because he thinks he does what he does well and he’s going to do it well again right now. Say that ten times fast. Ty gets ‘The One Thing,’ another upbeat rock song. He sounds a little off also, especially when he stomps or pogos around. He ends the song in the classic Jesus Christ pose (arms out). Garry tells him first off, Ty got the chorus lyric wrong (‘it’s the one thing’ instead of ‘you’re my one thing’) but says it was well sung. Then he asks what Ty can bring to the table for INXS. Ty says that more than his heart, it’s his soul, and the ‘nucleus’ of the INXS sound is rock and soul. And he doesn’t see who is going to sing soul like himself. He continues that ‘we all have our things, and that’s why I love everybody.’ But his thing is soul and he brings it on strong.

Plaintive piano, how I missed you! Down to Marty and Jordis as the final member of the bottom two. Brooke fakes out Marty, then tells him he actually got more votes than the bottom three combined. So Jordis is on the block. She gets ‘Listen Like Thieves.’ It’s an up-tempo… oh Goddammit it’s an INXS song! They all are variations on up-tempo rock/soul things! Go check it out on iTunes if you don’t know what it sounds like. So Jordis actually sounds pretty good if a little subdued. And yes, at the lyric ‘everybody’s down on their knees’ she drops to the floor. She sticks to the song until the final chorus and does some vocal gymnastics with the lyrics. Not bad, really. Jon asks her what she can bring to the band INXS. Besides a vagina. She says she can bring a young open talent for them to use and she hopes to stay around long enough to show them what she can bring.

Deliberations, deliberations. We’re back to give someone the boot. It’s Tim’s job again to do so and he starts out calling them all amazing singers. BUT. He says that all three performances tonight were underwhelming. It’s fun watching the looks on their faces as this sinks in. They range from chastised schoolgirl (Jordis) to an empty fake smile (Ty) to punched in the kidneys (J!D!). They are told to figure out what went wrong or they will be next. So who is it? Ty, you’re just not white, er, right for their band, INXS. He looks pissed. The other contestants look sad (Mig looks like he’s trying to keep his wig on). Dave calls Ty and incredible performer and an astonishing star. Then he asks if there’s anything he wants to say to the guys. ‘Yeah, so much.’ He thanks them and says it’s been like a dream come true. He wouldn’t have changed anything he did, he looks forward to one of the other contestants singing with INXS. Then he says though he’s a positive person, it hurts him that as a People(!) that he belongs to, that they aren’t given enough appreciation in Rock and Roll, and he knows what he did and that he still ended up in the bottom three, and he can’t pretend to not know why it is. Andrew stands up and says he’s giving him the respect he deserves, he performed great, and that he’s an ‘awesome’ soul singer. So. Yeah. Awkward. He’s black, but he’s great at being black, then? He shouts out to the rest of the Peanut Gallery then wades through the crowd to say goodbye to INXS.

Thus ends tonight’s elimination. I swear, I’m going to try my hardest to get this blog caught up, so next week’s episode is going to be rather short. You will laugh, cry, wet yourself, and hate J!D! all over again. Until then, be good or if you can't be good, be careful.