Welcome back to the third instalment of Darren McMullen’s Fringe’s Favourite The Voice: Australia Live Blog.
Haha just saw this @pedestriandaily Funny shit pezn.tv/12yltUz
— Darren McMullen (@darrenmcmullen) April 8, 2013
Tonight’s episode promises to deliver something along the lines of The Most Dramatic Moment In The History Of Australian Television, so pull up a swivelling red chair, don your best worst outfit and let’s do this, okay, because sure, I mean, why not?
7:08pm: I’m running really late because FASHAN and PEAK HOUR so I’m not really paying too much attention but the first kind soul to audition is a police lady called Belinda Adams. She has been singing since like forever, and boy, has she got a voice. It’s a nice voice, it’s a big voice; everyone keeps saying it’s big, so that’s how we know it’s big. Joel and Seal were the first to push their buzzers; Delta followed suit because Delta, as did Ricky. If this show were a house, Belinda just brought down the front room of it. There’s a standing ovation and Belinda’s totally “freaking out.” I haven’t really been glued to what’s happening but there’s the usual fawning and hollow promises from the coaches to help Belinda find her true voice inner artist passion beauty soul journey. She chooses Ricky, natch.
7:22pm: “Share, passion, story, love, beauty, journey, connection, present, journey.” Again, these are all words used in Kangaroo Valley lad Danny’s intro reel. Danny Ross rips into When The Levee Breaks which I think is a Zeppelin tune. This white boy sure can ‘jam’, and he has some ‘serious attitude’, leading Joel and Seal to turn around almost immediately. Delta and Ricky, air guitar champions, do not turn around. “You’re not just good, you’re amazing” says Delta; “You knew what you wanted to do and you did it” says Joel; *thumbs up* says Ricky; “You need to project bigness” says Seal. Joel makes a last minute pitch in case Danny forgets he’s still a viable option and it pays off – he chooses Joel. After Danny leaves, Delta gets out of her chair to high five Joel and, naturally, it’s super awkward. She tells Joel: “Joel, you just got a killer artist,” bringing the percentage of wang on Joel’s team to 25%.
7:32pm: The next contestant is 34-year-old Ryan Low but instead of spelling it like a normal Ryan it’s spelt like RIEN, so there you go. Rien was one of the three lank-haired blondes that comprised 3/4 of local boy-band Mercury 4, who were a thing ten years ago. Here’s a Mercury 4 song, which sadly, I can remember some of the words to :S
Rien is singing a very boy-band song called Don’t Let Me Go which is ironic because nobody turned around: they’ve all let Rien go basically. Delta tells Rien he has “great potential to get records out” which is kind of sad for obvious reasons: his failed audition, age and previous attempts amongst them; but mostly because Rien’s name looks like Brienne and only serves to remind he how much I’d rather be watching Game of Thrones right now.
7:37pm: Next up we’ve got a kewl indie twin duo called Bec & Sebastian, 29, but they’ve only been singing together for eight months. They’re like Belle & Sebastian in every conceivable way, if the only thing you were able to conceive of was a similarity between names. Bec has a Skrillex haircut, Ryan has a few piercings. Both are gay. What are the odds!? No, really, what are the odds of that? Anyway, this is a bit cute – they’re singing Nobody’s Perfect by A Singer and everything is looking a bit doubtful until Ricky, the coach they always wanted, turns around. They’re shimmying at him and he’s shimmying back! A dream moment is ruined when everyone starts talking about how they know someone who is a twin: Ricky has twin boys and Joel is also a twin, in case you forgot (he makes a terrible Dad joke about twins being ‘wombmates!’). They’re probably definitely not The Voices but they’ll do for now.
7:50pm: Jenna Dearness-Dark is 16-years-old and her and her mother are from the Gold Coast, Queensland. They lost everything in the floods and both seem really lovely so now you can’t say anything bad, not that you would anyway. She starts singing, except that she’s not singing: she’s actually channelling the voices of a thousand angels through her sweet little pie hole, spewing forth the heavenliest poperatic tune that you e’er did hear. Appropriately enough, she’s singing Pie Jesu. Delta turns around first, all smug like ‘Guys, I’ve got this,’ followed soon after by every other coach. Like a natural disaster, everyone is blown away. “I don’t know if you know but I toured with Andrea Bocelli for a while,” begins Delta, “[it’s] a gift that I can present to you,” pulling off an artful #humblebrag. Jenna Dearness-Dark, whose self-titled LP has already written itself with a name like that, chooses Delta. Probably a wise choice.
8:03pm: A man in a feathered pork-pie hat and a grey vest who once jammed with Hendrix is now digging into Barry White’s I Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love. His name? Not sure. Seal is the first to turn around, followed by Joel. This guy said in his package that he really wanted Delta to turn around more than any other judge, but she doesn’t. His name is Steve Clisby and he’s pretty jaded because Delta didn’t perfectly anticipate his every desire. As a result, he burns her and burns her well: “Why didn’t you turn around?” he fires back after one of her incessant compliments about him being ‘a cool cat’. She keeps talking about how she didn’t want to turn around because his voice was so soulful that she thought that Seal could best handle it, because he’s “a brother.”
…
BRB JUST DYING.
8:08pm: Steve Clisby, ‘soulful’ sexagenarian, chooses Seal; not because he’s a ‘brother,’ but because he’s not a dick in a weave. Delta is backpeddalling faster than Lance Armstrong while desperately trying to remove her foot from her mouth – standing ovations, hugs and compliments are flying left, right and centre; hairspray and unintentional racism cloud the air.
8:10pm: Next up is a nice looking fella called Oscar Chavez. He and his wife share their heart-warming, life-affirming journey with the world: one of premature babies who look so adorable in pink Ralph Lauren cardigans, babies who inspire them to make the most of life etc. Oscar is singing Bed of Roses, a Jon Bon Jovi song. He’s belting this like a street style star [so much belting, every which kind of way] and he’s got a big voice but no one is turning. The tension is… present. At the last second, Delta pushes her button. Hugs all around for Oscar and friends in another round of the show that never ends. “This is exhausting,” I say out loud to myself, just like Taylor Swift.
8:22pm: A cute lil swimmer gal with chlorine-blonde-green ringlets is up next. Her name is Georgia and once she had the chance to ‘audition’ for the Australian Olympic Swim Team but an injury to her ankle ligaments cut that dream short. Well, hate to say it Georgia, but looks like you didn’t miss much because there was literally an enquiry into why that team sucked so bad. She’s singing Sixpence None The Richer’s Kiss Me and all of a sudden I’m five again – I used to love watching this song on the Video Hitz. It’s a sweet, albeit middling rendition of a sweet, albeit middling song. Sadly, no one turns around but she’s a good sport nonetheless [because she’s an athlete]. Everyone agrees Georgia was just the sweetest but sweetness doesn’t get you anywhere in this town. Next!
8:31pm: Joel is going to love our next contestant. Her name is Sarah Martin and she has a leopard print tattoo on her right shoulder, much like the leopard print hair Joel has tattooed on his scalp. Fun non-fact: Sarah was named after Sarah McLeod, another kool rock chick. Not really, in fact, not at all. Sarah Martin has a great soulful/rock voice, and she’s nailing Neneh Cherry’s Woman. She also has a good sense of humour, a quality bereft of most contestants on this show. Seal asks her “What she wants out of life” and she’s all like to “Play music and sing forever [in a tone that says: duh, you fkn idiot].” Seal was the first to turn around, almost instantly, and all but Ricky followed suit. Joel takes his usual approach – unabashed flattering – complimenting the sparkle in Sarah’s eye and the song in her heart. Both Delta and Joel agree that they’ll be fans of Sarah no matter who she chooses, although secretly we all know they’re gunning for her with a quiet desperation evinced by the sweat pooling in their seats. Like an idiot in a Poké batle, she chooses Seal. Sarah’s got a whiff of Karise Eden 2.0 about her, with her gutsy vocals and ‘alt’ aesthetic. Like most things, in life as in reality TV, it’s all just a little bit of history repeating, isn’t it?
8:43pm: Next up is James Napier, son of Marshall Napier and Jessica Napier, both Australian actors, one of whom was a Daughter of McLeod and the other a regular cast member on McLeod’s Daughters. James is a nurse from Nelson Bay. He’s singing Wade In The Water by Eva Cassidy, in a very high-reaching falsetto that, to his credit, could pass as a ballsy lady (at least it fooled Delta). He’s just like Glee’s Kurt Hummel: All Grown Up. After much feigned deliberating and the hovering of painted nails over buzzers from Joel and Seal, the song runs out. Now James knows the bitter taste of rejection his father and sister were weaned on by the local television industry.
8:51pm: 25-year-old Kathy Hinch is up next and she’s singing my favourite song to belt whenever anyone mentions one of these words: Girl on Fire. It’s an Alicia Keys song with a big chorus that Kathy is doing quite well with – maybe a little nasal, but she’s holding it down. Joel and Ricky go to hit the buzzers but the chairs are not turning and the lights remain dim. There’s vocal outrage from the audience – girls have literally gone wild – before the credits start to roll over an olde timey ‘To be continued’ title-card. “Is that it?!” I yell at the television before taking a long, hard look at my life choices. That’s the Most Dramatic Moment In The History of Television that we were promised?
That was a highly disappointing final note. I was expecting some kind of blood feud between audience and coaches. To add insult to injury, there’s a show with Kevin Bacon on now if you’re into that kind of thing, but let’s face it, who isn’t into Bacon. Moi. Good night?
