‘The Voice Australia’ Episode 12: Live Blog

Good evening The Voice lovers, and welcome to Round Three of the Live Finals which tonight features performances by the remaining contestants on Team Delta and Team Seal. First, though, we must say goodbye to the least-loved members of Team Joel and Team Keith. Will our predictions come true? Let’s find out y’all…

7:36pm: THIS IS THE VOICE! Yeah opening credits! YELLING!

7:36pm: Host Darren McMullen is back in a velvet blazer. Correction: On closer inspection I’ve realised the blazer is purple velvet.

7:38pm: Keith was locked in to a country music rock concert in front of a zillion screaming Americans so he is being beamed over via monitor for tonight’s show. It already feels a little empty in this room.

7:40pm: Now we get to who from Keith’s team are going through to the next round. First up are the people’s choice and they are… Darren Percival, the smiling older chap who everyone adores and… Brittany the angelically-voiced blonde girl who performed with her boobs out last week.

7:42pm: Onto Keith’s selections. Diana, who was marvellous last week, is the first one he has put through. And the final team member he will choose is… Adam the handsome guitar slinger with vertical hair. Jimmy Cupples and Taga are out, as I would like to smugly point out I had predicted (because I’m so proud of being an expert on The Voice? Good grief).

7:46pm: The future of Team Joel will now be revealed. The first person through? Flame haired babe Sarah De Bono (“more like ‘De BONER’” says my boyfriend gleefully. He’s 32 FYI), and the second choice of the public is Laykn. Der.

7:48pm: Joel’s choices are Ben and Prinnie. Poor Laura Bunting goes home after suffering at the hands of a bad song choice last week.

7:50pm: Now to the live singing part of the night, and first up we have Guy Sebastian’s Brother under the guiding hand of Seal. Guy’s brother is looking very Guy like tonight, hiding behind the microphone doing wiggling eyebrow movements. I’m quite enjoying this. And I’m not the only one! Seal is rocking in his seat like your drunk grandmother.

7:53pm: Joel was loving the performance. This we know because he was making jazzy shoulder movements and clicking his fingers like your drunk grandmother. Delta and Keith also praised the performance, but the biggest praise has come from Seal who said “I performed that song a few weeks ago, and you know what? You just did it better.” High praise. (Because Seal is high.)

7:56pm: “Awesome man. Awesome! Right on man. Right on!” We can hear Seal whispering this into the ear of Guy Sebastian’s brother as he wraps him in a Sealy embrace. Joel makes a passive-aggressive joke about how Seal is creating an army of Seal minions. That’s not funny. It makes me think of that meme with Seal’s head on the body of a seal but multiplied by one thousand and flapping their flippers across the country, barking at people and killing them.

8:02pm: Delta’s contestant Danni is the next one to perform and she’s performing one of my favourite 2010 Mardi Gras anthems “When Love Takes Over” by David Guetta featuring Kelly Rowland. Seriously it’s a banger and one of Guetta’s only tolerable songs.

8:04pm: Danni has not killed the wardrobe choice tonight, with a matronly red sequin shirt. She’s doing a decent job on the vocals with Delta urging her on by singing along with a pained look like her life depends on it. There were some bad pitch moments in the performance but she was cute on the whole.

8:07pm: Keith was pleased with Danni’s performance and Delta was stoked with her “journey”. Every time someone refers to a journey I’m going to yell JOURNEY and headbutt something.

8:13pm: Seal’s lovely contender Emma is next and will be performing Burt Bacharach’s “The Look Of Love”. Emma has been over-thinking it in the rehearsals so let’s see how she goes tonight…

8:15pm: While Emma’s voice sounds good, I’m a bit concerned about Seal’s song choice. It’s really down tempo and never lifts from one low gear. My boyfriend is actually asleep right now. Joel is the first to give feedback and acts like a blathering fool with a jones for Emma. It’s hilarious. He almost chokes on the question “how old are you?” because Joel is nothing if not blatantly inappropriate. Seal is extremely happy with her performance. Next!

8:21pm: Quick update: As my buddy Dave pointed out, Joel is wearing a shirt with actual sleeves made out of fabric tonight (not to be confused with his oft-exposed sleeve tattoos). Real fabric shirt sleeves is a pretty amazing style evolution for anyone who sings in an emo-powerpop band.

8:23pm: Here we are in the ‘V Room’ with Fuzzy and Emma, who apparently has a fan base known as “the songbirds”. The V Room, compelling as always.

8:25pm: WARNING. WARNING. Next up is Delta’s Russian and she is in a green lace dress and will be performing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. Jaysus.

8:27pm: This is a sequined nightmare from a camp Russian tragedy.

8:28pm: Keith is nervous about Russian AKA Viktoria’s performance. Right on, Keith. I’m usually entranced by the Russian and her Euro passion, but that was skin crawly. Delta once again starts off her adjudication by talking about Viktoria’s “laneway”, a confusing term that was dropped numerous times last week.

8:34pm: Did you guys just hear that conversation between the judges just then… I’m pretty sure Seal said the words “if you want to touch someone…” before it was cut off. I hope he was referring to touching someone in the music jargon-y sense and not the Seal-physically-touching-you sense.

8:37pm: Team Seal have now taken to the stage en masse to sing his hit “Kiss From A Rose”, Seal included. He has undone a few buttons for the performance! Fantastic. Seal definitely asked for his mic to be turned up way more than anyone else’s. It’s also pretty clear he instigated a ‘black only’ dress code and turned up in his ridiculously loud red shoes. Seal.

8:43pm: I think I’ve gone back to loving Seal tonight after hating him last week. This show is a rollercoaster!

8:46pm: 36-year-old Glenn from Team Delta is up next. He’s wearing a jaunty fedora, suit and some kind of urban sneaker type footwear. Justin Timberlake called, he wants his 2002 wardrobe back.

8:48pm: Bitchy fashion criticism aside, he’s doing a fun version of “Closer” by Ne-yo. And he had a troupe of fun backup dancing dudes.

8:50pm: Keith liked it and liked the backup dancers and Delta is up out of her chair basically reenacting the entire performance with great enthusiasm. Glenn thanks the band, the dancers and the lighting guy whose birthday it is. Take it easy mate. We’re not at Wembley.

8:52pm: The entire Team Delta are performing soon. I might have a Tim-Tam. BRB.

8:56pm: Seal‘s team member, 16-year-old Fatai, is next and will be singing the Beyonce version of sacred tune “Ave Maria”. Fatai is very emotional about singing a song she has such a connection to it. You better bring it! is what I would tell her if we were in a high school movie.

8:59pm: Fatai is accompanied by a string quartet and harp on stage and has been strategically dressed in an angelic white frock. It was a really beautiful performance. Joel says it is “spiritual” and describes it as “a moment”. Seal says “the thing about Fatai is that you see this 16 year old girl singing like a queen and you ask yourself how can a girl…” blah blah blah. His point is she made him teary eyed, but it took him at least 45 words to get there.

9:02pm: Off stage Seal says “I felt you tonight and so did everyone else watching on tv” and grips her face in his large man hands. Poor Fatai looks uncomfortable. I’m sure I look uncomfortable too.

9:07pm: Rachael the blind contestant on Team Delta is next. Rachael just said “my laneway is the golden age of music”. Delta has definitely been generous with her use of the term.

9:09pm: Rachael is singing the Gershwin standard “Someone To Watch Over Me”. She looks extremely glam with sleek waves and a cute purple Blessed Are The Meek cocktail frock, and her voice is sounding the best it has been. It was a very pretty vocal performance tonight.

9:12pm: Delta is with me on this one. She thought it was the strongest vocals that Rachael has presented during the competition. She did not used the word laneway. Well done, everyone.

9:17pm: Have the ad breaks gotten longer???

9:20pm: Next to perform from Team Seal is Karise who will be singing “Landslide”, the gloriously bittersweet Fleetwood Mac song. Come on Karise, do not f*ck this up…

9:22pm: Okay. She’s done an alright job but meh. I hate to say it because I’m a big Karise fan, but “Landslide” is such a quiet beautiful tune and isn’t the best suited song to her big raspy soul voice. Seal should have picked something she could belt out.

9:24pm: Drunk Joel Madden doesn’t agree with me and he has his sunglasses on because Karise shines so bright. Hah. Seal says she has a gift from god and thinks tonight wasn’t her best vocal performance of the song but she “has the gift” and that her 50 per cent is better than most people’s 80 per cent. LOL what!?!? Anyway, it wasn’t her best but I do hope she stays in the mix.

9:33pm: Team Delta is on. They’re singing “Born To Try”. Delta is wearing face jewellery. Everyone in Team Delta is extremely earnest right now because the song means something to them all. Delta, of course, takes that high note in the key change which is an utterly ridiculous song moment. “Do the other people sing at all or are they just backup singers to Delta?” says my boyfriend scathingly while making a gif of his own face. Honestly.

9:39pm: And that’s a wrap for another episode. I didn’t think anyone really killed it on stage tonight. What are your thoughts on the performances/outfits/song choices/judges performances/Joel’s drunkness/Seal’s creep levels etc? Hit the comment section and let’s talk through it. Until next week.

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