Greetings frenemies and welcome to a very special issue of The X-Factor Australia: Live Blog: Results Show: Round 08: Melbourne Cup Edition. Just kidding. This has nothing to do with the Melbourne Cup and there is nothing at all special about tonight’s episode, except for the fact that its working title has more colons that an episode of Being Lara Bingle/Embarrassing Bodies.
Even though it’s nothing out of the ordinary, tonight’s show is make or break for one extremely talented, beautiful young Australian; someone who has had an excellent day that is about to be crapped all over by The X-Factor – yes, somebody’s night is about to be ruined and it better not be mine. There is so much at stake that I already have sweaty palms and I can’t tell if my laptop is overheating my thighs, I’m sunburnt or if I’ve prematurely wet myself with excitement.
You can catch up on last night’s show here and I’ll be kicking things off here at 7:30ish, or whenever that guy I went to high school with has finished hitting on Ada Nicodemou on Home & Away. BYO.
7:37pm – Holy Mother of Glitter, Ke Dollar Sigh Ha aka Queen of Refuse Pop and Dick Double Entendre Lyrics, KE$HA, is performing on tonight’s show. This place about to blow, y’all.
Ugh. Johnny Ruffo is also performing tonight.
7:39pm – The final whatever-they-are (six? ten?) are performing a song I don’t know. It’s very N*SYNC. We’re not talking Bye Bye Bye vintage pop genius N*SYNC, we’re talking regular Pop-era N*SYNC, which is nowhere near as good. Who am I kidding? They’re both great. This is not. Is this a Justin Bieber song? Halp!
7:44pm – Guys, Mel B is a bit tired tonight because her baby woke her up. She is, however, still sitting smug, as per usual. Classic Mel B! Guy is wearing a distressed Canadian three piece tux which does not look as good as it sounds; Natalie Bassingwhaaat is wearing something not worth remembering but is 80% hair and Ronan is wearing a hid-e-ous cowl neck black pleather barf rag around his shoulders. It does not look good. Ronan does not get to have an opinion tonight.
7:51pm – BRB Johnny Ruffo is performing. Just kidding. I’m contractually obliged to sit through this performance. And when I say ‘contractually obliged’ I mean I don’t have a contract and I just can’t be arsed to get off my couch. What’s up with white boys wearing drop crotch track pants always grabbing at their members while dancing? Ruffo, pls. ‘Fancy’ moves do not an Usher make.
8:00pm – We’re back after some (a lot of) ads, 70% of which included the judges. The finalists and their mentors are on stage, giving us a head to toe glimpse at just how bad Ronan’s outfit is. Samantha Jade is the first through, as is Jason Owen – meaning that Guy and Mel are still safe. Phew! This show still has legs (they’re excellent, tattooed, studded with diamontes and they belong to Mel B. But from that description they could also belong to Guy).
8:0something – Sorry, I was just getting a bit carried away on Twitter and forgot about this. So it turns out that Bella Ferraro Rocher is also through, causing Natalie BassingI’veGivenUpOnSpellingYourLastName to exclaim presciently, “OMG this is kind of like an anti-climax,” while Ronan is reduced to being “Shocked, shocked, shocked, shocked, and another shocked” at the news that The Collective will face off against Shiane right after KE$HA brings down the house with her trashtastic genre of ripped stocking pop.
BREAKING: Ronan speaks as well as he dresses. NEXT!
8:09pm – Ke$ha sold 14 million copies of Tik Tok!? Are you kidding me Ke$h?! That’s a whole lot of Jack-induced dental cavity work. So let’s talk about this insane Illuminati-themed performance. We’re talking lots of gold, many, many Pyramids and evil eyes. That’s Illuminati, right? Ke$ha’s performance is three parts crotch grazing, two parts thrusting and one part squealing. It’s excellent. There’s some more thrusting, some “sique beats”, lots of gold lamé and body paint, an explosion of gold glitter and a killer backing track that she’s actually keeping up with. I don’t know about you but I think Ke$ha just shut that down, and I feel sorry for the sexless wünderkinds who have to follow that. Sorry, Collective.
8:18pm – Okay mouth-breathers, let’s do this. Ronan is first up with another eloquent introduction: “Here’s a band that… Australia formed. This is The Collective.”
-_-
They’re singing a song. It’s called “As Long As You Love Me,” and I can’t remember who sings it because I’m not in high school anymore. I think it’s another Justin Bieber song. This group is totally carried by the two guys who do the “rap” breakdowns – the others are just straightened fringes holding mics and the guy doing the “la la la la” harmony is way off. Good energy but next!
8:22pm – Here’s the adorkable Shiane, and she’s singing an Adelesque version (because they’re the only versions she does) of that song I used to freaking hate, Lifehouse’s “Wherever You Will Go”. Does it make me the worst kind of human if I think Shiane should go home? That doesn’t mean I endorse The Collective or their wardrobe choices at all.
UPDATE: While we appreciate your enthusiasm, y’all crashed our server – you guys! – right at the best/worst time, meaning that live-blogging stopped at around 8:22pm. You can check out our Twitter feed here to give you a good(ish) indication of what happened. Basically, Shiane – the poor thing – butchered the hell out of an already woeful song (that I might/will listen to on Spotify later to relive painful memories) and was unanimously sent packing, but not without being given all the pats on her back and lots of hugs and kisses and half-hearted proclamations by Nat that we should ‘watch this space’ because big things are coming Shiane’s way. Not so sure about that but she’s a lovely fourteen year old girl and I wish her the best of luck in her School Certificate and with boys and cyberbullies and other fourteen year old girl problems, like other fourteen year old girls. Stay in school!
Elton Freaking John and PNAU will be performing on next week’s show and that’ll be well worth watching for The Camp Factor alone, which will by far exceed any actual X Factor left in the competition. BYO glitter, and we’ll see you then!
Here’s a GIF that best represents tonight’s show and what you did to our servers. Thank you, and good night.
