Australian Idull (the pain with alcohol) goes Disco!
Ah, Idol, aren’t we all lucky to have it? Where would a million Liz’s and blogs be without it to recap and discuss – I know I should have started this a while ago, but you haven’t missed much. In recap, this year So Oz As Idol 4 has decided to focus on Australia’s great singer songwriter talent, and with names like Barnes, Farnham, Hayes, Price, Dixon and Dolce in our repetoire, why wouldn’t you do that! The problem is that having chosen on alleged song writing ability, you see, they haven’t let them do anything remotely singer songwritery, witholding it like a privilege. So instead of seeing Ickle do that fucking Sapphire Eyes again, she’s (and not alone here) forced to pout and preen her way through a series of weeks where nothing is “their bag”. The sheer amusement of this precocious breed thus being forced to perform disco hits, and thus, shock, entertain should prove worthwhile. They all want to be Pete Murray, but tonight Matthew, it’s time to be Maurice Gibb.
You should be sulking, yeah…and to be honest, you haven’t missed much in the people voted out. Joseph “Forest” Gateau was so dull, he could pick shades of beige. Reaigan “Not around long enough to get a nickname” got a song off Myspace, which says it all. And Australia settled the long standing debate as to whether it’s a little bit country or a little bit rock and roll by voting off…the most country (Kletus) and the most Rock and roll (Judge Muttonchops), which leaves us, counters, with a final 8. And as anyone knows, disco SUCKS…
I’m not having THAT!
Perhaps the most interesting feature of Idol thus is the hosts, G and The Other One, who know betray after 4 series a Natasha Kampusch style steely version of Stockholm syndrome that can only come after 4 series of screaming fan girls, bizarre judging, increasing realisation that no one on this stage is ever going to “break America”, and two series no doubt drinking with Timmy Toolshiner. In fact, like Kampusch, daily in jokes and lots of alcohol are the only way through the daily ordeal of hosting Idol. Last night produced some fantastic moments of pure Kampusch, bitter in jokes and grumpy old man style rambling mixed with dreamy looks at the outside world. G’s strung out theory that Bobby Flynn is simply paying homage each week to early 90s rappers was wonderful, as was The Other Ones riposte to a declaration one performance was the worst thing ever on television (“You don’t watch much television! There’s some AWFUL shit on television!”). Not content with then slipping in a Chapelle’s show reference (“Vote for Bobby Flynn, maybe if you just like Rick James, bitch”), the pair then produced the nights best moment of homosexual tension, as they shared a lovers in joke.
G: “I wonder when Boney M come up”
The Other One: “When do you ever need Boney M?”
G: “When you need a song about Rasputin set to disco music!”
The Other One: (Surveying the audience and realising it’s full of 13 year olds who have no idea what they are talking about, but laughing anyway) “We ALL need that”
Brilliant.
So you are a precious, precocious “singer songwriter”, and forced to do disco songs to help sell Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA’s new album of nanna covers, “Discotheque” (a homage to U2s least successful period), you have many avenues to fall back on. You can…
a) Dance around like a benny, complete with cheeky ironic winks to camera
b) Re-interpret the song in a Harry Connick Jr style swing dancing way
c) If in doubt, do a back flip!
d) Consume 44 pints of Guinness and dance around like a pissed up Grandpa at an Oirish wedding
e) Not try
As we shall soon see, all of these options are certainly possible.
For Chris “Brother Of Courtney” Murphy, the true joy in his cocky fat guy persona isn’t anything to do with his performance of “Play That Funky Music White Boy”, which in true disco style, was pretty embarrassingly bad, but at least done with the true confidence of the deluded. No, nothing at all to do with Jesus rocking out. The true joy in any of Jesus’s performance’s is at the end, when anyone delivers a dig to him, and the jolly mask slips, and he begins to look really, really pissed off for a second. Oh, it’s fine when it’s whispering funny asides to the camera, or getting praised for his biker look. But right at the end, watch your tapes boys and girls, Timmy Toolshiner slips in a reference to him “not being the best looking bloke” and the jolly mask slips. It’s like seeing Santa Claus backstage at a shopping mall without his beard on.
Lavine “Sister Of Insane Girl, former lead singer of Ma-V-Elle, lead prison bitch in the New Zealand remake of Cell Block H” Williams is rapidly becoming the best session singer Australia has ever produced. That is, the girl can sing, but asked to perform and have people look at her, she begins to betray the kind of nervous terror a deer might show if you pointed your SUV in her direction. It was nice to see that in an act of defiance, the infamous “prison tatts” still were on show. If you locked SOIG in a studio, you’d have a fantastic album, but stick her on the road, and the face betrays sheer terror. She isn’t quite Gladys night then, more one of the Pips. Performing “Best Of My Love”, one can only wonder why she hasn’t bridged the gap between vocals and performance, and one can only wonder what “the best of her love” might involve, and be terrified. Perhaps the worst thing about Lavina, compared to her sister, is that her “bad boy”, Moses, has only been sighted once on camera, as opposed to Emily’s honey, Choice Bro, who was on every week. If only she had a kid, or if only Moses was allowed to speak more, she would probably be a lot better off. Also, unlike Chubby Chris, there’s nothing even slightly endearing about the old prison maam mush she has staring down the camera going “YOU ALL BETTER CLAP YOUR HANDS Y’ALL” – the poor 13 year old girls certainly do clap their hands, but by god, it’s out of necessity that she might chin them, rather than any joy…
There then followed 10-15 minutes of some of the finest television Australia has ever produced, as Idol 4 absolutely and totally imploded into chaotic, Series 3 style horror, beginning with Ricky “Gay! Me? NEVER! I play footy! I drink! I’ve got mates, LOTS OF MATES! One is called Boof!” Muscat, a textbook case as to why you should probably never listen to committees, workshops or stoned 70s icons. In fact, in much the same way the 2nd series of Extras is about a sitcom ruined by too many cooks spoiling the broth, so Ricky’s desire to squeeze in every single piece of advice he has received into a 2 minute performance is now becoming so desperate, it’s making everyones head hurt. In the space of two minutes, he asked everyone to clap, but then didn’t want to look too camp, or forget his vocals, so he stopped and started singing flatly, but then remembered audience participation again, and started clapping again, but that might have meant he looked gay, so he stopped, and then he remembered he had to work the band, so he strolled over there, but then that was too much wandering, so he had to go back to singing…in the end, he worked himself into such a state of confusion, his rather sweet interview with The Other One was almost poignant. His eyes flickered sadly as Holden pointed out he had made a poor song choice…”AH DAMN IT SONG CHOICE!” he sighed, as if the whole thing was too damn hard, and as if he’d squeezed 99 things off a painfully constructed mental check list, only to forget his 100th, and get pulled up for that. If it’s the last thing he says in the whole series, “Me song choice is pretty hard ey” will be a fitting farewell. That, and his mate in the purple T-shirt, who couldn’t have looked more out of place if he was at a Millsy gig. In fact, so fascinating was watching the mental turmoil engulfing Ricky, that I totally forgot he was singing “Get Down On It” – innuendos on a postcard…
At least, in fairness, Ricky was sober. Confronted with a week that made his stomach sink, and with disco not his “bag” (again), Oirish balladeer and perennial Chris De Burgh understudy Damien “FIDDLY DIDDLY POTATOES” Leith decided to abandon his Val Doonican persona, and treat us to a dreadful, drunken, horrible interpretation of disco classic “Celebration” - the only way it could possibly have been worse would have been if he had followed G’s seemingly implied threat to dress as Kylie Minogue. Thrusting his pigeon chest to camera, strutting like Tina Turner after a hip replacement and dancing as if on random remote control, the memory of Damien walking in front of the crowd towards the camera has surely killed any chance they had of making Idol credible in any way. It was like some horrific, demented comedy sketch from Father Ted, stopping only short of putting on a red beard and giving him a comedy leprechaun – and the cherry on the cake was that the poor bugger ended up puffed. Holden looked like he was ready to kill himself, Timmy wasn’t too far behind, and in the way only a drunk man who thinks he’s nailed it can, the only thing he could say was “AHYERKNOWITWASDEESCOITHOUGHTI’DGETINTHE
Interestingly, that last long sentence didn’t come up on Spellcheck.
Then, nothing, nothing happened, Ickle was struck down by a throat infection and couldn’t sing! Imagine that! So then Dean…no, I’m not telling her, what, do you think I’m mad? Do you? You really want her to know? Claire is going to rip her arms from her body you know….clean off, like a chicken…
OK, Ickle did Heart Of Glass (given her previous assertion that she didn’t like the city because “there’s hardly any grass and stuff”, it might have been Heart Of Grass) by Blondie, Claire’s life icon. Disaster was looming early on, in the only pre taped Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA segment worth watching, Ickle adopted the most sour look on the coupon anyone has ever seen. “Disco’s not my bag” she recited, and it certainly wasn’t her bag. Like an indulged, pampered princess, she blithely was allowed to do a song that doesn’t REALLY qualify as disco, since it was once probably played in a disco, and it was released at the same time as disco (by which standards, she could have done London Calling). Even then, she couldn’t be bothered changing her Missy met Kasey and had an Ickle vocal style even on the word “gas”. The noTORIously uncritical Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA almost broke herself into saying “Girlfriend, you suck” but thought, what the hey…
There then followed what can only be described as the finest example of self indulgent arrogant moody can’t be bothered ickle sulking since our beloved Cle Whooton from S1 of Idol went in a huff because a boy she liked got voted off. Dressed in Kim Wilde’s hooped Kids In America jumper, she deigned to give us her precious time, moved barely, sang with arrogant contempt, forgot the words, listened to nothing Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA had told her, and left a nation screaming “IF YOU DON’T WANT TO FUCKING BE THERE, GO HOME AND BRING BACK LYDIA DENKER!” – it was beyond criticism, beyond words, comfortably winning the Cle award for 2006. Simply, because next week is her precious “guitar” week, she didn’t want to try this week, because it was too hard. It made anything done by Hardcore Harding suddenly look like the finest work of Kylie Minogue, it even eclipsed the previous car wreck performance standard, Cassy Donovan’s “Ell and a Dig By” on Beatles night 04. The sheer contempt racked up as she pouted her little Ickle face and declared “I’m a singer song writer! I WANT MY GUITAR! IT’s NOT FAIRRRRRR” and stomped her little foot. Even Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA, stoned out of her head, said something akin to “It’s her choice, I’m washing my hands of HER!” – Holden tried to get through her thick skull that there might not BE a guitar week if you keep pouting like a benny who has lost her blue crayon. Timmy actually appeared to read there no point getting critical since it was falling on deaf ears, but issued the musical equivalent of a death threat when he whispered “You BETTER be good next week then”…the thing is, she’ll do EXACTLY the same precious, self indulgent crap she always does, it’ll just have a guitar. Woo, and indeed, hoo.
Vote her out tonight say we.
After vomiting ten times at her self indulgent crap, we didn’t expect much from Dean “Mr March Vodka Cruiser 06” calendar boy Dean “Son of Renee” Geyer. After all, the previous week, the advice ringing in his ears was basically “go and have sex Christian boy” – although, after following Princess Ickle, he didn’t have anything to top at all. Luckily, someone has managed to get through to Son Of Renee that simply, all he has to do is show some skin, maybe wear a tight, loose fitting, mardi gras style white T-shirt, and the fangirls and gay males will do the rest. So that’s what he did. Singing “Turn The Beat Around” from the hit CD, “Gloria Estefan sings 200 songs with Beat in the Title”, Dean played entirely to his strong suit, being not sexual enough for anyone to actually want to sleep with, but just sexual enough so the little girls can imagine giving him a snog, with the hint of a naughty thought of just maybe touching his abs, but just for a second. Best of all, was the debut of Dean’s trump card, a back flip, which, according to Alyson, the 1986 Victorian State breakdancing champion, was only a 6 out of 10, but which was so jarring compared to his previous dull but cute persona, he might as well have smashed the set up. And as if to emphasise that this approach is likely to give Dean the title of Australian Idol, the camera cut from a screaming, hyper 10 year old, to a screaming, hyper Courtney Act, holding up an I Love Dean sign. Truly, truly, mission accomplished.
As much as the whole Bobby “I’M MELTING” Flynn thing passes us by (for our overseas audience, that thing is to take every genre of music and slow it right down until you fall asleep), we are still left with two thoughts. #1 – That week they started chanting “TELL US! TELL US WHAT’S WRONG” to him the week he was shit, what exactly WAS wrong? Don’t you still wonder? Was Mutto bullying him? Was Ickle keeping him up at night…TELL US! And #2 – he is a very odd looking man, so there was at least some self deprecating irony in him singing “Super Freak”, so that’s OK. Luckily eschewing the 48 pint of Guiness approach or the stomping foot approach, I’m Melting decided to stick to his strength, and begin finger clicking and cherry popping his way through the song like a member (albeit the one who never got no dames) of the Rat Pack. Thus, was I’m Melting allowed to swing his way through several filthy lyrics without anyone questioning them. In all honesty, they could have Wesley Willis week and Bobby would just dull down and re-arrange a song like “Alanis Morrisette” with a smooth chilled out vibe. Holden, in one of his loopier moments, decided to dole out a touchdown, and if you listen really closely on your tape, you can hear an Irish voice from backstage “AHFERFUCKSSAKEYOUDIDN’TDODISCOGETINTHES
Oh so THAT comes up on spellcheck….
Rounding off the show in a tiger dress last seen on the lead singer of Stryper, Jessica “Mau Boys Are So Fly” doing “On The Radio” by Donna Summer, and as G said, what’s a disco night without Donna Summer! A lot less homophobic? Anyway, never mind all that, because we actually hope Mau Boys Are So Fly wins, and graduates to “the other one” role in Destiny’s Child. Bunged up by this years Gabriel award for “I can’t sing, I can sing!” flu, and with blocked sinuses, Mau Boys delivers the kind of competent, cheerful performance we’ve come to expect from her, a perfectly pleasant way to end the show in fact, nothing to think about, just Jess being Jess, albeit we don’t want to think about her sinuses too much, and Timmy smoking some of Marcia’s stash thinking she could become a major international artist. Not dressed like Stryper she couldn’t…
So that was the sho…oh wait, someone just smashed a pint glass on the stage and said “YERFECKINGWANTEDDISCODINTCHAWELLIGAAAVE
Tune in tonight, because SOMEONE is going to have a massive mardy strop….
Megs B and Alyson
You should be sulking, yeah…and to be honest, you haven’t missed much in the people voted out. Joseph “Forest” Gateau was so dull, he could pick shades of beige. Reaigan “Not around long enough to get a nickname” got a song off Myspace, which says it all. And Australia settled the long standing debate as to whether it’s a little bit country or a little bit rock and roll by voting off…the most country (Kletus) and the most Rock and roll (Judge Muttonchops), which leaves us, counters, with a final 8. And as anyone knows, disco SUCKS…
I’m not having THAT!
Perhaps the most interesting feature of Idol thus is the hosts, G and The Other One, who know betray after 4 series a Natasha Kampusch style steely version of Stockholm syndrome that can only come after 4 series of screaming fan girls, bizarre judging, increasing realisation that no one on this stage is ever going to “break America”, and two series no doubt drinking with Timmy Toolshiner. In fact, like Kampusch, daily in jokes and lots of alcohol are the only way through the daily ordeal of hosting Idol. Last night produced some fantastic moments of pure Kampusch, bitter in jokes and grumpy old man style rambling mixed with dreamy looks at the outside world. G’s strung out theory that Bobby Flynn is simply paying homage each week to early 90s rappers was wonderful, as was The Other Ones riposte to a declaration one performance was the worst thing ever on television (“You don’t watch much television! There’s some AWFUL shit on television!”). Not content with then slipping in a Chapelle’s show reference (“Vote for Bobby Flynn, maybe if you just like Rick James, bitch”), the pair then produced the nights best moment of homosexual tension, as they shared a lovers in joke.
G: “I wonder when Boney M come up”
The Other One: “When do you ever need Boney M?”
G: “When you need a song about Rasputin set to disco music!”
The Other One: (Surveying the audience and realising it’s full of 13 year olds who have no idea what they are talking about, but laughing anyway) “We ALL need that”
Brilliant.
So you are a precious, precocious “singer songwriter”, and forced to do disco songs to help sell Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA’s new album of nanna covers, “Discotheque” (a homage to U2s least successful period), you have many avenues to fall back on. You can…
a) Dance around like a benny, complete with cheeky ironic winks to camera
b) Re-interpret the song in a Harry Connick Jr style swing dancing way
c) If in doubt, do a back flip!
d) Consume 44 pints of Guinness and dance around like a pissed up Grandpa at an Oirish wedding
e) Not try
As we shall soon see, all of these options are certainly possible.
For Chris “Brother Of Courtney” Murphy, the true joy in his cocky fat guy persona isn’t anything to do with his performance of “Play That Funky Music White Boy”, which in true disco style, was pretty embarrassingly bad, but at least done with the true confidence of the deluded. No, nothing at all to do with Jesus rocking out. The true joy in any of Jesus’s performance’s is at the end, when anyone delivers a dig to him, and the jolly mask slips, and he begins to look really, really pissed off for a second. Oh, it’s fine when it’s whispering funny asides to the camera, or getting praised for his biker look. But right at the end, watch your tapes boys and girls, Timmy Toolshiner slips in a reference to him “not being the best looking bloke” and the jolly mask slips. It’s like seeing Santa Claus backstage at a shopping mall without his beard on.
Lavine “Sister Of Insane Girl, former lead singer of Ma-V-Elle, lead prison bitch in the New Zealand remake of Cell Block H” Williams is rapidly becoming the best session singer Australia has ever produced. That is, the girl can sing, but asked to perform and have people look at her, she begins to betray the kind of nervous terror a deer might show if you pointed your SUV in her direction. It was nice to see that in an act of defiance, the infamous “prison tatts” still were on show. If you locked SOIG in a studio, you’d have a fantastic album, but stick her on the road, and the face betrays sheer terror. She isn’t quite Gladys night then, more one of the Pips. Performing “Best Of My Love”, one can only wonder why she hasn’t bridged the gap between vocals and performance, and one can only wonder what “the best of her love” might involve, and be terrified. Perhaps the worst thing about Lavina, compared to her sister, is that her “bad boy”, Moses, has only been sighted once on camera, as opposed to Emily’s honey, Choice Bro, who was on every week. If only she had a kid, or if only Moses was allowed to speak more, she would probably be a lot better off. Also, unlike Chubby Chris, there’s nothing even slightly endearing about the old prison maam mush she has staring down the camera going “YOU ALL BETTER CLAP YOUR HANDS Y’ALL” – the poor 13 year old girls certainly do clap their hands, but by god, it’s out of necessity that she might chin them, rather than any joy…
There then followed 10-15 minutes of some of the finest television Australia has ever produced, as Idol 4 absolutely and totally imploded into chaotic, Series 3 style horror, beginning with Ricky “Gay! Me? NEVER! I play footy! I drink! I’ve got mates, LOTS OF MATES! One is called Boof!” Muscat, a textbook case as to why you should probably never listen to committees, workshops or stoned 70s icons. In fact, in much the same way the 2nd series of Extras is about a sitcom ruined by too many cooks spoiling the broth, so Ricky’s desire to squeeze in every single piece of advice he has received into a 2 minute performance is now becoming so desperate, it’s making everyones head hurt. In the space of two minutes, he asked everyone to clap, but then didn’t want to look too camp, or forget his vocals, so he stopped and started singing flatly, but then remembered audience participation again, and started clapping again, but that might have meant he looked gay, so he stopped, and then he remembered he had to work the band, so he strolled over there, but then that was too much wandering, so he had to go back to singing…in the end, he worked himself into such a state of confusion, his rather sweet interview with The Other One was almost poignant. His eyes flickered sadly as Holden pointed out he had made a poor song choice…”AH DAMN IT SONG CHOICE!” he sighed, as if the whole thing was too damn hard, and as if he’d squeezed 99 things off a painfully constructed mental check list, only to forget his 100th, and get pulled up for that. If it’s the last thing he says in the whole series, “Me song choice is pretty hard ey” will be a fitting farewell. That, and his mate in the purple T-shirt, who couldn’t have looked more out of place if he was at a Millsy gig. In fact, so fascinating was watching the mental turmoil engulfing Ricky, that I totally forgot he was singing “Get Down On It” – innuendos on a postcard…
At least, in fairness, Ricky was sober. Confronted with a week that made his stomach sink, and with disco not his “bag” (again), Oirish balladeer and perennial Chris De Burgh understudy Damien “FIDDLY DIDDLY POTATOES” Leith decided to abandon his Val Doonican persona, and treat us to a dreadful, drunken, horrible interpretation of disco classic “Celebration” - the only way it could possibly have been worse would have been if he had followed G’s seemingly implied threat to dress as Kylie Minogue. Thrusting his pigeon chest to camera, strutting like Tina Turner after a hip replacement and dancing as if on random remote control, the memory of Damien walking in front of the crowd towards the camera has surely killed any chance they had of making Idol credible in any way. It was like some horrific, demented comedy sketch from Father Ted, stopping only short of putting on a red beard and giving him a comedy leprechaun – and the cherry on the cake was that the poor bugger ended up puffed. Holden looked like he was ready to kill himself, Timmy wasn’t too far behind, and in the way only a drunk man who thinks he’s nailed it can, the only thing he could say was “AHYERKNOWITWASDEESCOITHOUGHTI’DGETINTHE
Interestingly, that last long sentence didn’t come up on Spellcheck.
Then, nothing, nothing happened, Ickle was struck down by a throat infection and couldn’t sing! Imagine that! So then Dean…no, I’m not telling her, what, do you think I’m mad? Do you? You really want her to know? Claire is going to rip her arms from her body you know….clean off, like a chicken…
OK, Ickle did Heart Of Glass (given her previous assertion that she didn’t like the city because “there’s hardly any grass and stuff”, it might have been Heart Of Grass) by Blondie, Claire’s life icon. Disaster was looming early on, in the only pre taped Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA segment worth watching, Ickle adopted the most sour look on the coupon anyone has ever seen. “Disco’s not my bag” she recited, and it certainly wasn’t her bag. Like an indulged, pampered princess, she blithely was allowed to do a song that doesn’t REALLY qualify as disco, since it was once probably played in a disco, and it was released at the same time as disco (by which standards, she could have done London Calling). Even then, she couldn’t be bothered changing her Missy met Kasey and had an Ickle vocal style even on the word “gas”. The noTORIously uncritical Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA almost broke herself into saying “Girlfriend, you suck” but thought, what the hey…
There then followed what can only be described as the finest example of self indulgent arrogant moody can’t be bothered ickle sulking since our beloved Cle Whooton from S1 of Idol went in a huff because a boy she liked got voted off. Dressed in Kim Wilde’s hooped Kids In America jumper, she deigned to give us her precious time, moved barely, sang with arrogant contempt, forgot the words, listened to nothing Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA had told her, and left a nation screaming “IF YOU DON’T WANT TO FUCKING BE THERE, GO HOME AND BRING BACK LYDIA DENKER!” – it was beyond criticism, beyond words, comfortably winning the Cle award for 2006. Simply, because next week is her precious “guitar” week, she didn’t want to try this week, because it was too hard. It made anything done by Hardcore Harding suddenly look like the finest work of Kylie Minogue, it even eclipsed the previous car wreck performance standard, Cassy Donovan’s “Ell and a Dig By” on Beatles night 04. The sheer contempt racked up as she pouted her little Ickle face and declared “I’m a singer song writer! I WANT MY GUITAR! IT’s NOT FAIRRRRRR” and stomped her little foot. Even Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA, stoned out of her head, said something akin to “It’s her choice, I’m washing my hands of HER!” – Holden tried to get through her thick skull that there might not BE a guitar week if you keep pouting like a benny who has lost her blue crayon. Timmy actually appeared to read there no point getting critical since it was falling on deaf ears, but issued the musical equivalent of a death threat when he whispered “You BETTER be good next week then”…the thing is, she’ll do EXACTLY the same precious, self indulgent crap she always does, it’ll just have a guitar. Woo, and indeed, hoo.
Vote her out tonight say we.
After vomiting ten times at her self indulgent crap, we didn’t expect much from Dean “Mr March Vodka Cruiser 06” calendar boy Dean “Son of Renee” Geyer. After all, the previous week, the advice ringing in his ears was basically “go and have sex Christian boy” – although, after following Princess Ickle, he didn’t have anything to top at all. Luckily, someone has managed to get through to Son Of Renee that simply, all he has to do is show some skin, maybe wear a tight, loose fitting, mardi gras style white T-shirt, and the fangirls and gay males will do the rest. So that’s what he did. Singing “Turn The Beat Around” from the hit CD, “Gloria Estefan sings 200 songs with Beat in the Title”, Dean played entirely to his strong suit, being not sexual enough for anyone to actually want to sleep with, but just sexual enough so the little girls can imagine giving him a snog, with the hint of a naughty thought of just maybe touching his abs, but just for a second. Best of all, was the debut of Dean’s trump card, a back flip, which, according to Alyson, the 1986 Victorian State breakdancing champion, was only a 6 out of 10, but which was so jarring compared to his previous dull but cute persona, he might as well have smashed the set up. And as if to emphasise that this approach is likely to give Dean the title of Australian Idol, the camera cut from a screaming, hyper 10 year old, to a screaming, hyper Courtney Act, holding up an I Love Dean sign. Truly, truly, mission accomplished.
As much as the whole Bobby “I’M MELTING” Flynn thing passes us by (for our overseas audience, that thing is to take every genre of music and slow it right down until you fall asleep), we are still left with two thoughts. #1 – That week they started chanting “TELL US! TELL US WHAT’S WRONG” to him the week he was shit, what exactly WAS wrong? Don’t you still wonder? Was Mutto bullying him? Was Ickle keeping him up at night…TELL US! And #2 – he is a very odd looking man, so there was at least some self deprecating irony in him singing “Super Freak”, so that’s OK. Luckily eschewing the 48 pint of Guiness approach or the stomping foot approach, I’m Melting decided to stick to his strength, and begin finger clicking and cherry popping his way through the song like a member (albeit the one who never got no dames) of the Rat Pack. Thus, was I’m Melting allowed to swing his way through several filthy lyrics without anyone questioning them. In all honesty, they could have Wesley Willis week and Bobby would just dull down and re-arrange a song like “Alanis Morrisette” with a smooth chilled out vibe. Holden, in one of his loopier moments, decided to dole out a touchdown, and if you listen really closely on your tape, you can hear an Irish voice from backstage “AHFERFUCKSSAKEYOUDIDN’TDODISCOGETINTHES
Oh so THAT comes up on spellcheck….
Rounding off the show in a tiger dress last seen on the lead singer of Stryper, Jessica “Mau Boys Are So Fly” doing “On The Radio” by Donna Summer, and as G said, what’s a disco night without Donna Summer! A lot less homophobic? Anyway, never mind all that, because we actually hope Mau Boys Are So Fly wins, and graduates to “the other one” role in Destiny’s Child. Bunged up by this years Gabriel award for “I can’t sing, I can sing!” flu, and with blocked sinuses, Mau Boys delivers the kind of competent, cheerful performance we’ve come to expect from her, a perfectly pleasant way to end the show in fact, nothing to think about, just Jess being Jess, albeit we don’t want to think about her sinuses too much, and Timmy smoking some of Marcia’s stash thinking she could become a major international artist. Not dressed like Stryper she couldn’t…
So that was the sho…oh wait, someone just smashed a pint glass on the stage and said “YERFECKINGWANTEDDISCODINTCHAWELLIGAAAVE
Tune in tonight, because SOMEONE is going to have a massive mardy strop….
Megs B and Alyson