Jebus! Andrew Lloyd Webber night? C’mon, this is about the stupidest theme night EVER. I would rather they did atrocities like Latin night than this crap – as it was pointed out before the night began, Simon uses the term “Broadway” as a put down – why on earth would they then turn around and make this a Broadway night? I just don’t get it – what’s next, Cruise Ship night with Kathy Lee Gifford? This is simply wretched. To make matters worse, it’s not even good Broadway – this is Andrew freakin’ Lloyd Webber! It was laughable to have this cheese-meister insist that the contestants “feel” his songs, by which, I presume, feel something like Velveeta. Needless to say, this was one of the worst Idol shows ever, mitigated only by the fact that there were merely six singers. Any more and I might have just turned it off in disgust. If this season is the worst on record (and it very well may be) a lot of the blame is on the themes that have been chosen – aside from Beatles night, the song choices available have been nothing short of atrocious. Forcing guys to sing Mariah Carey is bad enough – making someone like Jason Castro sing Memory is simply criminal. Remember when this show was good? Daaaammmn.

And what’s going on with Paula’s wigs these days? Like I said last week, comb that shizz out! Man, it looks like one of her Chihuahuas snatched it off her head and used it for a chew toy after she passed out on the floor from her eighth percocet martini. So unkempt it reminds me of the seaweed hair from Sigmund and the Seamonsters.

Syesha – Apparently, singing “unanimated” for Syesha is to sing like she had a lobotomy (you see, Syesha overdoes everything, including acting subdued). Then she did her “animated” run through, complete with over the top facial expressions that are emblematic of the stylized fakeness that Syesha projects so intensely (which, of course, ALW lapped up). The performance itself was unwatchable, so over emoted and hammy it was like something out of a silent film. It’s one thing in a theater to project to the back row, but on TV, the jazz hands and exaggerated expressions are just too much to take. It seemed like the band was playing the song in a slinky, jazzy fashion, but Syesha sang so hard on the beat the vocals seemed to drag. I dunno – it sounded so… whitebread. A typically shrieky Syesha performance, the only good thing I can say is that she didn’t go way off key as usual. I wish her dress was a bit more dressy – it looked like a bunch of Ace bandages sewn together and dyed red. Paula claimed that Syesha “brought the house down”. I think she was just repeating what ALW said – the audience reaction was nothing out of the ordinary. This was no “Fantasia singing Summertime”, I can assure you that.

Jason – Let me preface this by saying that Jason was royally screwed by the ALW theme. For a guy whose best performances communicate sincerity, singing dreck like Memory was destined to bomb. And bomb it did! The only thing that could have been worse would be something like Kellee Pickler singing opera or Antonella Barba singing… well... anything. Jason was so breathy and whispery I wondered if he got emphysema form all the cannabis he’s smoked, and at times he sounded like he was in pain. Jason revealed that he didn’t know that Memory was sung by a cat. Uh, Jason… it’s from Cats. How high are you that you can’t put two and two together like that?

Brooke – I don’t even know where to start. Okay, let’s start at the fact that Brooke chose a song that was written for the film version of Evita and thus was never sung by anyone who could sing. So, right there, Brooke had lowered expectations, because all she had to do was sing better than Madonna. Also… SHE FORGOT THE WORDS! Forgot the words, stopped the band, and then started again (lucky for Brooke, it’s a live band). Of course, at that point, I could barely hear a note of her performance, as I shifted all my concentration to listening for more bungled lyrics. It was so distracting that I had no idea if it was good or bad. On a second listen, it wasn’t that terrible with the caveat that Brooke’s voice is not meant for show tunes. Eh, she was better than Madonna. At one point, the fabric of Brooke’s dress was quivering from all the nervous shaking. Paula did that thing where she paused and stammered before launching into her critique, which is usually when she says, “you look great!”. Paula couldn’t even bring herself to do that, instead admonishing Brooke for stopping and starting again. Ouch.

Porkchop – Davey’s night started out with an awkward hugging session with a group of girls from the audience. I was amused by the blonde girl who snuck up behind him to deliver a blindside hug and the fact that she stared into the camera the whole time instead of making any eye contact. A future media whore in training. ALW scolded Porkchop for closing his eyes while singing, which is a habit I never actually noticed. This is when I wish Kristy Lee was still around, because if it annoyed ALW that David closed his eyes every now and then, Kristy Lee’s sleep singing would have driven him completely barmy. Reconfiguring Think of Me as a pop song might have worked if the song wasn’t so danged boring to begin with. There were a lot of things to like vocally, but like last week, it’s difficult to break free from the shackles of a sucky, song. Not bad, no boring per se, but eminently forgettable. No lip licking tonight!

Carly – It’s too bad ALW didn’t write Wicked – that would have been right up Carly’s alley. Carly started shouting with the first note of Jesus Christ, Superstar, and basically didn’t stop the whole time. It was the same performance she gave when she sang Come Together, the kind that starts and ends at 11 with no dynamics or modulation (although her voice sounds more ragged than it did back then). Between her shouting and the overly busy and loud band accompaniment, the net result was two minutes of sheer noise, and she seemed to be competing with the horn section to see who could blare the loudest. While the print on her dress was cool looking, the formless cut made it look like she was wearing a very, very fancy burlap sack with sleeves. As a matter of fact, the second week in a row with sleeves. Ryan’s use of the “parenthetically” was correct in reference to the punctuation on Carly’s pathetic suck up shirt, but Ryan, those are air quotes you’re doing. Hey! Random ugly Carly face. She really is from the British Isles. Or at least her teeth are.

David – In stark contrast to the little girls who giggle and sigh at the thought of Little Davey, Combover Dave seemed to have locked up the senior vote. Like Jason (and to some extent Brooke), David was screwed by the theme tonight, unless he could somehow crunch down one of these godawful show tunes into half an octave and bring in an electric guitar. Instead, David chose to do this straight, and it was a laughable, amateurish performance, the kind of you’d find in a high school musical… from the understudy. To top it off, David sang with a weird Britishy accent like he’s Madonna or something. It was embarrassing and guffaw inducing. Randy thought it was an “amazing vocal performance”. Randy should stop sipping Paula’s percocet martinis. I was touched by David’s tribute to Kristy Lee.