Ottawa Idol hopeful needs wild card selection to continue by Laurel E. Anderson
(first published in the Kanata Kourier July 2, 2004)

It was a Special K night on Canadian Idol last week with Kalan Porter and Kaleb Simmonds stealing the show with knock out performances. Eighteen-year-old Kalan stole the show when he sang “Lady’ by Kenny Rogers. Coupled with his wholesome looks and shy personality, this farm boy is sure to be a favourite of the audience and judges until the very end of the competition. Simmonds took it all in stride when it was his turn to take the stage. His calm and casual demeanor showed a level of professionalism and grounding that some of the other contestants have lacked so far in the competition.

Ben Mulroney opened the show by asking the judges if they thought that this week’s group had an advantage over last week’s. “I hope so,” replied Jake, “there’s been enough Idol around.” Ottawa singer Filomena agrees saying that not going first helped her prepare because “we got a chance to see what to expect.” Ben continues his opening montage with what must have been an adlib or a last minute improvisation that he surely regretted right after the words left his mouth. Calling Sass Jordan ‘Her Sexcellency’ made her half cringe, half laugh. I just cringed. It doesn’t help that Ben is wearing one of his funny, indescribable blazer things again. Apparently the competitors have a stylist but I’m not so sure about Ben.

Montreal native Liz Titan takes the stage and wows all the judges with Zack saying “I personally say that we need you in the top ten.” Anna Cyzon doesn’t fair so well with her song choice and presentation questioned by the judges. Farley tells her it was just okay, too one-dimensional. Judges favourite Mohanza performs next and doesn’t fully bring it to the table and ends up with an understated performance and you can see the disappointment on the judge’s faces.

Just when I am thinking that things are going to go the way of last week, Kaleb Simmonds is up and sets the crowd on fire. The judges are glowing when he is finished singing and he actually leaves Zack speechless. He just offers a smile and a salute while the other judges can’t say enough about his excellent performance. Filomena is up next and sings the upbeat song, ‘Respect.’ She works the stage like a seasoned performer (she performs at the Ottawa Exhibition every summer), moving around and making eye contact but the judges find her singing a bit subdued. Sass tells her that you really need to ‘rip that song’ and Jake tells her that it seemed like bad karaoke. Filomena is a trooper though and smiles through these harsh opinions until it is Zack’s turn. Leave it to him to take it up a notch, good or bad when he tells Filomena, “congratulations for making the top thirty-two, you just didn’t make the top ten, it’s not nearly enough, sorry, bad choice.” And with that, Filomena is left to wait it out with the other singers to see if the voters agree or not.

Eighteen-year-old Kalan Porter takes the stage and sings ‘Lady’ by Kenny Rogers, like he wrote the song and performed it first, blowing all the other competitors out of the water. Zack agrees and tells him “you just bumped somebody to the wildcard show.” Sass welcomes him to the top ten and Farley sums it up by telling Kalan that he is going to win this competition.

It’s night two and Ben’s back, all shiny and happy in his disco style black leather jacket, about to announce which contestants will go on to the top ten, but before he reads the names, he tells everyone that they are great and that it’s a tough decision. He reminds the singers that those that don’t make it will have another chance in the wildcard round. The speech is reminiscent of the old ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you speech’ that we’ve all heard before. My feeling is that both the contestants and the audience want Ben to just rip open the envelope and read the names already!

The first few contestants are all no’s, including judge favourite Mohanza Kelly and Ottawa’s own Filomena Pasqua. In my own defense (I speculated that they would go forward last week), that was before I heard them sing. I was picking them based on past performances and I guess you really are only as good as your last performance in this competition. Up until now, Toronto’s Mohanza seemed to be the golden child for the judges but his soft performance just couldn’t conquer the two ‘K’s’ while Filomena’s performance lacked the oompf needed to stand out in this crowd.

So it is Kalan Porter from Alberta and Nova Scotia’s own Kaleb Simmonds that make it to the final ten while the others must wait for their second chance in the wildcard round. And with two groups down and two to go, the chance to make the top ten is now cut in half. Ottawa still has two finalists competing with Rockland’s Constant Bernard up this week along with one of my favourites, Theresa Sokyrka. Since the results will be out just before you read this I will pick hometown fave Bernard to go forward and will be very surprised if Theresa doesn’t make it to the final ten. Tune in to Idol on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. on CTV.

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