Top 3 Sing the Standards

 

Last night on Canadian Idol the Top 3 sang the music from the great American songbook in a Tribute to Tony Bennett. It was an amazing night of music with some outstanding stage performances. Tony Bennett coached the Idols when they flew to New York City last Thursday. With the help of the very polished Canadian Idol Orchestra it was the most entertaining show to date.

 1) Craig Sharpe opened the show with “The Way You Look Tonight”. Craig looked very dapper in his white suit but he didn’t have his usual confidence on stage. The beginning was a bit shaky but he performed the rest of the song quite well. The judges mentioned that Craig was only 16 so he didn’t have a real connection to the song. However, Kalen Porter sang this song two years ago and it was superb. Kalen was only seventeen at the time and he sang The Way You Look Tonight with a lot of maturity.

2) Eva Avila – “God Bless the Child”. This was the night Eva turned into a star – she looked exquisite and her flawless performance gave me goose-bumps. I forgot I was watching Canadian Idol and thought I was watching a seasoned performer . This is a very tough song to sing and she sang it brilliantly.

 3) Tyler Lewis – “Just a Gigolo (I ain’t Got Nobody)” This was not a very challenging song and Tyler still didn’t do a very good job with it. He couldn’t hold on to a few notes and wasn’t even clapping in time. Tyler looked like he was having fun on stage but the singing was flat. I must be hearing something very different than the judges because they want this guy to be around another week.

4) Craig came back a second time and sang “Danny Boy”. I thought this was one of Craig’s most powerful performances. His emotional delivery was very heartfelt and I really felt he connected with the song. This performance should keep him around for the Top 2.

5) Eva sang “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” as her second song. This was another solid performance from Eva. She looked beautiful, sang with pitch perfect vocals and looked very confident on stage. There’s no question that her two performances were the best of the night. After last night there should be no doubts that Eva deserves to win this competition.

6) Tyler closed the show with “It Had to Be You”. This was certainly better than his first performance but not nearly as good as what the judges were saying. Tyler is very lucky to still be on the Idol stage at this point – he just isn’t in the same league as the other two competitors.

Last year Melissa was the star of the standards night with her rendition of “It’s De-lovely”. This year Eva was the star of the evening with her two performances especially her emotional delivery of “God Bless the Child”. Tyler should definitely be packing his bags tonight if the voters get it right. Even Tony Bennett mentioned Tyler “looked good for TV” with no mention about his singing ability.

The Results show will be an hour long tonight with Tony Bennett singing live for the first time on an Idol stage. He will be performing a song from his new CD- “Duets-An American Classic”.