My Predictions after 'Inspirational' Night

Being a big fan of Christian music, I was curious how close to true inspiration any of the contestants would come during 'Inspirational' night on Idol. Luckily for me, one contestant actually proved to be inspirational, even if at the expense of making all the others seem flat. After the first six performances, I was thinking Lee Dewyze had done the best job, and it was pretty impressive and held my attention, even if I did not feel it was as inspirational as Simon did (or was he just comparing it to Casey's solid but unexciting performance?) So, I was waiting, as much of America may have been, for Crystal Bowersox to hopefully show a little inspiration herself. In her own words, my reaction would be "Holy Toledo!" She started out singing acapella and was able to not only sing it pitch perfect, but with a ton of soul and emotion. Then when the instruments started she amped it up even more and pretty much knocked it out of the park. She made Lee's impressive performance look like a warm up band performance for the main act. I am wondering what performances like that will do for the Idol ratings, though, if people feel there is no competition left in the show. It seems like from week to week, there might be one other contestant who might be able to match or outshine Crystal, but otherwise she becomes the gold standard each week. It is a bit like the Cardinals having Albert Pujols in the lineup. I am curious what the other six contestants think of her performances.

But the big question for today is not who performed the best last night, but who is going home this evening. That is best done by trying to decide who is safe. The obvious safe ones are Crystal and Lee, but looking at the other five, I am not so sure. I think Siobhan is pretty safe from being eliminated tonight, but if she landed in the bottom three it would not surprise me. Her vocals continue to be fantastic, but she fails to connect with the audience any more and her defensiveness is getting on my nerves. Big Mike is in a similar position with consistently solid vocals, but with an attitude that makes him not so likable. You can tell he is trying to tone himself down, but that is just the way he is, "over the top", physical and a big ham. He is the kind of person who makes a great first impression, but after a while you get tired of his antics. With his seemingly smaller dedicated fan base, I think he may possibly land in the bottom three again but not get eliminated. Casey James is a much more likable and personable presence than Siobhan or Mike, but his performances are getting old and boring. Nevertheless, compared to the bottom two guys I believe he is still pretty safe. So that takes us to Tim and Aaron. When it comes down to it, they should be the bottom two for the evening, but they both seem to have plenty of hard voting fans. On DialIdol, Tim actually has the third highest number of raw votes behind Crystal and Siobhan. However, on the show last night Aaron was able to perform after Tim, which made it easy to compare the two. Tim's performance was quite lackluster and he missed plenty of notes. Although Aaron started off somewhat lackluster himself, he picked it up and by the end was actually starting to show some emotion. I think he did a better job than Tim this week, but that still may not translate into votes. My guess, though, that one of the two of them will be going home.

My overall performance rankings for last night:

1) Crystal - 9.5/10 - Fantastic and moving. Her best performance to date.
2) Lee - 8.0/10 - Good and still less wooden than in the past. Better than anyone not named Crystal.
3) Siobhan - 5.5/10 - Great vocals but I cannot connect with her performance. She seems aloof and not there.
4) Mike - 4.8/10 - More good vocals, but he seems more angry than inspirational.
5) Casey - 4.6/10 - Happy, smiling guitar slinging singer. "Good but not great" could be his motto.
6) Aaron - 3.4/10 - He has potential but not any time soon. At least he has more personality than Tim.
7) Tim - 2.0/10 - His vocals were not good and he is not even interesting this time. What is he doing on this show?