Keep Dreaming Danny Because Tonight They Didin't Come True

The show that brought you mentors like Barry Manilow and Dolly Parton now welcomes Slash. Who could have seen this coming 8 years ago? Of course, this isn’t 1988 high out of his mind Slash, this is the new improved clean and sober version. I wish we could see him back in the days when he was taking more drugs than an HIV positive 95 year old.

Will Adam meet the immense expectations he created for himself with his earlier rock performances? Will Danny find a rock song about god, perhaps a reworked version of ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ sure it’s not about religion, but his Christian fan base probably won’t know any better and think Danny is singing a wholesome hymn because he talks about heaven. Can his fans even listen to the show tonight considering the Idols are all singing devil music? For those devout Christians watching at home I suggest you read the Bible during the commercials to prevent the sudden craving for sex and drugs bound to arrive when listening to these godless songs. Will Kris accept the rock challenge or change up his song into an acoustic version? Are Chris Daughtry and David Cook watching from home wishing they had Slash as a mentor. I wish he was on last season. Can you imagine little David Archuletta rehearsing with Slash? Which contestant will try to out-Adam Adam? Let’s face it, everyone knows this should be Adam’s week to truly shine, but someone might get greedy and try to earn the coveted ‘molten lava hot’ praise by going completely outside their comfort zone. Does Allison know enough musical history to pick the proper song choice? I think of the four remaining contestants she has the least musical knowledge to draw upon when selecting her songs. Are the internet reports of the stage manager (Debbie) falling down the staircase followed by an exploding set accurate?


The show starts with a recap of Adam looking like a fool by incorrectly believing he was safe in the top three. I wonder if Al Gore and John Kerry called him after the show last week to comfort him with the fact sometimes America can be very stupid when voting, especially when the voting involves an evangelical Christian. Ryan makes his way down the staircase; perhaps next week he can give Debbie lessons on this seemingly easy task. He says they are coming to us very live from Hollywood. The rumors of near disaster on the set are true. The American Idol tower almost fell over a few minutes before dress rehearsal, which means the contestants didn’t get the chance to run through their songs. Tonight we get our first ever Idol duets, because really what better way to judge how well someone sings than by having someone else sing along. Last season each contestant sang two songs during the Top 4, but now we have a fourth judge, and hearing her talk is vastly more important than hearing more singing. Ryan introduces Randy as the staple, but he has no cool nickname for Kara. Shame on you Ryan, how can you give one judge a nickname and leave out the others. Let’s stick with the office supply theme and call Kara the eraser. Why? Because her presence removed any chance of two songs per contestant the last two weeks. Ryan introduces Paula and Simon without giving them nicknames, but he does foreshadow a big week for Paula. The top four emerge from behind the stage door with three of them dressed in black and one outcast looking like Tiger Woods on Sunday. Danny is wearing a bright red button up shirt. What? This is rock night Danny, why are you dressed up like you are going clubbing South Beach style? I could see Anoop making the mistake of looking like a frat boy on rock night, but not the normally sartorially elegant Danny. Ryan says they will bring us rock classics and are prepared because of Slash. During the video introduction for Slash Idol doesn’t actually play any Guns & Roses music. I guess they were too cheap to buy the rights. Come on Idol couldn’t you have paid a few dollars to play the solo from “Sweet Child of Mine?” Ryan says Slash is always evolving, and by that I think he means evolving from a druggie into a somewhat normal middle-aged guy. Slash brought the contestants to the world famous Roxy on the sunset strip. Slash explains that rock & roll is a way of life. He says never saw himself as a possible mentor on Idol, but this season there are a couple standout artists (ADAM) that warrant his involvement. He explains to the idols they are going to do their song run-throughs at full volume with Slash’s band. Slash is sitting in the audience looking slightly amused. Axl Rose is watching at home somewhere screaming ‘sell-out’ at his television.


Adam – Whole Lotta Love

Adam continues two trends with his song selection. First, he likes songs from 20-30 years prior, and second, he isn’t afraid of taking on even the most revered rock anthems. A laughing Slash says Adam has some pipes and says his range makes his singing effortless. When the band finishes the song with Adam they all are laughing and having a great time and seem impressed with the kid that does musicals. Slash cautions Adam to avoid too much improvisation with his higher register and Adam vows to heed his advice. This is his favorite theme week and he wants to “kill it.” The classic guitar riff starts the song and a red screen blazes behind Adam. His outfit is equal parts David Bowie, Prince, and biker. When the drums finally enter this song becomes the most rocking moment in Idol history. Even the band sounds great right now as I’m not thinking ‘hey these guys are awful compared to Jimmy Page and Jon Bonham.’ Adam is attacking the song and hitting every note with more clarity and force than even Robert Plant (sorry kids but his vocals are even better than the original). Adam’s ability to make huge vocal jumps is always impressive, but feel so natural on this song they sound even better than normal. I wonder if Adam has been riding a motorcycle around the halls of the Idol mansion this week to get into this performance. During the extended guitar solo Adam head bangs towards the guitar player that joined him on stage. Adam has a way of making a song uniquely Adam even if he doesn’t completely alter the melody or arrangement. Adam finishes the song with a sudden ending and walks toward the front of the stage to get the judges’ comments – wait he isn’t done yet! He begins again, this time a cappella. His ending is amazing and stripped from the loud rock band behind him his voice sounds (if this is possible) even more magnificent. He follows Slash’s advice throughout the song by doing very few vocal acrobatics in his higher register. Randy says this is the Adam that he loves dude. He says no one will ever think about Broadway again because Adam is a rock star tonight. He calls the performance hot and suggest Adam make a record with Slash. Kara says Adam is more than a rock star, he is a rock god! She wants him to make an album that features a mix of the classic rock from the 70s with the glam rock from the 80s because no one else has his voice and he can kill it if he stays in this lane. Kara is more pumped up than I’ve ever seen her; maybe they renewed her contract earlier tonight. Paula says the band sounded great and Adam is a whole lotta perfect. Simon jokingly says his only criticism is the performance was a little understated. He says this could have been a disaster taking on one of the best rock songs of all time, but it ended up being one of Simon’s favorite Adam performances of the season. However, Simon does see one problem with Adam going first – no one is going to top his performance. This is the first time a Zepplin song has been performed on Idol and Adam (who has gone from sneering like a killer biker into his normal loveable self) says he was thrilled when he learned he could perform this song. Ryan again mentions the rock god moniker Kara gave Adam, which must especially frustrate the Danny fans, since there is only one true god. Good luck everyone else that has to sing over the next 50 minutes. As they go to commercial Adam is making the standard tongue out rock face to the crowd showing he is having a lot of fun tonight and not taking things too seriously.

Allison – Cry Baby

She gets a sit down with Ryan underneath the exploded Idol tower; they both look a little nervous sitting in the danger zone. She says she went with Adam to his hair girl because his hair is amazing. Allison is excited with her new hair style. She was unsure about which song to sing when she met with Slash. He told her to stick with Joplin. He says she has a natural rock & roll mannerism and swagger. If she pulls if off he predicts she will be great. He wants her to get past her fear and bring it full on when she comes out and performs. Allison begins the song standing behind a microphone stand looking great in her new hairstyle and black outfit. She is pouring a lot of emotion into the song and even using her hands while she sings. I think she is wearing on of Adam’s rings. So he took her to his hair girl and then let her borrow some of his jewelry. He is like the older sister she never had. She is a little reserved until she reaches the chorus, then she takes the microphone off the stand and launches into a powerful series of “Cry Babys,’ until she transitions back into the verse. She is putting a lot of nuance in her voice and demonstrating more vocal control than she has all season. It can be suicide to tackle Janis, even Carrie Underwood struggled, but Allison is doing a pretty good job. This is easily her most emotional performance. I don’t know if the judges will make this comparison, but she could make a Joss Stone type album tomorrow. Unfortunately, after Adam anything will sound inferior, but for Allison, this is her best performance of the season. I just hope the judges give her the credit she deserves. Uh-oh, Kara is not smiling. Randy yos Allison and says she can sing her face off because she can sing anything. He thinks there are better vehicles out there with more melody, because all the song has is her singing cry baby at the top of her lungs. He didn’t’ love this and it wasn’t that great for him. Kara thinks blusey rock Janie is the right choice for her, but she would have preferred a different song. She asks Allison is she was nervous tonight. What? This is the first time all season she DID NOT look nervous. Allison says she is always nervous and laughs. Kara says Allison transforms when she goes on stage and says the knocks about her not having a personality are not really fair. So, two judges in, and neither one has said ANYTHING about how well Allison actually sang the song. Randy said it was the wrong song choice and Kara compliments Allison’s personality. Are you serious? Can someone please talk about how well she sang the song? Uh-oh, Paula ‘you look beautiful tonight’ Abdul is up now. She says Allison is downright fearless and guarantees the role of Janis Joplin to Allison if someone ever makes a bio picture. Allison has a ‘what the **** are you talking about smirk on her face.’ Silly girl, she thought someone might actually talk about her singing. Simon says Allison has made a staggering change over the last 8 weeks. Unlike Kara, he thought she looked confident on stage and OMG he actually talks about her singing by calling her vocals teriffic. His only criticism is, he thought she tried too hard to sound like the original, which is in essence a back-handed compliment. He says she should have picked the other song, which he mistakenly thinks is a Queen song, but Allison corrects him (apparently it was a less famous song of the same name of Jefferson Airplane). Allison says she didn’t want to play things safe and explains to Kara she didn’t want to sing the other Joplin song because its been done so many times on the show. She then bursts out of her shell and says maybe she shouldn’t stop talking since everyone says she doesn’t talk enough. It’s as if Lil Rounds suddenly possessed Allison, except when Allison talks back it’s less combative and more jovial. Simon interrupts Ryan’s attempt to head to commercial and says he likes the fact Allison is arguing for herself. Allison gave her best performance this season and the only judge that actually talked about her vocals said they were terrific, one judge said she should be in a movie, and the other two judges lamented her song choice while giving her no credit for killing the vocals. Ladies and gentlemen your Idol judges! Kris and the club bound frat boy are up next doing the first duet in Idol history.

Kris and Danny – Renegade

I really wish we could see a two-minute video introduction of these two guys selecting their song and then rehearsing it until they become stage ready. Danny is assertive and a huge fan of Danny and Kris is laid back and cool, so I imagine they had trouble finding a song that worked for both of their styles. Ryan gives us our first itunes commercial while introducing the newest boy band. Kris begins the song a cappella and then Danny takes over. When they both sing together they sound pretty good. Kris is taking the higher part leaving the lower one for Danny. Then the entire band joins in and Kris takes his microphone stand in his hand and starts to run around the stage. He sounds pretty good considering this is way out of his style. Danny is standing relatively still, but he does pick up the mic stand, which qualifies as his rather pathetic attempt to have fun with the song. At least Kris is moving around, even jamming with the guitar players a little trying to infuse the song with some energy. During the extended musical break featuring just the drums, Kris tries to interact with Danny. He is looking right at him while he sings, but Danny does not look towards Kris. Instead he is looking out into the audience and singing as if Kris is not even on the stage with him – step back kids, the Danny show has started. They harmonize again at the end of the song until Danny decides to do an extended riff. In the middle of them closing the song together, Danny goes riff crazy and gives his longest riff this season. I wonder if this was planned or if he suddenly showed up Kris without any warning. It’s not even competing riffs, Kris is still holding out the ending note while Danny tries to shoplift the performance. When the song is over the two barely look at each other, but Kris extends a hand and they share a halfhearted bro-hug. Randy says this is the first duet and he really liked the harmonies. He thinks the two of them compliment each other; the harmonies were on blast but the individual vocals weren’t great. Kara says these two guys singing this song doesn’t compute for her because these are the type of guys that help little old ladies across the street. She says there were some pitchy moments and wonders if they could hear themselves on stage. Paula says it was a powerful and compelling duet. A confused Simon isn’t sure how to judge a duet, but says Danny was the better of the two. WOW, Kris is pissed. He already looked upset during the entire judging portion and now it’s like he isn’t trying to hide his contempt for Danny anymore. Normally when Simon says something like that, the contestants laugh, but not Kris. He looks like he wants to punch someone in the face, with that someone being Danny. Ryan asks the two duetist what working together was like and Kris hints at some tension saying they had a hard time picking the right song. Before he can really finish Danny starts talking to Ryan. Danny continues to talk and talk and talk while Kris stands there looking like McCain must have the first time he saw the Palin-Couric interview. Danny reaches out and puts his arm around Kris, and then Kris quickly touches Danny until he pulls his arm back. Geez, you never see this type of tension on Idol, Big Brother and Survivor yes, but not Idol where everybody loves everyone. When they head to commercial Kris turns and quickly starts to walk off stage without saying anything to Danny. I hope someday we find out what went on with these two leading up to their performance. Poor Kris, now he has to come out and sing his solo song while Danny has time to refocus before he has to sing again.

Kris – Come Together

Kris gets a sit down interview as Ryan plugs the Idol tour. At least Kris’s smile has returned. He tells Ryan he wanted to do a Beatles song, but changed his mind on his song choice midweek. Slash loaned Kris a guitar and the gesture made Kris a little nervous. Kris almost wanted to pee his pants he was so nervous playing his guitar next to Slash. Slash tells Kris even if he is holding the guitar he should try to be more animated while he performs. He says if Kris can pick up the live performance a little bit it will help. Sadly for Kris, Slash does not let him take home the guitar. Kris, so far, is doing a pretty standard arrangment of the song. It must have been hard for him the last two weeks to stick with song versions very close to the original creations. His main asseste is his ability to rework songs to suit his voic, but the last two weeks he has been robbed of this opportunity. Some rock songs just can’t be unrocked. For example, if you take a country song, and then turn it into a rock song everyone says wow he made that thing rocking. But if you take a song that is famous for its electric guitar riffs and make it acoustic and add some bongo drums you run the risk of an absolute disaster. Unplugged moments can be fantastic, but they are incredibly risky. His voice sounds better than I thought it might, but his voice needs a little rasp or gruffness. There we go Kris, he is changing up the vocals a little by unexpectedly going up a little on the Coca-Cola lyric. He strips the song down with just the drums in the middle and gives it an almost country rock feel; he sounds a bit like Big and Rich right now. Good job of showing some originality Kris. He adds his own phrasing near the finish further cementing this as Kris original. I think ‘Revolution’ would have better suited his voice, but I applaud Kris for taking a chance on the more difficult to sing song. Kris’s family and friends are standing for their boy, which means Matt’s family and friends might be the only ones all season that didn’t bother standing up once. Randy says for him, he knows that Kris is not a rock guy, but he appreciates him picking something that still lets him be Kris Allen. He isn’t blown away by his vocals, but he loved Kris adding some funk with his guitar. Kara says Kris is definitely the softer side of rock, but for her it wasn’t a great performance. She thinks there is more than what he delivered tonight. Paula says it’s risky to do a Beatles song, but his artistic delivery of the song has his signature all over his performance. Simon is doing something off camera that has the crowd laughing. Paula, like Slash, says Kris needs to bring a little more energy while he is on stage. Simon, still laughing from whatever he did to Paula compares Kris to ice at lunch. Both will leave you with nothing to remember afterwards. Simon says the song was boring and safe and a bit of a jam. Kris, who picked the LESS SAFE SONG, looks at Simon with his ‘are you ****ing kidding me face.’ Simon reinitiates his prediction that nothing could top Adam and claims he was right. Ryan says Simon is far too right to eat ice for lunch, but Simon quickly points out it’ mineral water ice. Kris smiles a little at the joke but you have to think he can’t decide if wants to punch Simon or Danny more. Speaking of the bespectacled one, he is in the mosh pit when they go to commercial and he is wearing a DIFFERENT OUTFIT. Are you serious? You changed your outfit in the middle of the show? While Kris had to go right back out there and sing you took the time to go back stage and put on an entirely different wardrobe? Wait a minute, which one is supposed to the gay one, Adam right? Are we sure it’s not Danny? I mean what straight guy changes his clothes if they don’t have to because things are starting to smell. Furthermore, what straight guy has more than 3 pairs of glasses? A lot of red staters don’t like Adam because he wears nail polish and spends too much time on his appearance, but let’s get one thing straight, the vainest person on the Idol Season 8 is Danny Gokey. Ok, maybe it’s actually Ryan, but Danny is a close second.

Danny – Dream On

Danny is either really brave or really stupid to select this song. He is brave if he knows this song is out of his range but he still wants to try it anyway and he is stupid if he believes he is good enough to nail the Steven Tyler ending. Michael Johns, a better rock singer than Danny, attempted this song last season and American sent him home. Slash says Danny is naturally gifted vocally, but picked a tough song. He says the main thing is to get the scream at the end because everyone is going to be waiting for the big ending. In rehearsals, Danny sounds horrible on the scream, which must mean he figured out how to do it well and they are showing us this to demonstrated how much he improved over a few days. Danny wants to do bigger things than he has ever done before. When Danny is done singing with Slash and the band he doesn’t smile and the band doesn’t either. Compare that with Adam’s rehearsal when everyone, contestant and band, seemed to have a great time. An uncertain Slash says depending on the moment Danny’s performance could go either way. You get the feeling when Danny left the stage, Slash and his band spent awhile making fun of the ‘idiot that thinks he is Steven Tyler.’ Danny must be awesome tonight, because Idol is setting it up like he could be really bad, but that’s not possible for the chosen one right? A newly outfitted Danny starts the verse going flat within a few notes. Right before the big vocal roll up, Danny hits the wrong pitch and stays on it for what seems like forever, until he rolls into the higher note, which sounds strained and out of his range. So far this is an inauspicious start. He has more pitch problems on the next verse. After a one week hiatus, his ‘I’m not singing full out so I have no ability to keep myself from going flat’ issues have returned. He sounds better when he starts singing full out, but any momentum he builds disappears when he tries to hold out a glory note and runs out of breath. When he hits the repeating ‘dream on’ part, he adds a ‘yeah’ and a riff and then some combination of do-do-doos. Dude what the heck are you doing? You don’t add riffs to Aerosmith. He is building, as best he can, for the big finish. If he nails the screaming notes he might save this otherwise very mediocre performance. Paula is dancing up a storm and then Danny changes into his screaming voice. Then something happens even more terrifying than waking up to a Mexican pig licking your face. Danny tries to sound like Steven Tyler and instead sounds like Tony Romo when he saw Jessica Simpson’s new figure a few months back. The sound be makes is not human. His fans all hate Adam because Adam screams. No Danny fans, Adam sings loudly in his higher register all while never missing a pitch. Danny is not even trying to modulate the pitch or even hit a pitch, he is just screaming as loud as he can into a microphone. Is this the way he communicates with his dead wife? I mean she can probably hear that sound right? Deaf people around American just signed the person next to them asking what is that vibration I feel? I think now we know what happened in rehearsals. Danny must have been hitting that note when Debbie (stage manager) was near the stairs. In an effort to make the sound stop she threw herself down the staircase in hopes the fall would kill her and grant her blissful quietness. Then, when Danny kept singing the note God did the only thing he could think of to save his children and caused the Idol tower to explode in the hopes it would end the rehearsal and give time for Danny to rethink his song choice.

Danny’s last note is like the extra footage in Michael Jackson’s original ‘Black or White’ video where he morphs into a black panther after destroying numerous car windows while grabbing his crotch even more than normal. When you see both of these mistakes, you wonder how could anyone that is not taking massive amounts of opiates think this is a good idea? Did god appear in a vision and tell Danny to sing ‘Dream On?’ What else could explain his peculiar song choice? Danny, maybe more so than any other contestant in Idol history is ‘in it to win it.’ His super competitiveness belies his outward nice all American Christian boy appearance. What else could explain Danny suddenly forgetting about his dead wife? For the first several weeks of this Idol season we heard more about Danny’s tragedy than Somalia Pirates. Then, once dead wife fatigue set in, he stopped directly talking about her and instead only implicitly referenced her through his lovey dovey song choices (see ‘Endless Love’ and ‘What Hurts the Most’). I believe Danny intentionally stopped mentioning her because he knew too much sympathy could create a Gokey backlash. In addition to the early dead wife vote pandering, Danny has also embraced his religious roots to earn favor with the at home voters. But he does so in a carefully coordinated manner that will not offend the agnostics, aesthesis, and other heathens. He never comes right out and says Jesus is my Savior and you must convert to Christianity to avoid an eternal journey into the fires of Hell, instead he casually mentions ‘faith’ and other key words to let the Christians at home know he is one of the good ones. I would have more respect for him if he just came out and declared his beliefs and tried to proselytize to American’s youth regardless of any voting impact. Sadly, it appears he loves the idea of winning Idol more than spreading the word of the only judge that really matters. I can already hear Danny’s fans defending their ‘boy’ because he has good morals. However, believing in god does not make you a good singer. For example, when was the last time you heard the Pope jamming on the radio? I mean let’s face it, if Jesus was walking around Jerusalem singing like that in front of his apostles, we’d all still be celebrating Chanukah Ok back to the show. The judges have to call out how horrible Danny was right?

They show Danny’s family and friends and none of them are standing, but wait, it’s not his friends and family. For some reason they are showing Adam’s friends and family, unless the two of them are all sitting together. Either way, it’s hilarious to see them all sitting down and clapping politely. Randy says he knows this isn’t Danny’s genre and although the performance was only alright and not perfect (understatement of all time), he gives Danny an A+ for a valiant effort. WHAT? Ok so let’s recap, Danny tries a song that is far too big for his vocals and butchers the ending, after barely making it through the first 90% and Randy commends his song selection? He gave Danny a better review than Allison or Kris! Why didn’t he say Danny made, oh I don’t know, the WRONG SONG CHOICE like he does with everyone else that sings a song too big for those with limited vocals? So I guess next year, with this new version of Randy, every time someone sings a Mariah Carey song Randy will give them an A+ for their valiant efforts. Like little David A. last season, it’s as if the judges are not legally allowed to say anything negative about Danny. Kara thinks Danny took the comments about adding more edge and swagger into his performance a little too far. She doesn’t see him on this type of song, and would instead like to see him doing early Aerosmith like Crazy or Cryin instead of this song. WHAT? KARA YOU CANNOT BE THIS DUMB CAN YOU? Early Aerosmith??????? ‘Dream On’ IS early you fool, it’s from the early 1970s, and the two songs you mentioned, are from 20 years later. How can anyone that gets paid this much without throwing around a ball be this stupid? Let’s recap some of Kara’s more stupid moments. She was unable to correctly count out her words, she called Studio 54 Studio 57, and she said Saturday Night Live when she meant Saturday Night Fever. We lose an extra performance from each contestant for this judging? She finishes her comments commending him for taking a chance because rock & roll is about being bold and going for it. That’s funny Kara, I thought rock & roll was also about not sucking. Paula says she knows this genre was tricky for him and isn’t sure if this was the right song choice. Then, for some reason, she asks how many people in the audience are Danny fans. Sadly for Danny, the only people the camera finds screaming are a group of little girls that have probably never heard how this song should sound and like musical greats like Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. Paula improves Danny’s grade by giving him an A++ for going for it.

The way the judges are doing their collective best to avoid any negative Danny comments, I’m almost surprised they aren’t making up a reason to praise Danny. Considering this is on Fox, maybe they could turn into Fox News and suggest Danny’s performance helped us in the war on terror. Since water boarding is now illegal we need a new way to break the will of captured suspected terrorist. The judges could suggest the CIA implement a never-ending loop of Danny’s scream played on a loudspeaker into the ears of recently imprisoned Al Queda members. After 25 minutes of that cacophonous sound we will learn everything we need to know about future plots without needlessly wasting countless gallons of water; water conservation is an emerging issue, and Danny helped save mother earth. It’s obvious Danny intentionally sounded like a cat thrown out of an airplane while being electrocuted because he loves our country and will do anything to stop the Islamic Jihad. Amen Danny!

The cantankerous Brit is our only chance of giving Danny the truth about his performance. Simon says he mostly agrees with the other judges, but says the last note was like watching a horror movie. He compares it to watching Friday the 13th. He says the performance was over the top; he says that style works with Adam but not so much with Danny. Uh-oh, those are fighting words for Danny, since he pretty clearly has an Adam created inferiority complex battling it out with his pompous ego. Despite a mediocre performance, Simon still thinks Danny will be safe tomorrow night. In a development even more mind numbing than Danny’s final note, he appears dumbfounded that Simon did not praise his scream. He says he needs to go back and listen to it (don’t do it Danny don’t do it) before he can admit it didn’t sound good. As usual, he cannot stop talking and says he wanted to pick something out of his safety zone. Then finally stops talking by saying “it’s whatever.” I don’t know which is sadder, that Danny thinks he sounded good or the fact I had to listen to that performance. On a positive note, next to ‘The Office,’ Danny singing ‘Dream On’ is the funniest moment on television in 2009.

Adam and Allison – Slow Ride

Ryan introduces the duet standing behind the judges. Allison walks on stage looking and sounding like a real rocker. Adam soon joins her wearing pants that are tighter than a Michael Phelps swimsuit. They take turns singing until they both sing the chorus together. The sound really good together and unlike the first duet, they are actually interacting with each other. They are having a lot of fun. Allison seems more at ease on stage with Adam than by herself. I bet when they sat down to pick a song Allison said, “so what song are we doing Adam,” and let him pick a good song for their voices. Adam is doing everything he can to help Allison shine. Like a good partner, he isn’t trying to out sing her, which he could, and is instead backing off when it’s her turn to take the lead. See Danny, just because you want to win Idol doesn’t mean you have to sing louder than the person next to you. They finish the song facing each other while they belt out the last few notes. When they are finished Allison runs into Adam’s arms and they embrace in a genuinely warm hug. Randy says these two are the rock stars of the season and suggests they do a duet on the album because that was the bomb. Kara calls them a rock goddess and a rock god and says this is what a duet is supposed to be, when both people are pushing their counterparts to be better. Paula says the duet is a perfect marriage and also wants them to do a duet. Simon, still confused on duet judging, says they won the battle of duets. And, he says Adam may have given Allison a chance to stay in the competition with this performance. Adam mouths “I hope so,” and then later tells Ryan she is like his little sister.

Final Thoughts

Adam is still giving everyone every single inch of his love. Allison is still crying the judges didn’t like her more. Kris still can’t get people to come together. Danny is still trying to communicate with his dead wife through a primal scream.

Thanks to Adam and Allison tonight felt like an actual rock concert. I am convinced Danny is sick and tired of Adam out singing him every week and saw the rock theme as his chance to out-Adam Adam. Unfortunately for him, he has about as much chance of out singing Adam during rock week as Paula does of becoming a practicing neurosurgeon. His misguided belief in his greatness led to one of the worst (or best) moments in Idol history. Adam, after facing immense danger last week, should be safe safe safe this week. Joining him on the couches will unfortunately be Danny. Sigh. As much as I would love for Danny to go home to his friends and family (since they apparently were not in the studio tonight) I think his primarily Christian fan base rallies around their boy and keeps him safe. That leaves Allison and Kris as the two facing elimination. I hope Simon is right about the duet possibly saving Allison; I think he is correct. She will be safe, which sadly means Kris (the second most original contestant this season) will be going home. At least he has a really good-looking wife waiting for him – take that Danny! If I’m wrong and Danny is the lowest vote getter, then maybe there is hope for mankind.