The torch has been passed. As we reported yesterday, the Season 8 winners song "No Boundaries" was after a tepid response - uncermoniously removed from Kris Allen's set in the Idols Live tour. Last night, the replacement song was unveiled. According to reports, at Sacramento show, Allen introduced an unexpected contemporary, singing "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers.
We'll have a review when we re-connect with the tour in LA this week. In the meantime, if you were in Sacramento last night - please leave your report in the comments section. What did you think of the new addition?
If there was one uneven note in this week's tour debut, it was the same one that caused a fair amount of choppiness at the end of the Season 8 competition. In each year's Idols Live tour, the winner's song has been a fixture of the champion's set. In recent years Jordin Sparks and David Cook scored noticeable blips on the sales charts with "This is My Now" and "Time of My Life," respectively, and rolled out those numbers on the road.
However, in Kris Allen's headline at the concerts thus far, the season's victory song, "No Boundaries," written by judge Kara DioGuardi, has stood out as a bit of an odd duck among the other numbers, which were uniquely chosen for and crafted to Allen's intimate, soulful style.
Reviews of Season 8's finale show widely trashed the victory number and the chilly reception has followed "Boundaries" onto the road. In reviews of the tour, "Boundaries" has been singled out as a misstep, generating a tepid crowd response compared with the other numbers.
The tour's producers have been listening to the sound of few hands clapping. Starting tonight in Sacramento, "No Boundaries" will be disappear from Allen's set, according to sources with the production.
A new song will take its place in Allen's set down the road later this week.
Update: Word is out on twitter, a new song will take its place in Allen's set tonight.
-- Richard Rushfield
Photo: Kris Allen performs in Portland, Ore. Credit: Justin Brady / Rose Garden Arena
On the second night of the American Idols Live: 2009 Tour, the 10 were settling comfortably into their lives as wandering rock stars. At 3 p.m., the day was gray, frigid and windy outside the Tacoma Dome. The subdued crowd of a hundred or so leaned in eerie silence against the metal barricade as Megan Joy walked down the row singing autographs and posing for pictures. Inside, the ancient Dome seemed like it was just waking up, a universe away from the frenzied hub of activity around the tour kickoff at the Paul Allen-built Portland stadium. In a cafeteria-like room set up with round tables and folding chairs, half the Idols came to visit the four members of the press corps on hand.
Building up to Show 2, gone already was the repressed frenzy of anticipation the Idols felt in the hours before opening night. Now that it was over, nearly all confessed to fighting back serious attacks of nerves, either from excitement or fear, in the countdown to Sunday night’s show. The giddiness that followed opening night seemed to have led the Idols' emotional roller coaster on a long loop-the-loop; the group reported staying up until 5 a.m. Monday, despite fatigue, to celebrate their their bow.
On Tuesday morning, the tour buses made their maiden voyage, ferrying the group on the three-hour drive from Portland to Tacoma. Most reported sleeping through their first trip, and there were many bleary eyes to be found in the press room, although the irrepressible high jinks of Matt Giraud and Danny Gokey were evident in full force.
For millions, or tens of millions who watch American Idol only on television the Idols Live tour is an afterthought to the game. The journey from audition to finale is a complete arc, with from which each year one or maybe two emerge alive to continue straight to the very last stage - pop super-stardom.
But for the stars of American Idol, the past is merely prologue and life began today in Portland, Oregon when free of the competition, of being pitted against each other, of the judges cold glares and Angel of Death Seacrest's icy embrace, it is at last just about the music and performing for an audience. And a fantastically vast audience, filling the Trailblazers arena with uncontainable enthusiasm.
Portland, Ore., is not a city that makes a big fuss about itself. From its single-driving-lane streets to its bicycling and microbrewery culture to its gentle hills and ever-present greenery, pleasant, livable, amiable Portland gives off a constant sense of understatement, of a city whose charms are best enjoyed at a slow meander -- not from the rear view of a speeding Ferrari.
This weekend "American Idol" came to town. On Sunday night, the 50-city "Idols Live Tour" kicks off at the Rose Garden Arena, and all week long the goliath in entertainment has occupied the city.
Not that you'd necessarily notice at first glance. A hotel bellman, asked whether he had seen the Idols, nodded that he had; they'd been out and about for the last week -- in town rehearsing. Asked whether the Idols were mobbed when they went out, he shook his head. "I guess people in Portland don't watch much TV," he said.
Approximately one year ago, Adam Lambert and Kris Allen, Megan Joy and Allison Iraheta, Alexis Grace and Anoop Desai arose before dawn to stand in line with thousands of dreamers, waiting for their long shot at stardom. Five years ago, Carrie Underwood camped out and waited for her turn, four years ago Chris Daughtry was a face in the mob. Three years ago, Jordin Sparks was passed over in one city so flew off to try again in another. Two years ago, David Cook escorted his brother to his audition, with no thought that he was taking the first step in a life-changing journey of his own.
Yesterday, outside the Rose Bowl, 11,000 would-be superstars waited in the darkness, nursing their dreams. There are a thousand stories in the naked city, but in the end only three or so of the stories waiting in this line will make it to the big stage.
Via 19 Productions, Adam Lambert issued a statement today about this week's release of some pre-Idol recordings he had made. The statement reads as follows:
Last Friday I was surprised to find out that songs I recorded back in 2005 were being released. Since then I discovered the entire track listing, revealed online today. I was shocked to learn that songwriting demos of songs that I co-wrote and recorded over the past few years may be released in an album. Like a rough draft that a writer does before finishing a book, I did not intend my work on these demos to be heard by the public. I was unaware that anyone intended to release these recordings until I heard about it in the press, and I'm very disappointed by this entire situation.
In two weeks, the Top 10 contestants of Season 8 of “American Idol” will climb aboard buses for the final rite of an Idol’s passage: the 50-city concert tour set to kick off in Portland, Ore., on July 5. For the Idols, the tour represents not only a chance to play rock star before packed arenas, but the biggest paydays of their young careers, with checks reportedly over $100,000 coming their way for the four months of labor. But before the road, there are songs to arrange, dance moves to choreograph, wardrobes to fit, and a few last moments of peace before the storm begins anew.
Last week, a giddy first-day-of-school feeling reigned over lunch at the “Idols’” Burbank rehearsal space, where the 10 convened for their first group rehearsal. Over beef kabobs and chocolate cake, which they enjoyed on Formica tabletops in a fluorescent-lit break room, the mood was cheerful and hyper as this year’s winner, Kris Allen, along with Megan Joy, Matt Giraud, Michael Sarver, Anoop Desai and Lil Rounds chatted, breaking sporadically into Journey’s ubiquitous “Don’t Stop Believing.”
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