Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Voice: Top 5 Performances and Eliminations






The Same Page is a blog; currently dedicated to reviewing Season 4 of NBC’s The Voice. Written by friends for life Giselle Carrington and Tonia Holder, this blog puts together all their thoughts while watching episodes of The Voice. This Blog is a bit different from your average review blog between friends, mainly because Giselle is in Grenada and Tonia is in Trinidad! They converse over Whatsapp on Mondays and Tuesdays and DRAMATICALLY express their views on the happenings of the episodes. They now wish to share their comical analyses with the world at large!



The Voice: Top 5 Performances

Tonz: I’m still pretty upset over the loss of both Judith and Sarah and I do not forgive America! However I have an obligation to review the rest of the season because I know that you guys look forward to reading Gis’ and my witty banter about the coaches and their competitors. So it is with duress and a heavy heart that I continue and review the top 5 performers and their performances. *moment of silence for the loss of my girls* At least I still have my girl Sasha. I’m reviewing the first 5 set of performances as all artists had to perform twice.

Giz: I believe I’ve gotten over the loss of Judith now. I’m still upset, but, not upset enough to not want to blog this week. Last week, Tonz and I did not want to watch or blog, hence the any entry of the top 6 performances and eliminations. Sorry to see Holly go though, I liked her. Tonz and I are definitely on the same page when it comes to how we feel right now. I think she has some choice words for a lot of people lol. I’ll be reviewing the final 5 performances of the night.


Tonia

Zach is a really strong singer, no wonder he sings the majority of the verses when the brothers perform. Colton played the hell out of that guitar though lol and of course he harmonized perfectly with his brother. This was a good performance by the brothers, nice and strong. They really have grown as performers and you can see this every week when they perform. The last note that Zach hit and held on to for dear life gave me chills. Wow, what a way to end their performance, especially with all the pyrotechnics that went off emphasising the note and I guess the strong end of the song. I like them and America seems to like them as well. And we all know it is America that has the power in this show so we’ll wait and see what they decide.

Need I say that I love this girl, no I don’t think so, I think you all know this by now. But she started off a bit shaky with this song; the notes weren’t what I would have liked to hear. Please note thought that this is a really REALLY hard song to sing. I don’t know why this was chosen for her to perform, probably because the faith in her pulling it off was and is strong. As she continued to sing, she really brought out all the stops by hitting the notes and maintaining them. For me her broad way vocal training really was illustrated. I absolutely loved that she was able to h it the main high note that the song is known for. It wasn’t her best performance for the season but it wasn’t her worst, it was pretty solid. I ain’t got nothing but love for Sasha.

Now I have really grown to love this bug eyed, squatting nerd of a girl Michelle. She totally surprised me by reaching this far, but then again America votes and not I. She had a bit of vocal shakiness as she started off, at points her voice was breaking on some notes and at times she was a bit inaudible. But as always she soared on her strong points, i.e swatting to make the high notes come out and boy did they. Again it was not her best performance; I guess it was mainly because of the song selection. But I love her energy and her voice nonetheless.

This little girl I knew from the start was going to make it to the end of the competition. She has a great, strong voice for her age and as Blake once commented, her voice has a level of maturity that is beyond her age. There was still the flatness on some notes, but i enjoyed the song. She really does need to learn to move on stage without looking so stiff and she has to learn to actually perform a song. Because as it stands right now, she just sings them, she sings them really well, great even but her overall performance always lacks for me. No doubt in my mind though that America will take this country sweet heart all the way to the end.

The last standing of Adam’s Angels, I look to her performance with enthusiasm. However the notes as she starts to sing were just wrong. She was a bit in audible, she was breathy and it sounded like if she was having trouble singing the song. However she came back on track on the high notes as she always does. The song was relatively bland, she countrified it and i guess that was great because she made it her own. Amber honestly didn’t move me to goose bumps as I would have liked. But it was a good performance.



Giselle

Straight into the 2nd half we go.


The Swonnies as I so affectionately call them were given their coach’s choice of Danny’s Song by Loggins and Messina. That’s a very passionate, deep song. I was glad to see them put down the guitars and just use Zach on the piano. As always, Zach was the main voice. This is something I would have liked to see changed at this stage. Colton came in for the harmonies as usual, but his harmonies were masked by what I think was the background singers. I really thought that by now, they’d try to have both brothers singing equally. I was disappointed there. Colton sang one line solo, which the ladies in the audience myself included, responded to. Setting aside the lack of Colton singing solo and not being able to hear him, the performance was generally good, as they usually are. Not semi final good, in my opinion, but good enough. We await America’s votes, cause let’s face it, you guys are the ones making the decision anyway.


Shakira gave Sasha Donna Summers’ Bad Girls. It’s a song a little out of Sasha’s comfort zone, but something easily attainable by her. She came out in all her glory. I was shocked, because as you know, Sasha doesn’t really impress me too much. Vocally, it was the usual Sasha stuff, but on stage, man Sasha had a hell of a time. Giselle = impressed. We haven’t seen many performances by Sasha that made her use the stage. She even danced, with back up dancers! So, maybe that didn’t work out too well, but I mean, she brought something different. Vocally though, it was the same as always, really good. Overall, it was a pretty good performance. Was I moved? Not any more than usual, but she really did make me glad by stepping up her performance game. Great job!


Blake, in all his wisdom, chose Who I am by Jessica Andrews for young Danielle to sing. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think any song was more perfectly picked. The lyrics really rang true when you thought about it from Danielle’s point of view. I really loved this performance. Again, I keep hearing little flatness from her every once in a while, but they were few and further between on this rendition. I especially loved when she walked up to her family. Yes, she looked a bit uncomfortable, but again, we did mention, at least Tonz did, that her interaction needed a boost. All in all, I loved this song choice and I enjoyed the performance. Hopefully America did too!


Adam gave Amber Maroon 5’s Sad. First of all, I just want to congratulate Amber on making it this far. Yes, that is because we share the same last name. So somewhere down the long line of Carringtons, we’re related. Secondly, Sad is probably my favourite song from Maroon 5’s Overexposed album. I’ve always said that if I had to audition for one of these shows, one of my songs to choose from would be Sad. Anyway, when Amber started, my ears perked upward. The melody she used wasn’t the same for the first few lines of the verses. I didn’t warm up to it at all. But when she passed those lines, she really owned the song. I was calm and beautiful. I loved it. Especially near the end where she played with the falsettos and belted out notes. She’s really mastering that. I totally enjoyed it. I hope America sees what I saw in that performance.


Michelle was given the timeless classic of Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper (see what I did there?). Michelle is one up my top 10 favorites. I just love her energy and her uniqueness. She came out, very uncharacteristically and started the rendition calmly. It was very much unlike her. I heard a few vocal falters here and there. Then, very close to then end, the beat dropped and Michelle came out. The entire mood of the song changed. It made me smile, ‘cause I was missing the Michelle-ness. Whilst I didn’t like the calm part, because it left too much room to hear errors, the last part, with the switcheroo caught me and I like it. It was a pretty good performance, she could have done a bit better in the first two verses, but overall it rocked. I expect nothing less from Michelle. #4EyesOnThePrize!


Tonz: There ends the night. I would have thought though that all the artists would have brought out all the stops to impress and make a strong impression on Americas minds as they are in the habit of eliminating strong people that we thought would have made it to the end. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the eliminations. I am not making any predictions out of fear of having my heart broken again. But I do feel Sasha should fare well to the end.
Giz: Same Page Tonz! I didn’t think these were Semi Finals performances. They were good, but as Tonia said, I would have thought they’d leave some sort of mark. It didn’t happen for me at all. I’m not making any predictions either. America’s votes have a way of making come close to a heart attack! We’ll just wait to see.


The Voice: Top 5 Eliminations

Giselle

I’ll be very honest with you. I am writing under duress.

The top 5 artistes were brought down to 3 finalists last night. I watched, because I blog and because I was giving the voters a chance to redeem themselves. Also, because Tonz kept telling me I’m slacking off. So I sat and I watched. I was so afraid because after checking iTunes, I was sure due to the votes  for Danielle and the Swonnies, Amber and Michelle would go home. Come’on son! Who would send Sasha home?

Well, I was wrong. Michelle was the first to be saved! If only you know how relieved I was. So happy! The next save was Danielle. That was not a shocker at all.

The bottom 3 artistes were the Swonnies, Sasha and my girl Amber. Well America, once again you done messed up!!! Amber and…SASHA ALLEN were sent home.

Let me tell you this. I am about to rant, so hold on to your underpants. Votes really do water down the true essence of this show. I’m not saying that any one of these artistes don’t belong in the finals, but let’s be real for just one moment. It is not about the song choice, it is about the execution. It is not mainly about the performance, the premise is THE VOICE. It should not be a publicity race. Amber’s semi finals performances were not her best vocally so I totally understand her not being voted in. I can be real. That says a lot, cause I’m Team Adam all day every day. But Sasha had one of the strongest voices in the competition. To vote her off was ridiculous. I can’t say that the Swonnies were any better vocally than Sasha on that night. Seriously! And this is saying a lot because Sasha was far from my favourite. All I’m saying is, let America vote, but let the coaches do the judging for the semi’s or something. GOSH!!!

Let me also say, Tonia is so upset. She cursed and turned off the TV immediately. No more to be said.

This is the reason we did not watch last week. Tonia doesn’t even care who wins, but I know for sure Michelle is my choice. To Sasha and Amber we say, we totally enjoyed you. You guys were so awesome. We wish you well in the future and I’m sure to cop your albums when they come out! To Michelle and Danielle, all the best next week! To the Swonnies, I like you guys, good luck. To Usher, I’m on your team. To Blake, you’re fans a hella loyal to you, I hope you love them as much as they love you. I personally think you’re super cool though.

Like, comment, share and tweet about us. All the buttons are on the left! We’re mad as hell, but we love to know what you think. J

Till Next time


Giz & Tonz