I am so excited that American Idol is finally at Hollywood week!  It’s about time new judge Ellen DeGeneres makes her first appearance.  She makes a comment to Simon about him planning to leave after she just arrived.  He gives her that typical Simon smile.

The first round of Hollywood week will have groups of 8 take the stage, sing and then be either moved forward or sent home.  All the contestants are pretty nervous and scared.  But, I think this part really weeds out the great from the good.  If you can’t take the pressure now, you won’t make it later on.  So it’s important to put it all out there, because it’s now or never.

The first group we see includes two of the contestants that have already been highlighted.  Katie Stevens is the young girl whose grandmother has Alzheimer’s.  She is really talented and a very natural performer.  In her group is Antonio “Skibooski” Wheeler.  Word on the street was that he has a criminal record.  Katie sails through to the next round and Antonio Wheeler conveniently is dismissed.  But he really can’t sing, so it’s not a big loss, now is it?

The next two highlighted are Vanessa Wolfe and Andrew Garcia.  Vanessa is the country girl that had never been on an “aeroplane”.  She was a nervous wreck and with no experience whatsoever, she can’t pull her act together for this audition.  Andrew Garcia is from a neighboring town near mine, so I’m pulling for him.  He’s the one who has two parents that were in gangs.  He accompanies himself on guitar and wows the audience and all the judges.  Andrew moves forward and Vanessa heads home.

We quickly go through Cornelius Edwards–he split his pants in his first audition, Meagan Wright–her little brother was her biggest fan, and Amadeo DiRocco–the Italian from Rhode Island and one of my personal “hopes”.  All three are heading home, oh well…

Three that will move on to the next round are Janell Wheeler(sorry I don’t remember anything about her!), 16 year-old Hailey Vaughn and rocker mom Mary Powers. That’s it for the first day in Hollywood.

Second day in Hollywood starts with Lilly Scott.  She has a unique look that includes white (silver?) hair.  She plays guitar and sings her way to the next round.  Michael Lynche is the big guy whose wife is in labor while he’s in Hollywood.  He uses that as his inspiration and he does really well.  He’s one of those that is really easy to root for.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news (STOP READING IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ A SPOILER*****************************************************************************************************  You still there?   Check out  BBBlogger’s post a week or two ago.

The next group includes Justin Williams.  He was the contestant that survived cancer and is very cute too!  But, nope he doesn’t make it to the next round.  Also not making it through are Paige Dechaucy, Erica Rhodes, the Jersey sisters and Maddy Curtis.

Two that did make it through to the next round are Tim Urban and Casey James.  Casey wanted the opportunity to show his unique bluesy guitar performance and he sure does.

Remember Didi Benami?  She was the very emotional waitress whose girlfriend died.  She sings a Kara Deguardi song and the judges love her.  She made my husband comment so she really must be good!  LOL   Last, but certainly not least is Crystal Bowersox.  This Janis Joplin type singer also wows the judges.

That’s it for the first round in Hollywood.  Almost a hundred make it through to the next round.  Of those, we saw a handful, so we still really don’t know who is moving forward and who went home.  It is a bit frustrating.  Did Aaron from PA make it to the second round?  I guess maybe we will find out tomorrow, or maybe not.  The next round is the famous group round.  That’s when the contestants are put in groups and have to sing and perform together, whether they like each other or not.  Stay tuned…Bloggergal1