adminLONDON Louw’s luck finally ran out this week as the 24-year-old bowed out of South Africa’s biggest reality competition, Idols, after receiving the least votes.Louw made history on the Idols Season 10 stage for being the contestant who had always been in the bottom three.
After auditioning for the competition for five consecutive years, Louw made it to the top four, earning himself a trip to London with fellow contestants Lize Myhardt (21), Vincent Bones (30) and Bongi Silinda (24). Last week the four were flown to London to be mentored by English electronic music production duo, Gorgon City.
Lize, Bongi and Vincent will have to battle it out on Sunday for spots for the Idols SA finale. Only two of them will be chosen for the finale being held next week Sunday.
After blistering guest performances from the mega-group MiCasa and Idols SA Season Six winner Elvis Blue, Vincent Bones (30) kicked off the competition with his choice, newcomer Sam Smith’s, Stay With Me. For the second round, the top three had to perform hits from the year they were born. Vincent recently turned 30 and got to choose from 1984, the Lionel Richie ballad Stuck On You. The judges did not comment after the first round but of this performance judge Gareth Cliff said it was one of his all-time favourite songs, “and you didn’t mess it up at all!”
Another judge Unathi Msengana said she thought both of Vincent’s song choices were brilliant. Randall Abrahams concurred saying:
“You’re on your way . . . Last week you were in London, next week you’ll be in the Idols final.”
For her first round song, Bongi chose the Drake hit Find Your Love and her second round choice was Phil Collins’s 1990 hit from her birth year, Another Day in Paradise. Commenting on her performance, Gareth said the judges had agreed that she was technically the best singer in the competition.
“The bad news is I don’t think your song choices tonight (Sunday) are the best. And I don’t think you measure up to the rest tonight. In fact you’re lagging behind,” Gareth said.
But Unathi thought Bongi had given of herself in this performance, and that’s what would get people to vote for her. Randall could not disagree more. He pointed out the deafening silence in the auditorium following that performance and noted that he was completely unmoved by the emotional song. “I’m almost at a loss for words. That was really, really, really not good.”
Lize was the last to perform with her first round choice being the Leonard Cohen standard Hallelujah. She was born in 1993 so she chose a massive hit from that year, I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) from the Scottish one-hit-wonders The Proclaimers.
Gareth said she had done Hallelujah better than anyone else had ever done it, and he was surprised by her stripped-down version of “500 Miles”. Unathi agreed that Lize’s “Hallelujah” resonated and it was the first time she understood the meaning behind the “500 Miles” lyrics.
Lize closed the show with the producers’ choice, Kanye West hit, Church In The Wild.
Gareth said Lize’s first two performances blew them away but he thought this one was a bit monotonous. Unathi thought Lize didn’t have the arrogance it takes to perform Kanye and Jay-Z songs.
“It could have worked a lot better, I think you swallowed a lot of your words,” Randall agreed. –idolssadstv.com
Online Reporter