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Access Atlanta > American Idol Buzz > Archives > 2007 > August > 14
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
8/15: A first-person audition account
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My brief video interview with Ryan Seacrest is here.. Feel free to mock me. I’m sure the broadcast folks have nothing to worry about.
My colleague Niketa Patel, Online Producer for ajc.com, (above with her sister Dimple on her left during auditions) was one of the many thousands who tried out for “American Idol” Tuesday at the Georgia Dome — and one of the vast majority who didn’t make the cut. Here’s her first-person account:
Auditioning for the 7th season of American Idol was a very surreal experience. I went in with no expectations and left feeling proud of myself for having taken a bold chance.
It’s something my family and I have wanted to do for a while because I have a performing arts background and have been singing in choirs and at events for years. I am a British-born Indian lady and have lived in the U.S. for eight years now. Doesn’t that give me an edge?
I jumped at the chance when I heard that the Features dept at the newspaper was looking for someone on staff to tryout. Why not? I thought. Even though the odds are very slim and Idol favors strange characters on air, I’m 26, really enjoy singing and have been strongly encouraged to audition and follow my dreams by family members and friends for years. My sister Dimple Patel is my #1 fan!
My sister and I reached the Dome at 7 a.m. this morning and I was relieved to see that most folks were already inside. Waiting in line was the last thing I wanted to do, having waited for two and a half hours on Sunday morning from 5 a.m. to 7.30 a.m. just to register.
I was amazed that there were so many folks trying out from all over the South, from Brunswick to Houston. And as usual, the crowd consisted of the very talented, mediocre wannabes and the down right weird!
The crowd had already practiced the group song one time by the time we took our seats which was ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’. How ironic considering Atlanta is home of Coca-Cola which is one of the major sponsors for American Idol.
We were asked to get on our feet about an hour later to practice screaming, waving banners and the group song again in front of the cameras. As cheesy as this was, the Idol team cheerily kept up our energy levels by making us chants and sing routinely throughout the morning.
I was actually pleasantly surprised that Ryan Seacrest showed up to welcome us and shoot the introduction and sign off for this portion of the show. He was rumored to have a prior commitment earlier this week and unable to attend. His arrival was met with much enthusiasm. Seacrest was a charmer with the crowds pausing for hugs and photos amidst his camera cues.
We then had to yell more phrases into the cameras after Seacrest left, such as ‘Welcome to Atlanta’, ‘I am the next American Idol’ and ‘Welcome to the 7th season of America Idol in Atlanta’.
As strangers became friends and people practiced in the stands, the auditions finally began around 11 a.m.
Idol had 13 tables set up with curtained partitions on the field with at least 2 producers at each station. Row by row, we were asked to walk down to the football field, walk across the pitch, to line up in groups of four.
Once directly in front of the producers, each of us had to step forward and sing our first song. We were all cut off after the first verse and chorus of one song. I sang ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’ by Bonnie Rait.
Judges then asked us to step up to the table and we were given the their verdict.
Apparently, “even though we have great talent and good voices, we are not what Idol is looking for this season”. For what that’s worth!
Our wristbands were cut off our arm and we were promptly shown the exit. It was all over in a matter of minutes!
I pondered about what had just happened on my way to find my sister. Do I not have the right look? Was my voice not up to par? Was having another ‘token Indian’ on the show overkill due to the over exposure of Sanjaya last year?
I could ruminate over this endlessly but the fact of the matter is that I threw caution to the wind and while the audition felt somewhat like a poodle show overall, I will still watch Idol next year because I am passionate about singing and really just enjoy the show.
I am going to continue to sing and see where that takes me. American Idol won’t bring me down. I am game for karaoke with my coworker and friend Rodney Ho any day!
All I have left to say is oh well, another thing to scratch off my ‘’been there, done that’ list!
8/14: Constantine & Bert of Q100
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bert Weiss hated Constantine back in 2005 because he thought he was way too smug and self-important.
The Q100 team, while Bert was out last week, set him up by having Constantine show up without Bert’s knowledge. As Bert noted afterwards, it was a bit awkward until Bert owned up to his dislike of Constantine. Constantine took it well, seemed quite humbled since the competition.
Here’s a shot of the two of them Bert sent me. It’s pretty funny:
You can catch some of the audio here.
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8/14: Brittenum twins are back!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Okay, this is my last blog entry from the field at the Georgia Dome.
I was truly joyous when I heard the Brittenum twins have returned and made it past the first round. Here they are, dressed in dapper white, Derrell on the left and Terrell on the right:
To refresh your memory on the Brittenum twins from 2005’s Hollywood auditions, here’s a trip back in time, courtesy of msnbc.com.
The guys were brash and made overdramatic statements. Then they were booted after they were accused of identity theft in relation to a car they purchased..
They have returned humbled and ready to bring out the soul again. They had a tentative deal with SoSo Def Records soon after the controversy but they said it didn’t work out in the end, blaming an avaricious lawyer. They said they now do speeches about not succumbing to peer pressure at local high schools.
“It was a blessing” to be back, Terrell said, noting that all the producers knew who they were, as did many of the other folks at the tryout. “It was a family reunion.”
And Terrell promises that this time, if they make it to Hollywood, “I’m going to shut my mouth! I will be very tasteful.”
Then he pointed at a 16-year-old gal from Douglasville, Alexandrea Renee Lushington and proclaimed, “She is going to be the next American Idol!”
Check her photo out below. There was a lot of buzz about this gal and she, like Diana DeGarmo of years yore, has been singing for years, doing national anthems at Hawks and Braves games and such.
She struck me as very poised and mature, yet sweet. She also has a cool sense of style, wearing an old Boy Scouts uniform and hat she found at Junkman’s Daughter in Little Five Points. She said she sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” “I’m excited,” she said. “I’m proud of myself.” In fact, she was also the “fast pass” winner on Star 94’s “Idol” contest. This allowed her to jump to the front of the line during auditions.
Note: in 2005, the “fast pass” Star 94 winner was Mandisa Hundley, who ultimately finished in the top 10 that year. So don’t be surprised if we hear from Alexandrea again.
I finished my print story, too, so on this bizarrely multimedia day (video, blogging, pictures, print), I am hopefully done with “Idol.”
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8/14: Constantine, Ryan are here
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I managed to talk to both Constantine Maroulis and hometown boy Ryan Seacrest using the vidcam. I presume we’ll have video of my nascent attempts at broadcast journalism up later today. I’m sure I was awful. Ryan knows me and he teased me for my effort to ape the broadcast folks. For Ryan, this was literally a quick trip in and a quick trip out. He said he’ll have more time in October to see family and friends.
Constantine is here on behalf of Ganier, which is appropriate given his hair. His CD came out last week and he held it up to the camera, of course. His single “Everybody Loves,” he said, was cowritten by Atlanta singer/producer Angie Aparo.
It’s now just past 11. Auditions have finally started. They are allowing people with purple wristbands (contestants) and friends/family (orang wristbands) to go in and out, which is nice. Some folks think it’s too cold inside and come out for a bit of heat.
Here are some photos of Constantine and Ryan I took:
Brandon Rogers from season six interviews Ryan above. Ryan imitated Brandon to a tee. Brandon seemed vaguely embarrassed and bemused at the same time.
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8/14: Waiting for Seacrest
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s now just past 9 a.m. Everybody is inside the Dome — except Ryan Seacrest. They need him to do the “establishing” shot where he announced Atlanta auditions with thousands behind him. Without him, the auditions can’t start. He’s running a bit late.
The publicist said 15,000 people are inside. We got in early and checked out the scene. I counted the number of seats in each section and there are 14 sections filled, from one endzone til the middle of the other one. Each section holds about 870 people, so that comes out to roughly 12,000. So it’s fair to say 12,000 to 15,000 are inside and at least 8,000 of them are there to try out. There is plenty of food for sale, including nuts, bananas, apples and lemonade. No beer that I can ascertain. There were long lines for the women’s bathrooms since at least 2/3 of the contestants are female. Some women are getting their hair done, courtesy of new sponsor Garnier, which also has a karaoke stage set up where a guy was singing “Living on a Prayer” as we walked by.
We watched an “Idol” organizer explain the process, which is pretty much what we already know: there are 13 tables lined up from endzone to ednzone. People go down by sections, line up in fours and each get to sing for 15 to 30 seconds. The few folks who get the yellow ticket to the next round go to the left. The rest get their wristbands snipped and go to the right and their journey is over. Cut in line, the guy said, and you are out. And don’t argue with the producers if you don’t get through. “The producer’s word is final,” he said. “There’s no begging, no arguing.”
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8/14: Idol auditions continued
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The “Idol” organizers let people into the Dome early. Lines were apparently huge at 4 a.m. or so, an hour before I even got here. By 5 a.m., thousands were already inside. They kept a couple thousand in the outdoor plaza waiting for Ryan Seacrest but they abandoned that idea when they heard he was running late. So they were sent inside. (We thought they’d let them in around 8.) That kind of left us on the outside stuck without many folks to interview, save for a few stragglers who are registering late.
I spoke with Brandon Rogers, the 12th place finisher from season six auditions. He’s here for TV Guide Channel. Remember him? Nice guy. He said he heard that at least 15,000 people have registered to try out so I think that gave the organizers extra incentive to get the proceedings started as soon as possible. He said that was the biggest showing so far among the four audition cities so far (San Diego, Dallas, Omaha were the others). In Dallas, people were auditioning well into the evening and that could well happen again today.
The videographer Michael Lindsay and I taped about a dozen people singing for a Web site feature in which we’ll have you judge their abilities. We heard a lot of good, not great singing, the type of auditions that the first-round producers would reject outright simply because they were neither bad enough nor good enough. A couple of folks were really bad, though nobody was in William Hung territory. The last guy we interviewed did a hilariously awful version of “Dangerously in Love” with enough camp value that he could make it to Randy, Simon and Paula on that alone. I don’t think we saw the next “American Idol” in our sampling.
I then tried to do that trivia/Jaywalking concept and it failed miserably. It simply isn’t funny when people simply say “I have no idea!” over and over again. Oh, well. It makes me appreciate how tough it is to do “man on the street” interviews and make them amusing.
We’re awaiting a possible few moments with Seacrest. And there’s always Constantine.
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8/14: Audition day arrives
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Good morning blawgpound!
“Idol” wants to start on time so they are already letting people into the Georgia Dome at 5 a.m. A couple of thousands folks who got here really early were funneled to a plaza area by the Georgia Dome for “establishing shots,” in which Ryan Seacrest will introduce everybody with the big crowd behind him. Yes, hometown boy Ryan ended up coming after all. (I saw him on “Larry King Live” last night in New York talking about Merv Griffin so he must have flown in overnight.) It’s still dark so this shot won’t be taken until after 7.
A few hopefuls are actually sleeping on the concrete. Some are prepping songs on their iPods. Most are just hanging out, people watching, casing the competition, shooting the breeze. It appears some people did show up many many hours ago even thoughit really didn’t matter. People already have reserved spots inside.
Logistically, by having 80% of the people in the building by 8:30 a.m., they should be able to start auditions in time, which is no later than 10 a.m.
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