X Factor Blog: Let the live shows begin!

X Factor live shows! This is what we’ve been building up to for so many weeks now. The final 17 has been selected and it’s time to see what they’re really made of when given a proper stage and full on performance.

I’m going to get my biggest gripe out of the way right now. Having TV3 cut the first live show in half was disappointing. The whole idea is the show is meant to be “hot of the satellite” and screening the second half tonight doesn’t feel very hot considering the fact that if you’re following The X Factor US on twitter or reading about it on the internet then you already know who’s going home. Would it have killed TV3 to just play the whole show last night?

In case you missed what was happening last night, the twist this year in X Factor (started in the UK version for the first time this year as well) is that during the first live show all the acts perform and then the judges pick one (or two in Simon’s case) act that they are going to send home. I don’t like it much. Once it gets to the live shows the point is that the public are meant to have a say, and it just removes that say for one more week. I would have preferred something where they each nominated one act and the public got to vote to keep one act in, but alas, not the case.

So last night we got to hear the boys, the groups and one of Nicole’s over 30’s, so it led to a really oddly timed cut when after Dexter’s performance we were suddenly told to tune in tomorrow night to find out what happens to everyone else.

Brian Bradley who is now going by the name of Astro (credible rapper name it is not) opened the show with Kriss Kross’s Jump….wow, what a way to open the show. If anyone had any doubts as to him being there they should certainly be gone now. Chris Rene came on next with Love Don’t Live Here Anymore. He lived up to my limited expectations from his auditions very well, I thought he was boring. Especially compared to the next two performances from Phillip Lomax (I’m A Believer) and Marcus Canty (Do You Really Want To Hurt Me). While Phillip’s song choice by LA was a little twee he showed a lot of potential and has an amazing amount of charisma on stage, I would loved to have seen what he could have gone on to do. Marcus, like Astro just owned the stage, he was great. Alas though, Chris got through and Phillip was sent home, a mistake on LA’s part I believe.

The groups were a category I was excited to see as they traditionally never seem to do that well in other countries versions of X Factor so I was looking forward to seeing what America could put together and what Paula could do with them (she is the ideal judge for that category I think). The Stereo Hoggz kicked it off with Try A Little Tenderness. It was good to see they’d loosened up a bit on stage, and so came off as polished and a tight knit act opposed to over rehearsed which is what we’ve seen so far during the audition stages. The Brewer Boys were…strange. The whole barn dance hoe-down thing going on during their performance didn’t work, neither did their mashup of Rich Girl/Faith. I still don’t really understand them as an act. InTENsity were everything I was hoping for. Sure it was a cross between Disney and Glee, but it was fun and well put together and I want them to stay in for a while. Lakoda Rayne had an odd song choice for a pop/country quartet but they looked amazing and have the most commercial appeal out of all the groups. They still have some work to do, but they are poster perfect to sell millions. I just wish they’d gone for more of a country song as the song choice itself didn’t marry with the styling. As it happens, The Brewer Boys were sent home (thank goodness Paula, not sure why they went through in the first place).

We got one last act, the first of Nicole’s over’s Dexter Haygood. He was everything I was expecting, camp, over the top, weird, and not that good, but still enjoyable to watch. The song choice though was awful. For someone that auditioned with James Brown’s It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World, being given a mashup of Britney Spears and Katy Perry was a grossly unsuccessful attempt to modernize him. He sounded off and looked uncomfortable.

And that was it for last night. Tonight we get to find out the fate of Dexter and the rest of the over’s as well as Simon’s big decision in the girls category. Two of them are going home. What did people think of the performances last night? What about the judges choices so far? And who are you hoping to see go home in the over’s and the girls? Leave a comment below and let me know!

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