American Idol Tour

Last Saturday, July 19th the American Idol Tour came into town and played at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont to a sold out show. When I decided to go to this concert I had no idea what to expect, because I had never been to any like this before. This concert was the top ten finalists of the hit T.V. show American Idol performing and singing songs of their choice. It turned out to be a lot better than I ever imagined. Before the concert the contestants came outside to meet all of their fans, except for the two finalists. This was extremely nice to do, since it was raining outside, and I'm sure they probably did not want to be outside. The contestants were all extremely nice, and each of them was more than happy to meet all of their loyal fans. The doors finally opened, and everyone got inside. I went straight to where the merchandise was being sold. Of course the shirts were such a rip off; the prices started at 35 dollars and even went all the way up to 60 dollars. I decided not to buy a shirt, I didn't even think of bringing that much money to the concert. It was seven p.m. and the show was finally ready to begin. Like most concerts this one did not start on time. Instead an energetic and annoying man went on stage, and said he was the host for the concert. For about half an hour he gave out free t-shirts to the audience, and got us pumped up and ready for the show. I was not amused by this, since I wanted to see the contestants perform. Finally the host left the stage and the 10th finalist came on the stage. The first person to start off the concert was Chikezie. I mostly remembered him from the show because of his name, but not because of his vocal skills. Even so, he still did pretty well at the concert. He is a great performer and knows how to work the crowd, plus his voice was a lot better than I remembered it being on the show. He started off the show with a bang, and I could not wait to see what the next performer had in store. The 9th finalist was Ramiele Malubay, and she came on next. She was the very tiny Filipino with the very big and great voice. Her voice sounded better than ever on the stage that night. She came on the stage dancing and singing her heart out, and left the same way. It was very hard to top her performance, but the 8th finalist did it with ease. After Malubay my favorite contestant from this season performed. It was the Australian singer Michael Johns and he sang with perfection. He came on singing his medley of the two hit Queen songs "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions", which was fantastic. He then went on to sing a blues type of song, and ended his performance with the song that got him sent home, "Dream On". Johns sang better than he did on the show, which is very hard to believe, and I never wanted his time on the stage to end. Kristy Lee Cook, the 7th finalist came on next. I have to admit that she was my least favorite contestant on the show; I am not really fond of country music. Even so I must say that she did do pretty well at the concert. Even though I am not her biggest fan she still did great especially when she sang "God Bless the U.S.A", which seemed to be the biggest hit of the night. Next up was another one of my favorite contestants, the Irish woman Carly Smithson. She came out with a bang singing a song from the popular rock group Evanescence. She even sang a great rendition of a song from her favorite group Heart. Smithson was definitely one of the top performers of the night, and I am sure she will become very famous. The final contestant to perform before a short intermission started was the happy-go-lucky nanny, Brooke White. She also did a fabulous job by starting off her show by singing the Beatles' hit "Let it be". She then proceeded to say how the whole audience was rays of sunshine and sweetness, which made me laugh a little. White ended the show with Coldplay’s most popular song "Yellow", which was great. During the intermission the annoying host came out again, and made a note to talk about all of this tour sponsors. After fifteen minutes of this, the 4th finalist finally came out, and was surprisingly good. It was the crazy and sometimes delusional Jason Castro. He sang the appropriate song called "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. Jason opened up this song by saying it is dedicated to all the crazy brained people out there just like him. Even though he was not so great on the show Jason sang wonderfully at the concert that night. Next was Syesha Mercado, whose first song was the mega hit "Umbrella". Unfortunately she took the wrong microphone, so the audience could not hear her. Like a true performer, she kept on going on as if she didn't notice, until finally one of the crew members came out and gave her the right microphone. The rest of her set was great, and she had a beautiful voice. Then one of the most popular contestants on the show came out, David Archuleta. All of the little girls went wild as he came out, and the screams were extremely loud. He did a wonderful job performing the songs "Angles", "Stand by me", and "Beautiful Girls". I could tell why all the little girls liked him so much, he was a great performer, but very modest about it. Finally David Cook came on, and he was just amazing. He did all of his most popular songs from the show, and even some he never sang before. He was a natural performer, and did everything with ease. Cook could not stop mentioning how grateful he was to be there, and you could really tell he was having the "Time of his Life". He sang one of my favorite songs "Hero" by the Foo Fighters. Cook dedicated the song to his brother Adam who is in the hospital. I am sure if his brother saw him singing that he would be very proud. Cook ended with his rendition of the song "Billie Jean", and it was amazing. I could tell that he will be another one of the idol contestants that will become huge, and he definitely deserves it. The show ended with the whole top ten singing Rhianna's hit "Please Don’t Stop the Music". It was the perfect way to end such a great show, but I wished it went on for longer. The concert turned out to be wonderful, and a lot better than expected. Except for the few annoyances, like the host. If I like a lot of the contestants on next season's American Idol, I will definitely come back to this concert next year to see them.