American Idol Tour Season 10

American Idol Tour Season 10, a set on Flickr.

The day they announced when tickets would go on sale, I set the date/time as an appointment on my iPhone, with a 24 hour alert. When the alert went off, I notified Julie that her ticket acquisition skills would be needed, and she warmed up her TicketMaster muscles in order to secure us the fabulous tickets she did. As has become our tradition, we also each scheduled a day off for post concert sleeping in, which worked out well this year since the day after the concert was the Friday of Labor Day weekend.

We did manage to get a spot in the parking garage across the street from Worcester's DCU Center, but we were on the sixth floor, which meant a LONG time of sitting and waiting to exit after the show. Made for a short walk to the entrance, however. We did get there about 15 minutes after scheduled start, but I don't think we missed much. Paul was singing as we took our seats (floor, row S), and he's my least favorite of this year's bunch.

In past years (this is our third), the format was very countdown oriented and sectioned. This year it was really well planned, and while they did have the solo performances in order of elimination, the flow was much smoother, with the duets, small and large group numbers integrated so it seemed more like a single show than a series of performers.

There was a pre- or early teen girl in the row ahead of us, sporting a hand painted, "Give Metal a Chance," in homage to James Durban. Speaking of James D., he was the only one to make an audience entrance, which happened to bring him within perhaps ten feet of us as he crossed the floor. Julie was ecstatic.

The first photo above is James and Lauren Alaina performing simultaneous stage leaps - awesome! Click on the yellow flickr link to go through the whole set. Many of the photos have additional comments.

Directly in front of me was a budding videographer, who at maybe seven or eight years of age spent the whole concert standing on her seat, waving her multicolored flashing light stick in her left hand, while steadfastly recording the whole show on her iPhone. While wearing a fabulous poofy ballet skirt, no less. I do expect to see her at the Academy Awards one day.

I was disappointed with Thia and Pia's numbers, as they really went pop, rather than the jazzy (Thia) or ballad (Pia) numbers they do so well.

Everyone did really well, although Stefano still seems like he's doing his best to sing how he thinks a boy band hunk would sing. The low point was when he walked out onto the forward stage extension and peeled off his t-shirt in order to finish out his song topless. Cheese-fest, but the teens loved it, based solely on the squeal-fest that ensued.

Even the American Idol himself, Scotty McCreery, did very well, and I found myself dancing despite myself.

Another great Idol night. Can't wait for Season 11.

My rating: Transwarp (5 star)
Julie's rating: Hole in One (5 star)