AI Outcome

Well, I'm not going to try to convince anyone that the entire audition process for American Idol was fun, because it was painful drudgery. But I'll share the experience with you just in case one of our other nieces or nephews decides they also want to pursue this dream.

Sunday morning we picked up our wristbands and tickets for the Tuesday audition. Then because we weren't sure about how the order of auditions would be determined, we drove up Monday night and slept in the parking lot, then got up at 4am on Tuesday and wandered over to the Energy Solutions Arena to get a good spot in line. It turns out being near the front of the line didn't matter, since it was the number on the ticket that we picked up on Sunday that made the difference.

So at 8:00am they brought us in the arena and sat us in the bleacher seats to wait our turn for the audition. Then then started the auditions section by section and finally got to our section around 2pm. Consequently, we had a lot of time to observe from a distance the likelyhood of getting selected since the auditions were held on the main arena floor. There were 11 booths with one to two "screeners" in each booth. They would have four contestants stand in front of them and then one at a time they would be asked to take a step forward front and center to sing their song. If they didn't like you, you were done. If they liked you, they would ask you to sing another song. If they really liked you they would ask you to sing a third song. After each song they would put their clipboards over their faces and confer and decide if you were worthy of the golden ticket. Almost everyone who sang a third song received a golden ticket. So prior to Alex's audition, there were probably 25 who had received a golden ticket - basically a pass to get through to the next round of auditions.

So now it was Alex's turn and of the group of four he was in, he was the last one to sing. The other three before him were only asked to sing one song. After Alex sang his first song, he stepped back into line and after a minute of writing their notes, they asked him to sing a second song. Then they put their clipboards in front of their faces to confer. Although I could not hear from where I was sitting, Alex told me later how things went down. They then asked him to sing a third song, something contemporary (his first song was "NY State of Mind" by Billy Joel, and his second was a Frank Sinatra song). Alex asked them what they'd like him to sing. They said something from Jon Meyer or another artist like him. Alex owns every album by Jon Meyer, but he blanked. He couldn't remember a single song. He asked them to pick a Jon Meyer song for him to sing (I think hoping it would trigger his memory), but they declined. So they put their clipboards in front of their faces one more time and because Alex couldn't think of a contemporary song to sing, they sent him packing. No golden ticket!

So Alex is being pretty pragmatic about things. I have a couple of free airline tickets Southwest owes me from all the traveling I did on their airline last year, and I offered to use them to go to another audition venue so Alex could get another crack at it, but he elected not to take me up on my offer. He says what's done is done and it just wasn't meant to be AND that he'd rather earn his musical stripes rather than having fame handed to him relatively easy. His alleged philosophy is the speed at which your star rises is equivalent to the speed at which it falls back down. So Tammy, I'm sorry if your girls are disappointed that he didn't make it. If he had made it through this round, he would have had two more rounds of judging to make it through before even getting in front of Randy, Paula and Simon, so he could have been cut at any step along the way.