America Idol Top 9....

p/s: copypaste from yahoo web....
Posted Wed Apr 14, 2010 7:35pm PDT by Lyndsey Parker in Reality Rocks
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At the end of last week's "American Idol" results show, everybody was in high spirits, all smiles and giggles, because the Judges' Save was used to spare lovable Michael Lynche and no one actually went home. The delighted contestants subsequently whooped it up onstage as if they'd all won the show in a nine-way tie and had all been handed six-figure record contracts by Simon Fuller himself. But once the curtain fell and the confetti settled, the top nine probably realized they shouldn't have been so dang happy after all.

Why? Because the judges' decision last week created real and lasting consequences for the top nine. With the one Judges' Save already gone, relatively early in the season, all the finalists would be performing without a safety net from then on. And this week, not one but two contestants would be eliminated, to get the series back on schedule.

So the mood onstage this Wednesday night, on the live double-elimination results show, was noticeably more somber. And Ryan Seacrest wasted no time delivering the kissoff to the evening's first castoff, Andrew Garcia, bluntly blurting, "It's the end of the road!" only 14 minutes into the hourlong broadcast. Perhaps Ryan was just especially eager to FINALLY give Andrew the ol' heave-ho, since many viewers (myself included) thought the dude should have left the show long, lonnnnng ago.

Andrew's swan song performance, of James Morrison's "You Give Me Something"--the ballad he underwhelmingly performed early in the season, as a first indication that his memorable "Straight Up" Hollywood Week performance had actually been a fluke--was no better this time around. It only proved that America had finally gotten it right. But to Andrew's credit, he was extremely gracious, expressing nothing but total gratitude for his "Idol" experience despite all its ups and downs--and the cold-hearted, blindsiding manner in which Ryan hit him with the bad news.

(So, see ya on the Idols Live Tour, Andrew. Make sure you play "Straight Up." You took away top 10 spots from Alex Lambert and Lilly Scott, so it's the least you can do to make amends.)
I'd predicted that Andrew would leave this week, but one of the first spared contestants of the evening was actually Aaron Kelly, the second singer I'd expected to go. Instead, the other three contestants up for elimination were Michael Lynche, Katie Stevens, and Tim Urban--all surprises, since I thought Michael's "In the Ghetto" number was the finest performance of Elvis Night, and I thought both Katie and Tim seriously stepped it up on Tuesday. My biggest fear was that Michael might end up getting eliminated, thus rendering his whole Judges' Save hoopla from last week moot.

But then, after sending Tim back to the safety of the stools, Ryan slyly revealed that Mike had actually never been in the bottom three in the first place. It was in fact Katie's time to go. Katie, who always came off to me as robotic and icy on this show, startlingly exhibited her first signs of genuine emotion upon learning her fate, breaking into girlish tears as she was consoled by her castmates. But at least she went out on a literal high note, delivering a solid final performance of "Let It Be." I agree with America's decision to cut Katie, but I do think she exited the show with dignity.

Side note, here: Wasn't Season 9 supposed to be a girls' season? Well, if you're doing the math at home, readers, then you already know that only TWO of the remaining seven contestants are female. Siobhan Magnus and Crystal Bowersox stand alone. Sure, both ladies have great shots at making it all the way to the finale, but still, this doesn't seem like a "girls' season" to me. Perhaps the "Idol" powers-that-be underestimated the text-voting enthusiasm of America's many female tweens, who are keeping popular boy-toys like Tim Urban and Aaron Kelly in the race, or the speed-dialing prowess of America's randy thirtysomething housewives, who are throwing their full support at the rugged Casey James and Lee Dewyze.

Well, anyway, speaking of popular male contestants, at least there was one truly exciting performance this evening: Midshow, this week's mentor and Season 8's runner-up, Adam Lambert, was thrillingly beamed down to the stage, standing atop a grid of "TRON"-style lasers and shrouded in the fog of an overactive dry-ice machine, looking like a finalist from "Mars Idol" in his silver spacesuit. And after Sir Glambert belted out "Whataya Want From Me" near a cappella, in near darkness, Ryan raved, "Now that's a performance!"--in what seemed to be a very thinly veiled dig at the top nine, all of whom have failed to measure up to last season's overall awesomeness.

So, remember how on Tuesday Adam advised Andrew Garcia to be less boring, and told all the contestants to "wake up a little"? Well, this is what he was talking about. I sure hope the top seven were taking notes.