The Soo's Got Talent 2022 Finals Recap (Part 3!!)

We've put this off long enough, let's finally wrap up our finals coverage of this year's The Soo's Got Talent today! Of course, the finals took place at Soo Blaster on October 21st, with the final six performers (all singers with only one playing an instrument too) performing twice for the grand prize: once solo like in prior rounds, and once with local alternative hard rock quintet Handsome Sandwich as their backing band! In our first two finals posts from last week, we looked at each finalist's first performance in this post (along with guests), before checking out the first three finalists' songs with Handsome Sandwich in this post. As before, Passion Video Productions filmed all of these videos for the T.S.G.T. Facebook page, and Handsome Sandwich performed without singer Taylor Emlaw as they had finalists singing instead for the competition, though she did sing with them in the intermission.

It is worth noting that Handsome Sandwich did in fact learn the songs they played with all six finalists, rather than offering their setlist only, which must have been a fun challenge. Thanks to guitarist Mitch Sirie for the confirmation! Following finalists Nanette Garcia (Patti Smith's "Because The Night"), Colin Gasparelli (Edguy's "When A Hero Cries"), and Xavier Pelletier LeBoeuf (Pink's "Raise Your Glass"), the fourth finalist to perform twice was Ali Nisbett, who joined Handsome Sandwich for a cover of Blondie's "X Offender". This is early Blondie when they were at their most punk, which works well! Ali has a great stage presence with the full band backing her up, but and she has good energy, but I'm not quite sure that it's the best pick for her vocal range. Still fun, so give it a look below!

The penultimate finalist was Amanda Phillips, whose cover with Handsome Sandwich was of "The Story" by Brandi Carlile (not Belinda Carlisle). Assuming that contestants picked these songs rather than the judges' choice angle of years past, Amanda picked a winner here, as she delivers a very strong vocal performance of this folk rock favourite, and she seems more confident than ever! Interesting change of pace for Handsome Sandwich too, so give their performance a watch below!

Last but not least for the finalists was Maharlika Joy Servillon, who went way off board like Colin did for a full band cover, this time doing "Faster" by the Dutch symphonic metal band Within Temptation. Rare when I can evoke Sharon den Adel on the SMS! M.J. sings this one strongly and hits some good high notes in the process, and the band are a good fit here too (Mitch must love getting to play something like this!) Solid closer to the competitive portion of T.S.G.T., so give it a look below!

Guest performances aside, the next video was the drawing of the winners of the door prize & 50/50 draw that night, before host/co-organizer Barbara Rajnovich announced the winners, as chosen by judges Darren MacDonald, Mike Severin, Valerie Powley, and guest Tim Murphy. As you can see in the reveal video embedded below, the winner was.... Amanda Phillips, and after her closing song, that makes a lot of sense! M.J. Servillon and Nanette Garcia took second and third place each, with both receiving gift baskets for placing on the podium. Amanda's first place prize includes $1,000 and recording time with Mike Severin at his studio Muzicare North. Amanda was quoted in this SooToday article by Darren Taylor about the finals, where she noted that she does hope to record an album, and she addressed her past band work (in the Niagara Falls rock cover band Summerfield, she later moved here).

Darren got photos of each finalist and Handsome Sandwich in the article also, so definitely check those out too! Other videos & photos can be seen on the T.S.G.T. Facebook page, but most importantly, $3,608 was raised for the Brain Injury Association of Sault Ste. Marie & Area, so the charitable aims of this event are alive and well, and hopefully another good organization benefits next year! Give the award presentations a watch below, and congratulations to Amanda on winning The Soo's Got Talent!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this week! Thanks everyone!

The Soo's Got Talent 2022 Finals Recap (Part 1!!)

At long last, let's begin looking at the final results of this year's Soo's Got Talent competition, which ended on Friday, October 21st with the final round at Soo Blaster as expected! I do apologize for the delays in this making the site, Passion Video Productions uploaded their videos from the event on October 25th, but life and other SMS posts got in the way over the past two weeks. Everything pertinent from the six finalists, guest performers, and announcements can be seen on the T.S.G.T. Facebook page, so if you weren't in attendance on the 21st, what went down? Enough material for at least two SMS posts, that's what! The first video features introduction of the judges from co-organizer Barbara Rajnovich, and out first guest performance of the evening, courtesy of judge/ex-Obsession frontwoman Valerie Powley covering The Motels' "Only The Lonely". Not as hard rocking as Obsession often got with her, but strongly sung as you'd expect!

The opening performance of each of the six finalists (all singers only unless otherwise stated) and their respective judges' remarks were held next, starting with Nanette Garcia covering Adele's "Rolling In The Deep", followed by singer/guitarist Colin Gasparelli playing an apparent original song, possibly named "It's Alright". Xavier Pelletier LeBeouf (who was also a finalist in 2019 under a different first name) covered Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" next, with Ali Nisbett covering "Rolling In The Deep" again as the fourth performer, but with a twist. Here, she's singing the song overtop an instrumental backing track of Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger", a mash-up that has existed online since not long after the Adele song came out. At least this way, Nanette and Ali didn't verbatim do the same song, so hopefully there was no conflict, but the slower intro for Nanette's is also a variation.

"Eye of the Tiger" is a hard rock song, overplayed as it may be, so hearing a totally different song fit it so well is neat, and Ali sings this one very well! Remember that she did cover Journey in the semifinals too, so classic rock is not entirely unexpected from her. Give Ali's mashup cover a look below!

Fifth up was Amanda Phillips covering Andra Day's "Rise Up", and the first half of the finalist performances ended with Maharlika Joy (or M.J.) Servillon covering The Fugees' version of "Killing Me Softly". Next we got the intermission performance by local alternative hard rock quintet Handsome Sandwich, who played two original songs, namely "No Idea" (which is brand new unless it's only been played live) and their early, pre-Rafael original "Bitter". Very fun and lively performances from Handsome Sandwich, which will no doubt continue the good momentum towards the release of "Lettuce" (albeit allegedly not coming until May), and this gives Taylor a chance to sing before handing the mic off to the other finalists! We'll save those performances for our next post due to the amount, as I want to spotlight all six on the site, but give Handsome Sandwich's intermission songs a watch below!

To close today's post, let's jump ahead to the judges' deliberations, where 2019 Soo's Got Talent winner Adrian Sullivan returned for two guest songs! This mirrors that year's event, when then-reigning 2018 champion Daniella Brewer returned for a guest performance at the finals, so might this year's winner do the same next fall? At the time of his win in 2019, Adrian was working on his to-debut local band The Uncanny Valley, whose psychedelic-tinged hard rock has become a popular rising sight at local concerts, but neither of his songs here ("Carry On" & "Bleeding Soul") are familiar as Uncanny Valley originals. That said, you can hear "Carry On" and many other early solo songs of Adrian's on his Soundcloud page (under the name "Adrian Taylor"), which he updated through the spring of 2020. As acoustic performances, neither is overly heavy in this form, but both are well done!

Adrian has a good handle on 1970s singer-songwriter type music, and if these were adapted to The Uncanny Valley, they could easily be pumped up to match! Good stuff, so give Adrian's performance a look below! Full disclosure, returning guest judge Tim Murphy did not perform a song as advertised on the event posters (if he did, Passion Video didn't upload it).

Our next T.S.G.T. post(s?) will cover the second song from the finalists, where they all performed with the instrumentalists in Handsome Sandwich for a song each, so how do they do with a live band? Find out then, with other news and notes to follow on the site also! Thanks everyone!