The Soo's Got Talent 2022 Second Round Recap!!

After a few days looking at other topics, let's refocus on catching up with The Soo's Got Talent today, specifically the second round action at Soo Blaster on Friday, September 16th! As you may recall, the 15 highest voted competitors of the 24 qualified contestants the previous week were sent through the round 2 by judges Darren Robertson, Mike Severin, and Valerie Powley, with the videos from that night being shot once again by Passion Video Productions and uploaded to the T.S.G.T. Facebook page on September 22nd. In terms of videos strictly from the 16th, the first uploaded was erroneously included in our coverage of the first round performance, for which I apologize (there's a lot of videos to go through!), but it features introductions from MC/co-organizer Barbara Rajnovich and a guest cover of Aaron Lewis' "Tell It Like It Is" by Valerie. Now to the 15 quarterfinalists, who were whittled down to 10 at night's end, and like before, acts who advanced to the following round are noted with their name in italics.

From this point on, all performers are singers, but three featured guitar in their set. In performance order, the first artist up was Lori Vaidelis (Bruno Mars' "Locked Out Of Heaven"), diverting from her prior classic hard rock base here. Second was Sarah Vikken, who picked up where she left off the previous week with a pop punk/emo cover, this time Fall Out Boy's "Young Volcanoes". I admit, I'm not a Fall Out Boy fan, but she sings this one with good energy and enthusiasm, and you can tell she's a fan to go with a fourth single from a newer album of theirs. Give Sarah's round 2 performance a look below!

Singer/guitarist Colin Gasparelli (his own original song "The Message") follows, with Kat Long (Anna Nalick's "Breathe [2 AM]") enlisting fellow competitor Jason Morbin to play guitar for her performance. Fifth was Stan Fera (Grand Funk Railroad's "Some Kind Of Wonderful"), followed by Xavier Pelletier Leboeuf tackling Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life" next, and what a turnaround from Celine Dion the previous week, especially with that magnificent goth wardrobe! Xavier didn't do the Paul McCoy parts, FYI. Nice melodic voice, if not yet super aggressive, and a promising young talent to be sure, so give Xavier's cover a look below!

Ensuing perfomers included Christopher Halliday (Billie Eilish's "Happier Than Ever"), Nanette Garcia (Nicki Minaj's "Superbass"), singer/guitarist Jason Morbin (The Beatles' "Rocky Raccoon"), Wendy Hord (Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats"), Ali Nisbett (Idina Menzel & Kristin Chenoweth's "Defying Gravity"), and Deuteronomy Nigas (Edwin McCain's "I'll Be"), with lucky 13th being classic rock singer Greg McLeod, who returned to heavier waters here to cover Bad Company's "Feel Like Making Love". To an extent, I think Greg may have been forcing his voice here, but he gets the job done and has the look down, so don't bypass his second round song below!

The final two performers of round 2 were M.J. Servillon (Kevyn Letteau's "Sunlight") and Amanda Phillips (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "Can't Hold Us"). You can see Darren reveal the 10 semifinalists (and Barbara conduct that night's 50/50 draw) in the video embedded below, and of course, the Terrific Ten returned for the semifinals at Soo Blaster on October 1st, which I hope to cover on the site this weekend. I will say that I'd like to have seen Lori and Sarah advance just based on genre preference for what they played in 2 of their 3 filmed songs, but hopefully everyone stays musically active in some form, and give the semifinalist reveal a watch below!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!

Our Recap Of The Soo's Got Talent's 2022 Audition Videos!!

I apologize for being so out of the loop on its return this year, but The Soo's Got Talent is underway for its third installment, and the finals take place on Friday, October 21st at Soo Blaster! Unlike in the last installment in 2019 (the event was not held the last two years due to pandemic restrictions), media has primarily been Facebook exclusive, so if you've missed out on the competition so far, Facebook will be your source for footage of every performance so far, with Passion Video Productions manning the cameras this year. In fact, if you go through the T.S.G.T. Facebook page, you'll find performance videos of the actual competitors, a guest band (more on them this week), judges, exit interviews and even from the auditions at the Wacky Wings on Great Northern Road in late August. Given that this is the Sault Metal Scene, I'll absolutely highlight the heavier or punk covers that come along in videos from prior rounds in date order.

There are some familiar names among the initial 24 qualifiers for the first round at Soo Blaster on September 9th, all being solo acts, and they are singers unless otherwise stated. Starting with the auditions, 19 performers at Wacky Wings were filmed for Facebook across five videos, all of which advanced to the first round, plus one guest. The first video featured Deuteronomy Nigas (Rick Price's "Heaven Knows"), Wendy Hord (Bob Dylan's "Make You Feel My Love"), singer/keyboardist Colin Gasparelli (an apparent original song that may be named "Clockwork"), and singer/guitarist Jason Morbin (Everclear's "I Will Buy You A New Life"). The second video (embedded below) starts with the first filmed hard rock performance of the auditions, with Lori Vaidelis covering Aerosmith's hit ballad "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing". Very Cyndi Lauper-ish tone to her voice, interesting to hear!

After a clip of auditioner Christopher Halliday (Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide"), we get Maharlika Joy (or M.J.) Servillon covering Evanescence's very pretty ballad "My Immortal", and she sticks close to Amy Lee's vocals in this cover, if not as confident yet (which is understandable). Promising though! The final performer in this video is dancer Yousef Al Islam, who did a routine to Marshmello's "Shockwave", even wearing his own homemade Marshmello mask for the occasion! Entertaining performances here, so give them a look below!

The third video features auditions from Amanda Phillips (The 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up") and singer/guitarist Steven Jensen, whose harmonica-infused folk song doesn't have lyrics that I can make out, and they honestly sound French to my ears. The last artist on that video is local drag perfomer Bebe Lala doing a dance routine to Nicki Minaj's "Starships" as a non-competition guest. The fourth video has five auditioning performers, starting with Nanette Garcia (Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful"), Stan Fera (a completely acapella rendition of Tony Rich's "Nobody Knows"), and Katherine Long (Sara Evans' "Suds In The Bucket"), but we get a hard rock performance next via Greg McLeod covering Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed". Very workmanlike cover, but good enthusiasm and rasp to his voice, and I do think his vocal style would be better served on a heavier song, so there is definitely something here!

The final performer on the fourth video is Sarah Vikken (Tony Orlando & Dawn's "Knock Three Times"). Everyone gives a solid performance in their own right, as anyone who saw advancing performers last month is aware, so give all five singers a watch at this link! I can't embed this particular video on the SMS, as at least one of the backing tracks was flagged by Facebook for a content match. As for the fifth and final audition video posted to Facebook, the first performer was Ali Nisbett (Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back To Me Now"), before Ricky Roy tackled the 1990s post-grunge classic "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" by Fuel. Definitely a younger entrant based on his voice, and while there is an unsteadiness there, hopefully Ricky keeps at it, good to see him tackle a heavier song here! The other performers here include Andrea "Butterfly Singer" Dantzer ("A Million Dreams" from The Greatest Showman")...

...and Dave Delair (Toby Keith's "Dream Walkin'). Four very different singers on offer here, but everyone performs well to their abilities, so give them a watch for yourselves below, and more from the auditions above!

Post-audition interviews by returning judge Darren Robertson with Greg McLeod, Nanette Garcia, Lori Vaidelis, an unmasked Yousef Al Islam, and the otherwise unfilmed Brooke Coghill were also uploaded to the T.S.G.T. Facebook page if you're curious to hear more about them in and out of the competition. The other unfilmed round 1 qualifiers from the audition level were Elizabeth Budge, Selena Oulette, Senta Saylor, and Xavier Pelletier LeBeouf, no word on if them & Brooke were in a video that had technical or copyright difficulties or not. We'll dip into the first round competition at Soo Blaster in our next The Soo's Got Talent post, hopefully coming this week, so stay tuned for that and more soon! Thanks everyone!