With less than a week to go before The Soo's Got Talent crowns its third winner, let's belatedly recap what went down at the semifinals at Soo Blaster on Saturday, October 1st! As before, remaining contestants were judged by judges Darren Robertson, Mike Severin, and Valerie Powley, with Passion Video Productions on hand once again to film everything for the T.S.G.T. Facebook page, with videos being posted on October 5th. All ten surviving contestants are singers (with two also featuring guitar), with finalists noted in italics, and like in past years, each contestant got two performances for making it this far. From how the videos are edited, each semifinalist performed once for the judges, were scored based on that song, and then returned after everyone else sang once to tackle one non-scored song each, some with wardrobe changes. First up was Greg McLeod, who tackled two classic rock songs.
He first covered Electric Light Orchestra's "Rock N' Roll Is King" for the judges, then wore a Team Canada jersey to cover The Tragically Hip's "Blow At High Dough". Second on the 1st was
Wendy Hord, who brought in a friend named Jeff (not a prior competitor) to do an original song for the judges that may have been titled "Four Leaf Clover". Her second Jeff-less song was a cover of Kaye Ballard's "Fly Me To The Moon". Third was
Christopher Halliday, whose for-scoring cover was of Ben E. King's "Stand By Me", following that by tackling Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn". Next we had
Xavier Pelletier Leboeuf, who sang Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" before singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", complete with a huge wardrobe change into Ann Wilson-ish attire. The first half concluded with singer/guitarist
Colin Gasparelli with an original possibly named "Walk Away" before doing a cover(!) of Styx's "Suite Madame Blue".
Semifinalist #6 is
Nanette Garcia who covered the Whitney Houston version of "I Will Always Love You" and "Titanium" by David Guetta featuring Sia. She was followed by
Amanda Phillips for covers of Lady Gaga's "You & I" and Gretchen Wilson's "Here For The Party", with
Deuteronomy Nigas up next to cover Michael Bolton's "Go The Distance" and Mariah Carey's "Always Be My Baby". The penultimate contestant was
Maharlika Joy Servillon, who covered Toni Braxton's "Un-Break My Heart" & Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)". The semifinals closed with
Ali Nisbett, who covered Idina Menzel's "Let It Go" (complete with blue Elsa-style dress) and a plainclothes but enthusiastic cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'". Not a whole lot here for hard rock/metal fans, with Greg's songs and Colin & Ali's AOR rock covers likely to pique SMS reader interest the most, so head there first if you're a "rock or bust" type.
As noted in
italics and
the reveal video from the 1st, Xavier, Colin, Nanette, Amanda, M.J., and Ali were sent through by the judges to the finals THIS FRIDAY at Soo Blaster, so consider this a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, as all six will be performing with round 1 guest performers
Handsome Sandwich as a backing band! Apologies for the short notice on only getting to the finals now, I wanted to cover all prior rounds on the SMS first so the timeline of events was maintained. Of course, Handsome Sandwich have been on the T.S.G.T. radar since the summer, and after rocking out with songs from their forthcoming debut album on September 9th, now they'll provide a full live backing track for the finalists. Not sure if this was always the plan given that not every contestant was a singer, and how this will work on FRIDAY isn't entirely clear (i.e. how many covers do they know/are willing to learn, how will Taylor be involved), but it'll be interesting to find out!
Also no word on if Handsome Sandwich will bring their own hard rock/alternative originals back for any portion of the night. Also advertised on FRIDAY is judge/ex-Obsession singer Valerie Powley for another guest performance, while prolific local stage actor/musician Tim Murphy will return as a guest judge and finals performer. The finals take place on FRIDAY at 5:00 PM, this is an all ages event, and admission is $15 at the door or $10 for kids 12 and under, with proceeds going to The Brain Injury Association of Sault Ste. Marie & District. Should be an exciting conclusion to The Soo's Got Talent III, so visit the above links for complete details, and stay tuned for more on the site next week! Thanks everyone!
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