Let's take a look at the first official round of the third annual The Soo's Got Talent competition today, and again, apologies for the delay in our coverage of this event! As you may know, The Soo's Got Talent returned to its 2019 home of Soo Blaster for the round of 24 on Friday, September 9th, with the 15 highest scoring competitors advancing to the second round one week later. Like in 2018 & 2019, the shows from this point on were publically attendable, and proceeds for T.S.G.T. are going to the Brain Injury Association of Sault Ste. Marie & District. Great cause! As covered on SooToday, this year's judges included local musician Darren Robertson (who judged both previous installments), Borderline radio host Mike Severin (a returnee from 2019), and ex-Obsession frontwoman Valerie Powley, replacing Lesley Walsh Tibbin, while 705Live have been manning the sound. With all of that said, what all went down during round #1 last month?
Local film company
Passion Video Productions are taking care of all official video footage for the public rounds, and all were posted to
the T.S.G.T. Facebook page on September 21st & 22nd, so let's look at the first half today. The first video uploaded from the first round is actually of
introductions by co-organizer, theatre director, and my old librarian at Bawating, Barbara Rajnovich, followed by video of a guest song by Valerie Powley, namely a vocal cover of Aaron Neville's
"Tell It Like It Is". Bit of a leap from what we're used to her singing live, but her performance is as strong as you'd expect! Like you saw in 2019, videos from round #1 feature each performer's full song or routine, followed by judges' remarks. As it turns out, the first 12 performers were all just singers, and if they advanced to the round of 15, their name is in
italics. In order, the first performer that night was
Stan Fera (Burton Cummings'
"Break It To Them Gently").
Afterwards is the first of five qualifiers who did
not get an audition video from Wacky Wings, namely
Xavier Pelletier LeBeouf (Celine Dion's
"My Heart Will Go On"). Further performers include Dave Delair (Toby Keith's
"Should've Been A Cowboy")
Katherine Long (Miranda Lambert's
"Mama's Broken Heart"),
Deuteornomy Niegas (Jimmy Bondoc's
"Let Me Be The One"), Andrea "Butterfly Singer" Dantzer (Aubrey Woods'
"The Candy Man"), and
Greg McLeod (Gordon Lightfoot's
"If You Could Read My Mind"). Next is another performer unfilmed at the auditions, that being Elizabeth Budge (Adele's
"Hello"), with
Amanda Phillips up right after with another Adele song (
"When We Were Young"). Tenth up was
Sarah Vikken, and in a steep change from Tony Orlando at the auditions, she covered My Chemical Romance's "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" for her round #1 song!
Definitely wasn't expecting a cover of the pop punk/emo stalwarts here, and while M.C.R. may not be the first thought for a vocal showcase at a talent competition, but Sarah is more than okay here (I promise!) Kudos to her for getting up there and letting loose like this, she could do more punk & alternative music if she wanted, and give it a look for yourself below!
Next in the first round was Ricky Roy (Slander ft. Dylan Matthew's
"Love Is Gone"), but we'll stop for today with the last performer of the first half of the first round, namely
Lori Vaidelis, who covered Guns N' Roses'
"Sweet Child O Mine". After doing Aerosmith in the auditions, this does give a sense as to her musical preference, and her distinctive Cyndi Lauper-esque voice is on full display here. Her asides to the crowd and apparent sense of humour seem to come so easily to her also, which is great to see. Has she thought about getting into a band? Unfortunately, I can't embed Lori's round #1 video here, as Facebook content-matched the karaoke cover of "Sweet Child O Mine" used here, but give it a look at the link above! It's not my place to in-depth critique every aspect of the performers when many aren't established musicians already, but Darren, Mike, and Valerie offer kind and constructive criticism of each at the end.
Of course, most round #1 performers would return the following week, so you know that there's a lot of talent on display, which is readily obvious when you watch these videos. Plus, this is just the first half of The Soo's Got Talent III, so check out the opening round so far linked above, and we'll be back with the second half next week! Thanks everyone!
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