The Soo's Got Talent 2022 First Round Recap (Part 2!!)

Rather than put off our coverage of The Soo's Got Talent's first round performances any further, let's cover the last 12 opening round performers (and more) today! In case you don't look at yesterday's post on the first half of the Friday, September 9th event at Soo Blaster, just a reminder that judges Darren Robertson, Mike Severin, and Valerie Powley were on hand to help send the 15 highest scoring performers to the second round one week later. Passion Video Productions filmed all performers for the T.S.G.T. Facebook page (uploaded two weeks later), Mike Blair handled the sound with his 705Live Sound Co., and co-organizer Barbara Rajnovich was the MC. Of the final 12 first round performers, all are just singers unless otherwise stated, and those who advanced to round 2 have their name in italics. The second half began with singer/guitarist Steven Jensen (The Four Seasons' "December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)"), ...

...Christopher Halliday (A Great Big World's "Say Something"), the unfilmed-at-auditions Senta Saylor (Harry Styles' "Falling"), and Nanette Garcia (Loren Allred's "Never Enough"), before Colin Gasparelli returned with another apparent original song, possibly named "Get Used To It", this time singing and playing guitar rather than the keyboard from his audition. Young local dancer Yousef Al Islam next did a martial arts-inspired routine to Sean Paul's "Temperature", and we keep away from singers next with the fourth of five performers not filmed at the auditions, namely Brooke Coghill, a magician who performs under the name McSterious. My dad would approve of some new blood getting into the craft! Brooke did two tricks in round 1, with Colin Gasparelli returning as one of her assistants. The last five performers are all musicians, with the twentieth up being Wendy Hord (Rihanna's "Stay").

The last of five qualifiers not filmed at the Wacky Wings auditions is next, that being Selena Oulette (The Hush Sound's "You Are The Moon"). Closing round 1 were Ali Nisbett (Keala Settle's "This Is Me"), singer/guitarist Jason Morbin (Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl"), and Maharlika Joy (M.J.) Servillon (Whitney Houston's "Miracle"). While a lot of pure talent was on display, no hard rock or punk songs were covered in the second half of the first round, but genre fans weren't completely left out in the lurch late, as local alternative/punk quartet Handsome Sandwich were tapped as a guest performer for round 1 at Soo Blaster! Once again, I profusely apologize for missing this, but neither The Soo's Got Talent nor the band promoted their involvement in advance (though this does explain why T.S.G.T. were plugging & taking pictures of Handsome Sandwich on Facebook this summer, seemingly apropos of nothing).

On September 9th, Handsome Sandwich played two mini-sets to break up the program, with Mitch Sirie oddly sitting out their two intermission songs, returning on guitar for the finale. On bass throughout was Rafael Medina, an Algoma University music student & 705Live staffer who I'm unfamiliar with from other local bands. However, Rafael has been pictured in some band materials since late August, including their Whisky Barrel concert last month and this picture of most of the band in post-production for their forthcoming debut album "Lettuce". This would heavily imply that Rafael has joined Handsome Sandwich, but they have not firmly put it in writing. Also, apologies for erroneously saying last month that the fifth person in this poster was Dunbar Thompson from The Whisky Barrel, Occam's Razor led me wrong there. In the intermission performance, Taylor only titled their first song ("Without You").

Their closing 14 minute set featured less stage banter, but a five-piece Sandwich played mostly originals, plus a surprise cover of Tones & I's "Dance Monkey" (remember, the band officially has "no genre"). When Barbara came back on stage after their intermission set, she noted that their album is scheduled to come out on May 5th, 2023. How oddly specific given that we're seven months out! The performances here are lively and add enough hard rock zest to keep genre fans happy, and assuming Rafael is 100% a new band member, he shows solid bass skill! Fun as you'd hope, so give Handsome Sandwich's guest spots on the 9th a look above & below!

The advancing contestants were revealed in this video and in post-show advertising, and we'll cover round 2 of The Soo's Got Talent III later this week, to see how the 15 surviving performers were whittled down to 10 before the October 1st semifinals. That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile on the site next! Thanks everyone!