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!