At long last, let's begin looking at the final results of this year's
Soo's Got Talent competition, which ended on Friday, October 21st with the final round at
Soo Blaster as expected! I do apologize for the delays in this making the site,
Passion Video Productions uploaded their videos from the event on October 25th, but life and other SMS posts got in the way over the past two weeks. Everything pertinent from the six finalists, guest performers, and announcements can be seen on
the T.S.G.T. Facebook page, so if you weren't in attendance on the 21st, what went down? Enough material for at least two SMS posts, that's what!
The first video features introduction of the judges from co-organizer Barbara Rajnovich, and out first guest performance of the evening, courtesy of judge/ex-Obsession frontwoman Valerie Powley covering The Motels' "Only The Lonely". Not as hard rocking as Obsession often got with her, but strongly sung as you'd expect!
The opening performance of each of the six finalists (all singers only unless otherwise stated) and their respective judges' remarks were held next, starting with Nanette Garcia covering Adele's
"Rolling In The Deep", followed by singer/guitarist Colin Gasparelli playing an apparent original song, possibly named
"It's Alright". Xavier Pelletier LeBeouf (who was also a finalist in 2019 under a different first name) covered Kate Bush's
"Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" next, with Ali Nisbett covering "Rolling In The Deep"
again as the fourth performer, but with a twist. Here, she's singing the song overtop an instrumental backing track of Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger", a mash-up that has existed online since not long after the Adele song came out. At least this way, Nanette and Ali didn't verbatim do the same song, so hopefully there was no conflict, but the slower intro for Nanette's is also a variation.
"Eye of the Tiger" is a hard rock song, overplayed as it may be, so hearing a totally different song fit it so well is neat, and Ali sings this one very well! Remember that she did cover Journey in the semifinals too, so classic rock is not entirely unexpected from her. Give Ali's mashup cover a look below!
Fifth up was Amanda Phillips covering Andra Day's
"Rise Up", and the first half of the finalist performances ended with Maharlika Joy (or M.J.) Servillon covering The Fugees' version of
"Killing Me Softly". Next we got the intermission performance by local alternative hard rock quintet
Handsome Sandwich, who played two original songs, namely "No Idea" (which is brand new unless it's only been played live) and their early, pre-Rafael original "Bitter". Very fun and lively performances from Handsome Sandwich, which will no doubt continue the good momentum towards the release of "Lettuce" (albeit allegedly not coming until May), and this gives Taylor a chance to sing before handing the mic off to the other finalists! We'll save those performances for our next post due to the amount, as I want to spotlight all six on the site, but give Handsome Sandwich's intermission songs a watch below!
To close today's post, let's jump ahead to the judges' deliberations, where 2019 Soo's Got Talent winner Adrian Sullivan returned for two guest songs! This mirrors that year's event, when then-reigning 2018 champion Daniella Brewer returned for a guest performance at the finals, so might this year's winner do the same next fall? At the time of his win in 2019, Adrian was working on his to-debut local band
The Uncanny Valley, whose psychedelic-tinged hard rock has become a popular rising sight at local concerts, but neither of his songs here ("Carry On" & "Bleeding Soul") are familiar as Uncanny Valley originals. That said, you can hear "Carry On" and many other early solo songs of Adrian's on
his Soundcloud page (under the name "Adrian Taylor"), which he updated through the spring of 2020. As acoustic performances, neither is overly heavy in this form, but both are well done!
Adrian has a good handle on 1970s singer-songwriter type music, and if these were adapted to The Uncanny Valley, they could easily be pumped up to match! Good stuff, so give Adrian's performance a look below! Full disclosure, returning guest judge Tim Murphy did not perform a song as advertised on the event posters (if he did, Passion Video didn't upload it).
Our next T.S.G.T. post(s?) will cover the second song from the finalists, where they all performed with the instrumentalists in Handsome Sandwich for a song each, so how do they do with a live band? Find out then, with other news and notes to follow on the site also! Thanks everyone!
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