The Soo's Got Talent 2023 Finals Review (Part 2!!)

Let's pick up where we left off yesterday by continuing our extended review of the finals of The Soo's Got Talent at Soo Blaster on Saturday night! Check the post below this one or click here for my initial thoughts on what I saw of the first round of finals performances, Mike Haggith's intermission set, and finalist Greg McLeod's "judge's choice" song in round 2. Before we get too far ahead, just a couple of clarifications about what I missed from round 1 on Saturday (I didn't get there until the tail end of Elly McWatters' first song). Unlike last year, when Handsome Sandwich only played one song each with the finalists, they do appear to at least have been given the option to do both songs with Mike & crew, as Storm Rausch also performed with the full band in their first song (also, I apologize for any misgendering in prior coverage of Storm's on the SMS, I didn't know that they were non-binary until the finals.)

I cannot immediately confirm if Greg or Xavier's first song was with Mike's band or not. Elly's opening song was a cover of "Mexico" by Carrie Underwood (complete with a blonde wig to start, though it didn't stay on for the duration). A personal Facebook video of it is floating around, which I did watch, and Elly's vocal performance was predictably strong, as fans of her band work with Re:Born and her karaoke performances will attest! As for Storm, their original song with the full band was named "Anxiety", and video of that was uploaded to The Soo's Got Talent's Facebook page yesterday (hopefully they post more from rounds 2 and onward!) Unlike when Colin Gasparelli kept his guitar for his full band song last year, Storm opted not to play guitar at all with the full band present. Good melodic vocals & solid songwriting were on display here, and "Anxiety" works well in a rock context, so give it a watch below!

Jumping back to the second round of "judge's choice" songs, the second finalist up was Xavier Pelletier LeBeouf, who was previously in the finals last year and also competed in 2019. Xavier was tasked with covering "We Are The Others" by the Dutch symphonic metal band Delain, which just gives me shades of Within Temptation (whose keyboardist formed Delain) being a judge's choice song last year! Also, a far cry from covering Pink in lAst year's finals! No jacket was safe for this cover, which was enthusiastically covered and showed Xavier's growth as a singer, but things could still be a little raw vocally, but given Xavier's age, the sky's the limit. Check out this cover for yourselves below!

Lastly for this post, the third finalist in the running order was the aforementioned Storm Rausch, whose "judge's choice" song was "Make You A Believer" by hard rock singer and former Canadian Idol judge Sass Jordan. Storm ditched their black dress for a sleeker, more rock-inspired getup for this song, which also impressed fans by showcasing their vocal range and ability to adapt to new styles of music beyond acoustic singer/songwriter material. I will definitely agree that Storm had one of the strongest sets of the "judge's choice" round, but not having seen Greg's and Xavier's first round performances, I hesitate to say who I would have definitively voted for. Check out Storm's Sass Jordan cover below!

We'll wrap up our extended Soo's Got Talent finals coverage with Elly, Demoy, and Jophin's second songs, plus a guest performance, and the reveal of the winners of this year's competition, so look for all of that tomorrow! Thanks everyone!