Here are the tour dates are as follows:

• 3/15/09 – Ft. Pierce, FL at Sunrise Theatre
• 3/18/09 – Panama City, FL at Marina Civic Center
• 3/20-3/21/09 – Dallas, TX at Dallas Symphony
• 3/25/09 – Lancaster, PA at American Music Theatre
• 3/26/09 – Kalamazoo, MI at Wings Stadium
• 3/27/09 – Dearborn, MI at Ford Center
• 3/28/09 – St. Charles, IL at Arcada Theatre
• 3/30/09 – Marion, IL at Marion Cultural and Civic Center
• 4/15/09 – Worcester, MA at Hanover Theatre
• 4/16/09 – Springfield, MA at MassMutual Center
• 4/17/09 – Morristown, NJ at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts
• 4/18/09 – Glenside, PA at Keswick Theatre
• 4/24/09 – Boise, ID at Morrison Center
• 5/1/09 – Ivins, UT at Tuacahn Center for the Arts

Melinda has been pretty great, updating her comings and going on Twitter.  If you haven’t added her already, you should! – http://twitter.com/mdoolittle

Post from: Idol Stalker

The song, “List of Regrets” is an upbeat dance track but still has a rock edge to it (similar to some of Pink’s songs).  Click here to listen to it.  I like it!  What do you think?

If you love Gina (what’s not to love?) and would like to keep up with all of her latest updates, you can sign up for her email list on her official website or you check out her blog!

image used with permission

Post from: Idol Stalker

Yuck – I hope this isn’t true. Apparently, before the finale, Antonella Barba, Haley Scarnato and Gina Glocksen put messages up on their MySpace pages urging their friends to vote for Jordin Sparks. That is rough! I’m not sure why they would feel it’s appropriate to do to Blake Lewis with whom they must tour this summer. If they were from a different season, maybe, but I don’t think fellow cast-members should do this kind of thing. It just isn’t classy, in my books. Well, Antonella and Haley had already shown us that but I was surprised at Gina.

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Post from: Idol Stalker

Well, at least I know I wasn’t alone. Gina was also shocked by her dismissal from American Idol last week. In an interview, the rocker revealed that as she went to bed following her performance, right through to the beginning of the elimination show, she never thought that she would be the one going home. She felt comforted, however, by the fact that the audience booed and protested loudly when her name was called.

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Why Did She Get Voted Off?

Gina was in the bottom three with Haley Scarnato and Phil Stacey. Of the three, Gina was the only one to receive praise from any judge (in her case, both Randy and Paula) and the lone judge who voiced criticism, Simon Cowell, only said that he could not rave about her vocals as he could about some of the other female singers. Phil was berated by all three judges who also refused to even comment on Haley’s singing at all. Why would Gina leave before Phil and Haley?

Some have suggested that Sanjaya fans are keeping Phil Stacey around so that his subpar performances will keep Sanjaya around at least one more week. Others have claimed that Haley’s shameless flaunting of her legs and other “assets” are to blame. Finally, one other theory has revolved around Gina’s tongue ring. Some have offered that this may not have set well with the more conservative viewers and resulted in a lack of votes. Indeed, I did see her tongue ring a lot more during that last performance since it was a slower song, she was sitting still and had to open her mouth wider. The producers of Idol initially told her that they did not want her to wear it on the show and she took it out, but eventually put it back saying that it is a part of who she is. I sincerely hope that this is not the reason because it is completely ridiculous.

By the way, I know that picture of Gina is not representative of how she actually looked on the show. That shot makes her look more like Gene Simmons from Kiss. I just couldn’t find a tongue ring shot from an actual performance so if you have one, send it over!

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Post from: Idol Stalker

The show is starting off and they’re going back through the highlights of last night’s show. Lot’s of good performances, and better performances for many. Sadly, someone has to go home tonight and although I just glanced at the site and I think by seeing the post I know who got voted out, I’m STILL crossing my fingers hoping it will be Sanjaya.

New start off tonight, they’ve already divided the contestants into groups of three. And sadly and shockingly, Sanjaya is with Blake and Chris, so I’m doubting he’s going home yet again.

1. 1st Group: (Probably not going home)
   • Blake Lewis
   • Chris Richardson
   • Sanjaya Malakar
2. 2nd Group: (I’m guessing someone’s going home here)
   • Haley Scarnato
   • Gina Glocksen
   • Phil Stacey
3. 3rd Group: (not going home)
   • Jordin Sparks
   • Melinda Doolittle
   • LaKisha Jones

 American Idol Challenge tonight was nicknamed “Chicken Little”, the answer is Kevin Covais, so go here to enter and get your chance to win $100,000. More about the program of American Idol Gives Back, which I’m very proud of them for doing.

Up next we’ll be seeing Tony Bennett, but he’s sick tonight and he’s not going to be on the show tonight. Instead, we’ve got Michael Buble performing. AWESOME! Lot’s of contestants have been singing his songs this year. Singing “Call Me Irresponsible”, and doing a great job of course. I’ve loved Michael’s music since I first heard about him, but have never seen him perform live, and he’s exceeding my expectations. Many times singers aren’t as good in live performances, but he’s nailing it. It’s amazing he’s the level of crooner that he is at his age. On another note, I need to get the name of the 1st trumpet in the band, that guy is good! Absolutely excellent performance by Michael Buble. Ooh, only drawback is he says he’s still voting for Antonella Barba. He could do much better than that.

Coming back to the vote, Phil Stacey gets sent back safe this week. Good call America. It had better freakin’ not be Gina Glocksen this week. Ryan asks the judges if they got it right and none of them are saying anything!!!! Sanjaya should be in the middle of the stage right now by himself!

After just under 33,000,000 votes, they vote off Gina Glocksen before Haley and Sanjaya!!! This is freakin’ stupid! I am absolutely boycotting Vote For The Worst on anything they do ever again. Wrong America, wrong!

Gina Glocksen is going home

Now Gina’s got to follow-up this travesty of voting fubar and sing again. I hate making them do this, but I guess it’s about the best thing they can do.

We’ll see you next week. Hopefully between now and then the servers hosting Vote For The Worst will crash and self-ignite in a giant fireball. Note: I know the Vote For The Worst link doesn’t go to their website.

Post from: Idol Stalker

Post from: Idol Stalker

Wow. Some have called this season’s contestants dull and unoriginal. Tonight might have been an example. Classics are classics and must be respected but, while almost everyone sang well enough, there was little that will keep me up tonight.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TELLING CONTESTANTS TO TAKE RISKS (Haley risked a “wardrobe malfunction” but that doesn’t count)?

My co-blogger, Jason, has done a fine job live-blogging the show tonight, so I’m just going to add my two cents about the performances. 

Blake doesn’t have to beatbox every week and he’s definitely among the best (and maybe the most versatile) but he sang “Mack the Knife” so straight, he almost sounded like he was auditioning for “Beyond the Sea 2: Bobby Darin Lives.” You can be respectful but still true to yourself.

Phil is a good singer but this did not even seem like a genuine performance. If you weren’t distracted by the sweat beads on his melon, there wasn’t much excitement in his rendition of “Night and Day.” In fact, I felt like a night and a day had passed by the end of it.

Melinda, as Simon said, is almost impossible to criticize. I happened to agree with what he said, however, about the first half of the song being kind of bland. That song has some real potential and I felt like she could have given more, but she’s great so who cares?

Chris gets props for mixing old with new by wearing jeans but did he have to steal Sanjaya’s hat? Just kidding. He stayed true to himself, even if it wasn’t his best performance (in my very humble opinion, at least). One tip though – learn to keep the microphone near your mouth. If you turn your head, the mic should follow! He’s had a problem with this all season. It’s bugging me.

Jordin was a bit boring to me. I’m not sure if the mic feedback was an indication that the sound was off because I’m wondering if the judges heard her whole performance. It was a clone-like, factory-made performance.

Gina is a good singer. She had a good performance. She could maybe control the eye seizures (those of you with TiVo, DVR, PVR, etc… check it out). I was somewhat irritated to have the soldiers in Iraq brought into the mix by Tony Bennett (not her fault). I was half expecting her to be draped in a flag with an eagle on her shoulder, or something. Well, at least it would have been interesting…

Sanjaya, as Mr. Bennett said, “dares to take risks.” Honestly, I do think this is part of the reason he’s still here. When he’s gone, we pretty much know how it’s going to go down and the performances will be predictable (with the exception of Blake, maybe) but Sanjaya has made himself stand out. His performance did sound a bit like a clip from an episode of Barney. Hey, Madonna’s not a great singer but she knows how to market herself. Don’t underestimate the importance of being an entertainer.

Haley is starting to annoy me in a major way. Her singing is just right for Broadway or Disney movies, and she knows it, so she sells sex, really. There, I’ve said it. Even Tony Bennett had to ask her to tone down the level of skank she was trying to put into the song. The shimmying and toying with men in the front row was almost shameless. She’s not going to win (let’s hope) so she’s using gimmicks to get votes. Why does Sanjaya get all the buzz? This is a family show and there have been times when I was embarrassed for her. Seriously.

Lakisha is back! She’s one of the few contestants I’ve seen in the history of the show who had the guts to go against the advice of the guest (Tony Bennett told her to omit the “ain’t no sunshine when he’s gone” at the end of her song but she didn’t). She is a PLUS-SIZE BEAUTY and I love her. I just want her to stay in the zone from now on.

Post from: Idol Stalker

LaKisha Jones
She’s doing some Donna Summer song this evening. Not sure what it is about LaKisha, but she’s just not wowing me anymore with her performances. She can still sing, but for me it’s just not there anymore. This is a tough point in the competition to be hitting this type of wall too. Maybe it’s just me though, she’s still been doing well with votes it appears.

• Randy: good to see her up tempo song, true fly diva right there, it was hot
• Paula: Donna Summer’s not an easy artist to start out with, and she did her proud
• Simon: 30 years younger this week and agree with Randy, nice to see an up tempo song. Great vocal, putting her mark back on the competition

Chris Sligh
Viewer question from Barbara, “How much down time do you have and how do you spend it”. Not a lot, but he likes spending it knitting and crocheting as well as paying bongos in his boxer shorts. No, for his real answer he says sleep as much as possible to stay healthy. Singing some Police, “Everything She Does is Magic”. Gwen’s advice to Chris is watch the tempo and stay with the music. He’s had problems with that in a variety of songs. Sounds like tonight though they’ve upped the reverb in his mic and it makes it sound like he’s echoing, which will only make staying on beat even harder. Hopefully he can fight through it because this is a great song. It’s not quite there, but not too bad either.

• Randy: good song choice, rhythm and tempo not balancing out
• Paula: biggest amount of criticism is “staying in the pocket” with the rhythm. vocally was good, good tone
• Simon: thought it was all a mess, bad timing in this stage of the competition. Didn’t represent him well

Gina Glocksen
Gina is a big fan of Gwen’s so, she was very emotional in the whole process of working with Gwen during the week. This song was a good choice for Gina, “I’ll Stand By You”. Fits her style and range very nicely. Timing seemed a bit off though. We’ll see what the judges think.

• Randy: boot night, another fly pair of boots. One of her best performances ever. She’s got the big voice, just believe and choose wise songs
• Paula: improving each week and coming into her own. Great song that she picked and allowed her to soar with her vocals
• Simon: wasn’t one of her best, it WAS her BEST! This was all about knowing who you are and choosing the right song. The transformation from a few weeks ago was significant. Best performance of the night so far.

Sanjaya Malakar
Singing “Bathwater”, hopefully that’s fitting because we’ll throw him out with the bathwater tomorrow night finally. Gwen said he forgot the words during rehearsal and it as a hard song, but he picked it. Best of luck to him, but it didn’t sound like she’d be too torn up if this was his swan song as well.

What the heck did he do to his hair? It’s a faux-hawk. That’s just weird. If he makes it through this week with just forgetting the words, hair like that and his normal sub-par singing skills, we may have to hire some hackers to go after some people at VFTW. It’s just sad, sad, sad, sad.

• Randy: speechless every time, the hair is weird. He can sing, just put it out there
• Paula: if he had the ability to just go for it and do it, leaves a lot to be desired
• Simon: presume there was no mirror in his dressing room. He doesn’t think it matters anymore what the judges say. He is in his own universe and if people like him good luck.

Haley Scarnato
Singing “True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper. Gwen didn’t like the extended flourishing that Haley added to the end of the song. Do they contestants here that stuff before they perform? Hopefully they do, Haley doesn’t need to try any risks on her performances and see if she can outlast Sanjaya. You’d think that should go without saying, but not so from what we’ve seen. She seems to be staying with the main, known version of the song. Ending was kind of weird, but nothing too off the wall.

• Randy: started rough, got better towards the end. Just kind of all right. Didn’t really grab him
• Paula: beautiful song that requires nothing other than just singing the song, less contemporary
• Simon: sweet, but forgetable. Nothing to remember really

Join us for part two of tonight’s performances

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Jordin Sparks – “I Who Have Nothing”
LuLu says she’s only 17 and is amazing. Jordin is one of the contestants in this season’s group who’s style seems to have completely changed. Her appearance style, not necessarily her vocal style. Her vocals have continued to become stronger and stronger in my opinion. She has absolutely amazing power for such a young performance. She’s belting out these notes and not wavering at all on these notes. TOTALLY ROCKED THAT PERFORMANCE! She may have just displaced LaKisha as tied for the top for me.

• Randy: very tall order, very controlled, great, great performance, one of the best we’ll see tonight
• Paula: each week we learn just how great your range is becoming, good singer and a wonderful performer
• Simon: she sang it beautiful, but he wants to jump off a bridge. A bit depressing, but she sang it beautifully

Run to the bathroom, it’s break time. And we’re going to get a wild side of Sanjaya and I predict a Rolling Stones song.

Peter Noone says that it’s not a singing competition, it’s a voting competition. They’ve all proven they can sing (EXCEPT FOR THE NEXT ONE!), it’s about winning the audience.

Sanjaya Malakar – “You Really Got Me Going”
Sanjaya admits that he’s not the best singer in the competition. Durh! You think? Peter says he just doesn’t have enough experience to sell what he’s got. There’s a little girl in the audience that’s absolutely balling her eyes out because of how bad he sings. At least that’s why I’d be crying like that if I were in the audience.  He’s kind of got the hair of Mick Jagger.

• Randy: shocked him tonight, he came out of his shell tonight, best performance to date
• Paula: that’s what we’ve been waiting for, a lot of fun to see him like this
• Simon: I think the little girl’s face says it all

Gina Glocksen – “Paint It Black”
Gina answers a viewer question, “Do you think being on American Idol has made you stronger?”. Absolutely, every week there’s so much you have to be your best and fight through it. She mentioned some blogs, I wonder if an Idol has ever read this blog, if so, I’D LOVE TO GET A COMMENT FROM YOU! Sounded like a really rough start to me, but cranking it up a notch more and more as she goes. She’s made it into her style, but for me this song may have too much keeping it clinging to it’s original arrangement and performer to change it effectively. I’m curious as to what the judges will say.

• Randy: resident rocker, not his favorite vocal, just alright, a little pitchy in spots
• Paula: miles better than last week, (what did she sing? I can’t remember), let more loose and have more fun
• Simon: there were moments of complete torture, so off melody, it was just horrible

Chris Sligh – “She’s Not There”
They were scaring me, I thought he was actually going to sing “I’m Henry the VIII I Am”. Luckily he didn’t. Let’s see how he does. He starts off singing in the middle of the audience, probably a good way to connect with the audience initially. Really cool song for him to sing. He’s adding some nice tags in a falsetto. This song really starts to rock in the middle and Chris is flowing with it nicely. Hmm, we’ll see what the judges think.

• Randy: everybody’s performing tonight, it’s like a concert in here, wound up good, ended it really strong
• Paula: dressing much nicer, like the fact that he worked the audience, vocals were really good
• Simon: good choice, showed personality, did a lot better than last.

What may be funnier though was that someone in the audience had a sign that said “Fro Patro” for Chris.

Melinda Doolittle – “As Long As He Needs Me”
Melinda says that this week has probably been the biggest challenge for her in a song and out of her comfort zone. LuLu feels she found the perfect song for her. She’s really slowing it down with this performance tonight. Her vocals are always dead on, but I think this performance is one of her most forgettable. A strong ending as always though.

• Randy: save the best vocal for last, another stunning performance, great relative pitch, you are a pro up there
• Paula: you are in your own league, tell a story with her song, just beautifuly
• Simon: are you really as nice as you seem, you made the second part of the song absolutely sensational with an impeccable vocal

Post from: Idol Stalker

Gina Glocksen rocks out and shows us her individual style, which really sets herself apart from the other contestants.

Showing a little cleavage this evening, which seemed to be a popular strategy for the first big performance.

Jordin went for a very classy and polished look on Tuesday night’s performance. I think Jordin is a beautiful girl and has a personality and spirit about her to match.

LaKisha has some funny facial expressions when she sings but you quickly get over that when you hear her voice.

Stephanie Edwards can sing too, but I wasn’t impressed with her song or her attire on Tuesday night. Notice the cleavage display again.

And last but by far from least is Melinda Doolittle. She’s making everyone else around her appear to be a back-up singer. She is just amazing and probably the most humble performer ever for American Idol.

All photos and more available at The Official American Idol website.

Post from: Idol Stalker