Sunday, December 05, 2004
Letting the Cat out of the Bag
...and by 'bag' we mean the show, rather than a veiled reference to Sharon Osbourne, but that would work too. Tabby actually very nearly won us over last night. We really enjoyed his version of (Pride) In the Name of Love, which is quite impressive given that not only can we not stand Tabby, but we also hate U2 with a passion that can only be described as extreme. Fortunately for us he managed to undo all the good work that he'd done with that song with his performance of We Are Fucking Sailing with a pipe band dressed in full highland regalia which had us nearly wetting ourselves with laughter, and clearly had much the same effect on the rest of the audience, who found themselves too busy holding together their splitting sides to actually get off the sofa and phone in a vote for the ugly hobgoblin, so he found himself ejected from the competition. And about time too.
So what of the other two acts and now finalists for the show? Steve got dressed up in his best job interview suit for a passable version of Have I Told You Lately That I Love You, before getting changed to croon his way through The Greatest Love of All. In this he happily claimed that no matter what they take from him, they can't take away his dignity, despite the fact that his deckchair-esque green, blue and black striped shirt was doing it's very best to prove him otherwise.
G4, who cynically went to visit some sick kids in hospital for their opening VT, then even more cynically went on to perform a Christmas song, O Holy Night, for their first performance of the night were clearly overjoyed to stay in the contest. When Kate - this week stylish in a black sparkly dress - asked them how they felt about being in the final, one of them happily told her that "I can't even speak", quite clearly contradicting himself. Their second song was their version of Bohemian Rhapsody, first seen in their auditions, which was decent, but served mainly to prove that trimming a 6 minute song down to fit into a 2 minute slot isn't necessarily the best of ideas.
And so, next week this circus finally comes to an end, with a final that features the band versus the bland. It should be a foregone conclusion, but since Pop Idol 2 and, for that matter, last night's Record of the Year result, we've long since given up trusting the public to make the right decision when confronted with a telephone vote. We can but hope, however, we can but hope.
