OMG, today we will know who the other 6 of the Top 12 will be. No pressure Group 2. No pressure at all.
In the spirit of 'No pressure', I'd like to share with you all a couple of vids and pics that were taken during Group 2's Vocal Training last Saturday (mostly of those who were hanging around, waitin' for their turn) and Choreo on Monday.
Its really just vids of the LODIs bein' themselves ie silly.... so sit back, relax, have a laugh...
Jon was a little tired and blur when I recorded this - but he still looks kinda adorable right girls? Aw, give the poor soul a hug and some reassurance.
You're not a noob la... (whatever that is...testament to my age that I have no idea what noob is)
I loved that one of Mae - she is hilarious I tell you.
Next up, Justin decides to be the Idol Behind-The-Scenes reporter. Ahem, pass or fail? LOL!
Mae - fail! Very difficult (to) interview!
All funny stuff aside, here are some pretty awesome clips of a Sezairi/Justin showcase. Gabby later takes the guitar over too with Linger (check it out on Youtube if you didn't see it in my earlier post).
Hope you enjoyed that? I certainly did. Its a pity we don't have much of Sam and Sylvia who went off earlier. You can see vids of Ben, Duane and Gabrielle taken from the same day from my earlier post here. Or browse summerr77 at Youtube.
Today's D-Day for Group 2. Everyone's due at Mediacorp first thing in the morning and they'll be spending the day there doing run throughs for tonight's show.
I'll be at MediaCorp later this evening to catch up with Group 2, and also Group 1 who will be coming in to support their Idol friends too. Look out for my tweets and twitpics this evening!
Lets all hope for a great show (no dead air, no bad jokes, no bad performances) and hope your favourites go through - VOTE ppl!
Today's radio interview on 987FM featured Sezairi, Gabrielle, Duane and Jonathan (not Sylvia as I had previously posted...note to self, must update 'Idol Spotter' after this post). Sorry for the misinfo peeps, the list I got from Ch5 must have been an old one. Its all goode anyway, the radio interview went smoothly (eventhough Jon was a half hour late! tsk tsk!). Sylvia will be on tomorrow with Amira, Charlene and Faizal. (just got the latest list, so this is correct!)
What did we learn from the interview? Lemmesee....
Airi WAS with the Performing Arts programme at LaSalle, now he's just ...performing (nice one Dan). He declined to comment if Idol was the reason he was no longer with the school. Wah, pleading the 5th and we're not even in US!
Duane is pursuing Idol and O-Levels!!(dude, hero la you!) Apparently his parents were angry at first that he wanted to join Idol, but once he got into the Top24, they did an about-turn and are full supportive now - good for ya Aunty and Uncle! Young people need support not dissent! :)
Last fun fact about Duane - he won a Pussycat Doll dance competition and got to dance with them on stage!
Gabby is a marketing and PR major (eh, same same babe!), and bla bla bla and SHE HAD A CRUSH ON JONATHAN! woot! (all the other info about being a good friend, talking a lot, people person etc all got blown away by this lil revelation)
Looks like every other girl has had a crush on Jon. My sources have told me our lil Sylvia also had the hots for him initially. And Jon's gotten loads of facebook friend requests from....you guessed it, random girls!
So looks like Jon Jon (new nick!) and not MJ, is the lady killer in the group!
Gabby's right though, spot on when she said Jon gives off this 'Badboy' vibe (thus my original nick for him) but he's actually so sweet and sentimental once you get to know him. Check out Jon's profile here and what I thought of him. You'll see that me and Gabs are on the same wavelength :)
So, all this while, they're yakkin' and talking Jon up, Jon's not actually there. He's late. I'm betting Suresh and Byron (the publicity pros behind Idol) will be giving him a 'talking-to' right about now.
Fyi guys, we were with Jon on Saturday night, he looked a little flu-ey, maybe thats why he woke up late despite TWO alarm clocks. Then again, this is Idol - no excuses is the mantra.
Stepping up to the mic...
-- Voice sample and "why should people vote for you?" --
Sezairi : "People should vote for me cos its my dream."
Gabrielle : "I can be their friend, we can sing along togetehr, its not about being on a pedestal, it should be the audience singing along with you."
Duane : "Vote for me if you wanna see me dance and cos I also want this really badly!"
Just as Duane finishes up, Jon Jon steps in - perfect timing!
Jonathan : "I'm gonna be myself on the show, I'm very Singaporean, therefore good for Singapore Idol. I'm someone they can look up to and relate to."
Dan : "Look up to and relate to, I like that!"
Young : "Relate, ya, most Singaporeans are late most of the time anyway...." <-- ouch Young!
Young's on a roll, he then outs Gabby to Jon about the crush (not that she didn't out herself already by saying it on National radio!)
Btw, she had a crush on him initially, but now they're just really good friends, the whole group hang out often.
Hope the four of them had fun at Idol's Official Radio Station 987FM. Can't wait to hear tomorrow's 4.
I wonder if Dan & Young will bring up Charlene's s*x tape scandal (as reported in New Paper). Maybe they'll keep it a wholesome, kosher interview, what with two very young hopefuls Faizal and Amira in studio :)
Til tomorrow!
Full profiles of this week's 12 a re all on the right sidebar!
xoxo, s.
ps. Will be meeting up with the idols for Choreo today, lets see how that goes! Missing my LUMIX...maybe I can run down to Sim Lim now and get me an Olympus Tough! <-- apparently can survive toddler throws - shock proof!
(cue Idol theme music...te ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne ne .... <-- apparently dougie's fb wall was flooded with 'theme' music when they found out he was Top24! LOL!)
In case I haven't mentioned it before, Wednesday shall henceforth cease to be known as 'Wednesday' and shall be known simply as 'Idol Day'!
So what happens in the run up to Idol Day? The typical drill would go something like this ...
1. Roadshows (Sat) - CHECK!
2. Vocal Training (Sat) - CHECK!
3. Choreo with Zaki (Mon) - ooh tomorrow!
4. Radio Interviews on 987FM (Mon, Tues, Wed) - comin' up!
So tomorrow (Monday) morning, tune in to 987FM at 9am sharp to catch Dan & Young interviewing 4 of this week's performing Idols - Sezairi(woot!), Gabrielle(woot!), Sylvia (woot!) and Duane(double woot cos he's just da sweetest! He asked me what 'pimp out your profile meant'...sigh..to which the other idols replied, Duane lets not use the word 'pimp' its a bad word :) agree!)
Alarm it on your mobile NOW!
(then repeat the same alarm for Toosday and Idol Day)
ROADSHOW @ Lot One, CCK.
So yesterday, Saturday was the Top 24 Group 2's roadshow at Lot One. I didn't get to go, due to some prior commitments, but I heard it was a BLAST!
On Blogger duty was Official Blogger Iz who twitpicced like crazy (broke already not?) - go check out the pics here if you haven't - and he should be putting up the vids pretty soon. I personally can't wait to see the vids. According to him the crowd went CRAZY! Lots of hyper little girls, apparently Jonathan has fans :)
Malaque, Ryan and Syltra (from Group 1) were there to support their Idol pals (aww sweet!) and Gabrielle's mom made fans for her fans! Thats right! A Gabby fan for Gabby's fans! Lovin' Gabs' mom right now. She's on my 'Coolest Moms Ever' List right now, right behind Lorelai Gilmore and Gwen Stefani, what with the synchronised tattoo and all. (Damn thats cool, gotta up my cool quotient later when The Daughter grows up!)
The event went off almost without a hitch.Apparently Mae screwed up a line or two, no matter sweetie, we still love ya, you know that right?! She's like Ta Jie (big sista) Mae, everyone loves her and she really takes care of everyone. She feeds them, gives them pep talks, hugs, etc. WE LOVE U MAE!
According to Izk, everyone got a lots of lovin' from the crowd. When I asked Duane how it all went, did people scream for him, he was so shy. He shyly recounted how he told the crowd to vote for him, Mr Pussycat Doll and then proceeded to blush a little, aw can I just say Duane is just the sweetest kid. And you can see the other Idols are really protective of him too :)
Justin apparently said something about voting for him if you like slow songs....*kok* Justin must have had a blonde moment - do not pigeon hole yourself like that so early on! I am here to say - he can sing fast songs too, in fact he can sing period (see his profile vid and my vids on Youtube from the vocal training - links below later, cos haven't finished uploading yet!).
Anyway, after the eventful event (see how I had some cheesy alliteration goin' on there... no applause necessary), everyone headed back to Caldecott Hill for their 5pm sharp vocal training session. 10 minutes each with Vocal Coach Ann Hussein. Chop Chop guys!
And it was really chop chop! I arrived at about 5.30pm, and already Sam, Sylvia and Charlene were practically out the door! I managed to snap like one pic of Sam before she flew out with a big smile cos she got to go off early!
Saturday night, everyone has plans right? My plan, was to hang with the LODIs.
So there I was, hi-fivin' Iz, takin' over the blogger/twitpic duties, and suddenly the mood went from up to down. By the end of the evening, suffice it to say, everyone was just dead tired and ready to go home.
I'm uploading the vids of whoever was hangin' around that night (and singing) up on Youtube now, will link it all up here (and post the vids also on a separate post) once they are all done :)
In the meantime enjoy the following, vids of 3 of the 4 (sorry, didn't quite catch Sylvia as she was off right after her session) you'll be hearing on radio tomorrow morning :
Gabrielle sings the Cranberries favourite 'Linger'.... guest starring Sezairi's guitar.
Duane practicing David Archuleta's "A Little Too Not Over You" in the hallway. Starts off a little shaky at first, but once he hits his stride at the chorus - lovely!
Airi doin' his own song called "Something Personal". (You can listen to it at his Purevolume page here). I likey much.
Sorry Sylvia babe, you ran off so quick, I didn't get a chance to video you singing anything! If you're interested to hear Sylvia sing, check out her profile here.
Likewise, you can go to any of Group 2's profile pages to learn more about them if you haven't, the links are on the right sidebar of my blog.
Posting more soon, gotta get this one up and our first to remind all you peeps about tomorrow'sradio interview...987FM @ 9am- Airi, Gabby, Duane & Sylvia. Don't miss it!
Can't believe I didn't add your video - *bang head on wall* so blur.
Here's Syltra's Thank You vid that Iz filmed (but by now you'll all probably seen it somewhere :P) - better late than never?
btw Iz! love the yellow background - makes everyone seem so chirpy. The rest of the room is dead boring white! hahaha!
Syltra blew the audience away with her Black Horse & Cherry Tree. As you can see from this vid, she's bursting with energy, and her performance was exactly that, bursting at the seams with energy and personality.
Ken mentioned she shouldn't keep using her 'agression'. I didn't think she was aggressive, but I kinda understand what he's saying (and so did Syltra btw). I think he's saying that she has to be versatile, that she can't always do this type of full-on, in-your-face, energiser-bunny performances. She will have to be tone it down or colour it up depending on the genre for the week, and not interpret the songs only the Syltra-way (as per what we've seen on Wed night).
I'm sure as she grows with the show, the 'Syltra-way' will evolve (well at least I'm hoping it will).
At the moment, my money's been on this dark horse since theatre auditions, am watching to see if I should need to move my bets (LOL!). Still early to tell, since the other 12 haven't performed - I have a few other bets goin' on there - Gabby, Mae, Airi and this may surprise you.....Jonathan.
Ok, thats the add-on for my post. Syltra, sorry again that I missed you out. My bad.
Oh, and before I go, check out this cool post from Gabrielle. Loved the whole post from the loony (slightly) lipsyncing at the start to the very very profound poem in the middle (it spoke to me too!). And I love how she's still 'playing ball' with her ADD (ay-dee-dee) dog while recording this message - hilarious and so classic Gabby.How can you not love this girl?
Here's the poem for those of you who couldn't catch it...its called Risk....and this is how the cookie crumbles <-- :) this makes me smile...
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out to others is to risk involvement. To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams, before a crowd is to risk their loss. (like talking to the Idols rite?) To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to do nothing. The people who risk nothing, does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing. They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live. Chained by their attitudes they are a slave; and they've forfeited their freedom. Only a person who risks is free.
Wahlao Gabby read this so fast (ok for listening, difficult to follow type)...I replayed it at least 8 times! hahahha!
"Wait i put the music off cos its very serious..."<-- sorry I know you're being serious, but every time I heard this I LOL, so cute la you!"
Good pep talk Gabs, are you all listening Top 24 (yes all of you!).
Joining Idol is a big personal risk. The risk of self exposure is so great. I personally cannot do that, why do you think I hide behind this laptop (ok, I can't really sing either). I applaud everyone who had the courage to expose themselves by being on Idol. You put yourself out there to be judged by the public, AND the judges on National TV (and some say Batam and JB).
*Clap clap clap*
Have a great roadshow tomorrow Group 2 and an uneventful choreo session on Monday (read : no scolding and diva moments from Zaki).
Much love to muh LODIs and all the readers, thanks for following this blog! :)
xoxo, s.
ps. feeling all emo now after Gabby's poem ... *sniff* need to go hug the kids NOW.
Gabby's profile is a work in progress at the moment, she's in Piano Show #2. In the meantime, you can check out her YouTube channel.
Much love to Gabby and Frances!
xoxo, s.
ps. Also check out this CNA video of some interviews done with Teddy (Theodore), Mae and Ryan at Friday's Idol media conference at Caldecott Hill. CLICK HERE. If you don't see it, click on the calendar video archives, its listed under World, dated 27 Aug.
pps. ooh..just found this! An interview with Malaque and Jannah...watch!
Gabby can go from zero to bright red in under 2 seconds.Seriously. Which is why I changed her nick to Blushy. She blushes so easily! (Gabrielle, BET you're blushing NOW right if you're reading this!) Blushy is also a play on 'Mushy', Perez Hilton's nickname for Mischa Barton - I think she looks a bit like her.
Gabby says "Strange". I say "Interesting"
Gabby says "Funny". I say "Hilarious" <-- seriously. Although her humour is quite different from our other comedy queen, Jannah. Gabrielle's self-depracating humour is so point blank and unexpected, its actually quite endearing!
Gabby says "Honest". I say...ok. :)
Quick facts about Gabrielle :
Lives in : East
Occupation : Student
Favourite MJ song : Man In The Mirror
Favourite Judge : Dick
Single/Attached? : Single (wipe that drool you guys!)
Who does he think will win Idol 3? Frances.
If music is your first love, what is your second?
If I had to pick, it would be meeting new people and witnessing different cultures and places. I love finding out what makes a person or a place unique. I ask a lot of questions and I like to provoke thoughts, making someone go 'what? How did you come up with that?'. I enjoy discovering more about people and what their story is.
I've also found out that Gabrielle likes tattoos and piercings. On her 20th and her Mom's 50th birthday, they both got tattoos together! How cool is that? Gabrielle's tattoo reads 'Let Go' and her Mom's reads 'Let God' (as she's quite religious, according to Gabs). Gabrielle has also had a total of 7 piercings all over her, but only 3 remain at this point.
Secret Single Behaviour : What do you do on your own that no one knows about? I eat cheese really weirdly. The Chesdale squares kind, I nibble around the edges so they become all 'bitemarked' then I fold it in half, then fold it again, then nibble around the edges one more time, so it becomes like a small cheese cuboid, then POP the whole thing in my mouth. Yummy. When I'm having a meal, I also have to 'neaten' my food, using my cutlery to push all the food together into an organised little pile, and no I don't have OCD. LOL!
I NEVER sit down on public toilet seats. EVER.
I'm a helicopter. I hover.
(this is hilarious classic Gabby! ROTFLMAO!!!)
summerr's take :
Gabrielle can definitely sing, it must be in her genes. Her Daddy is Mel Ferdinands, from the popular 80s band Gypsy. She's also got a very likeable personality. So vocals + personality = kaching! Right?
Well, almost. In front of the judges, she came across as shy and unsure. But in her profile video, she was funny and straightforward. Now that we're at the Piano Show stage, I hope the latter comes out more on the show. You're a natural, so don't hold back!
In the meantime, check out this vid she did with fello Top24-er Teddy. I totally enjoyed listening to it :)
Do check out her other videos on her YouTube channel, the link is at the bottom of this post.
Make a date with Gabrielle!
Saturday, 5 Sept : Lot One, 3pm -4pm
Catch Gabby in person at the 2nd Idol roadshow where you get to meet the 2nd group of 12 that will be performing at Piano Show #2.
Monday, 7 Sept : Caldecott Hill, 9am - 930am, 987FM
Tune in to 987FM at 9am to catch Gabrielle's first radio interview, alongside Sylvia, Sezairi and Duane.
Wednesday, 9 Sept : Caldecott Broadcast Centre, Studio 1
Singapore Idol Piano Show #2, 8pm and The Results Show later at 10pm, on Channel 5.
Gabrielle will be performing "Thinking Of You" by Katy Perry.
summerr loves her tv. in fact, she's downright passionate about it. This blog grew to be the Unofficial blog of Singapore Idol 2009. This year, its going OMG! Hope you'll enjoy the inside scoop on this year's big reality must watch!
