Live the Dream Finale or How I Learnt to Stop Griping and Admire Ken Lim

Tonight sealed it. Ken Lim has won me over with his acerbic jibes and his ability to drip with disdain without being rude.

He is still a manipulative, miserable old SOB most of the time, but I have to give him huge props for being manipulative and miserable with style. It's no mean feat!

Peformance Show:

Victor Tang: He sounds better this week than he did two weeks ago. That's not necessarily saying a lot, but it is a marked improvement. The first song was pitchier than a cricket training ground. The 2nd was much better in terms of pitch but had about as much oomph as flat beer. He has nice enough vocal tone when he manages to keep in key, but why does he sing everything in that simpering manner?

Fendi: He's sticking to his R&B comfort zone and all the better for it. The first song (Change the World) was very nice indeed with the semi-scatting and a cool, relaxed vibe. He went for ultra high difficulty levels on the second song (Isn't She Lovely). Seriously, we are talking the equivalent of coloratura fireworks here. He came very close to pulling off all the vocal tricks. There were a few flat spots but in the face of such impressive vocal pyrotechnics, it seems churlish to nitpick.

By Definition: They are so very entertaining and dynamic, never a dull moment on stage. The first song was typical By Definition - dramatic, musically tight and fun. The second song (Elvis Presley's A Little Less Conversation) was a complete blast! The energy level was off the charts! I think it's possibly the best performance I have seen on this show. This is a band in the best sense where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Catsine Cradle: I really like the way they sound. And the lead singer is in great voice tonight. He is definitely among the best singers, if not THE best singer, in the competition, in both categories. The first song was authentic classic acoustic rock - cleanly sung, aurally a pleasure. The second song was more of the same - great singing. It was Jeff's (the lead-singer) show and the two guitarists could have been a minus-one track for all we knew.

Judges: Well, it is all about Ken Lim, isn't it? He is more entertaining than most of the contestants. Next to By Definition's 2nd song, the most entertaining segments of the show were Ken's critiques of Victor Tang. The second critique was a thing of beauty, with its underhanded "compliments", references to politicians and veiled suggestions of ruthlessness, insincerity and possibly corruption. The crack about Victor having "qualities lacking in Singapore's opposition parties" was classic! I hope someone uploads this to Youtube, because it's worth hearing again. And he also cleverly slipped in a jibe at Victor when he was commenting on Fendi. It takes real style to pull this off. Definitely not for amateurs.

The judges were totally unsubtle about whom they want to win. Once Dick started the ball rolling by telling Fendi out right, "We knew you would win", the guest judges similarly showed no compunction in declaring their favourites.


Result Show:

Victor Tang is SO very out of his league. When the top four finalists performed together, his vocal shortcomings were showcased and amplified several times over. Not good.

I must say that Taufik Batisah has taken very well to musical Idol-dom. He has always been a good singer and a very cool, confident performer. Nowadays, he is exuding star power while retaining his hometown-boy charm. Mediacorp pulled out the stops for his performance, giving him a full complement of back-up dancers and special lighting effects.

The Top 10 finalists were trotted out to perform a medley of songs. First the top 5 soloists. Boy oh boy oh boy. Victor Tang was so outclassed by the other 4 soloists. The contrast in quality was painful. Olynn and Robert Tsunga were probably the best two singers in the solo category and were naturally the first two eliminated. Olynn was especially impressive to me. Shauna Simon looked very nice despite wearing horizontal stripes and sang well too.

In the group category, Catsine Cradle kicked things off with a really lovely performance of a song that I know but cannot remember the title of (this was just beautiful, they should have done this in competition). The Sugarettes sounded pleasant, Revelina was adorable as usual and By Definition put on another one of their signature roof-raising performances. Sadly, After the Rain brings everything crashing down around our ears with a weirdly screamy and off-key performance.

The Papaya Sisters sang that old standard about the beautiful roses, but I was hopelessly distracted by their costumes.

The Click Five came on and sang a couple of songs, including one where the finalists joined in. Theirs is not the kind of music I usually listen to, but it is very listenable. And they are rather pleasant on the eye, though I do not approve of the hair.

Results time:

Fendi wins the solo category!! Utt then asked Ken the most rhetorical question ever - "Did the right person win?". Hahaha, Ken was scoffing and even asked if it was meant to be a trick question. He then proceeded to congratulate Fendi and make a crack about Shrek 2.

And it's By Definition winning the group category! Wow, the judges get the winners that they want. Dick got the honour of telling Utt that yes, Singapore got it right.