12 March 2010

Week 3 on a Knife Edge

Cassie Bowkett blogs on the 3rd night of Port Factor from her position on the judging panel

Newport

25 November 2009

Well this year's Port Factor quarter finals have been and gone, with tensions rising and bubbling over between the contestants all vying for that Port Factor crown, and between us judges as we try to decide who we think deserves it.

The night got off to an inopportune start with the no-show of our guest judge of the evening Kathy Robins, and so four became three as Mike, Alex O'Toole (last year's winner) and I sat waiting for the first performance. I was on knife edge - tonight included all the acts the judges had put through and so I was expecting to be entertained, surprised and wowed.

The theme music played, Jonny and Tom took to the stage and Port Factor began with our first act Sancho Villa bouncing onto the stage to the chant of "Media! Media!" for his rendition of 'Let Me Entertain You'. He did entertain us but wowed I wasn't, mainly because for most of the song he sang out of time with the music and at one point he forgot the words. I could feel the disappointment in the air especially at the judging table.

Next taking to the stage was Danni who sang Eva Cassidy's 'Songbird'. Unfortunately her nerves got the better of her and so it was a bit of a shaky start, which improved to show off her voice but not enough to grab back the audiences attention.

I was starting to get a bit concerned - where were the acts that I got so excited about in the first two audition weeks? Who has that elusive Port Factor? As Emiie took to the stage I was hopeful and I wasn't disappointed. She sang a mash-up mix of "Bye Bye Bye", "Ironic" and "No Scrubs" accompanied by her guitar which worked suprisingly well (I know its difficult to imagine), but the feeling from the other judges seemed to be that they wished she'd stuck to one song. All I could think all the way through was how much she reminded me of Lily Allen, the queen of 'Live Lounge' covers (think 'Womaniser' and 'Oh My God').

Then we had Rhys, whose version of "Fly Away" blew me away! He was smoothly professional, and his finish was effortless and impressive.

However it was the girls who stole away the first half with first Niamh whose rendition of "Perfect" was described by notoriously hard to please Alex O'Toole as "Perfect!" and then Adele who barefoot gave us a high energy version of "Walking in Memphis" as a finale. I was impressed, I was torn. I was very glad I didn't have to decide who was going through.

I couldn't wait for the start of the second half, but unfortunately Panama while a good performer had a lot to live up to and her performance of "You Oughta Know" was missing something. It was kareoke, good kareoke but still -

The next act was the sweetheart of the first week, Adriana whose performance of 'Lovefool' caused huge rifts between us judges. I loved it, her voice has that breathy quality which brough The Cardigans such fame but Mike "didn't like it". Alex though was on my side - clearly he has taste!

Third on after the break was Yogamaya, another favourite from the first week who stormed the Port Factor stage with her version of 'Mama Do'. This week she sang an accoustic version of Britney's "Baby One More Time" but to be honest I was dissapointed. In fact here all the judges agreed. She's a really strong performer but her song choice just didn't show that off and it was very low energy, sending my imaginings of mad stage dancing crashing back down to earth.

By now I was on tenderhooks as we were down to the final three performers of the night. Daryl Wood also sang "You Oughta Know" and after a false start and a plee for audience co-operation she sang her heart out. Not the strongest performance of the night but definately not the worst by a long way.

The final two welcomed another first weeker Chembo singing "Unbreak My Heart" by iconic Toni Braxton. I really loved her audition song and so I was looking forward to seeing if she rose to the challenge, and she did. Don't get me wrong the song wasn't as great a fit as "Take A Bow" where she sounded as if we had literally turned the radio onto the pop starlet but I really like her style of performance, low energy but high emotion.

The last act of the night is the iconic Chris England, whose fan clubs (yes plural) stretch all over campus. In fact after Friday's performance I'm considering joining one because he's fast becoming my "guilty pleasure" to steal a little from Cheryl Cole. The crowd went wild as he performed "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies and I half expected the antics of the Tom Jones brigade, throwing underwear and waving banners. If there was ever a dark horse in the competition it was Chris and he is rapidly creeping up my list of possibles to win!

And so after a quick break, the audience's vote was in and you chose the first seven contestants through to next weeks semi-finals:

-Sancho Villa

-Emiie

-Niamh

-Adele

-Yogamaya

-Chembo

-Chris England

Rhys, Panama and Dani had the lowest votes and so took their parting bows to the crowds applause. The tension increased as the final two acts going across to the judges vote were announced, Adriana and Darrl. They stood on stage holding hands as each of us took sides, Alex backed Adriana, Mike backed Daryl leaving me to make the deciding vote.

This was really hard as they were both good performers but I had to go with my personal favourite who I thought had performed best on the night - Adriana joined the rest of our semi-finalists!

Next week is going to be very tough and I wouldn't miss it for the world - I'll see you there!