Seconds out, Round 2

So the Unconventials are now back to singing at church fetes and swinging, and we move on into Round 2, which this week is themed around Rod Stewart. Given that Rod has murdered covered the songs of hundreds of acts through the years we could have quite a wide selection of tracks here..

Judges are introduced by Kate, who this week appears to be dressed in green shiny silk, like an evil but glamorous alien lady from Space 1999. We kick off with Leona, who appears to be dressed as Bo Selecta! Scary Spice, singing "The First Cut is the Deepest" (Cat Stevens). She starts off pretty well and there is no denying she has a very good voice, however she moves with as much sexy ease as Stephen Fry, and at one point even skips a bit. By the end of it I thought she was struggling with the breathing and started to sound ropey. The judges are fairly impressed, they say "this competition"(drink!) a lot, and are overall pretty positive .

Next up is Kerry, who is sitting on a stool this week, I assume it must be a hover stool that silently brings her into position whilst everyone is talking. She looks very lovely and sings a passable version of "I Don't Wanna Talk About It", but she just sounds like a cabaret singer and the cynic in me can't help feeling that if she had not been a weeping cripple then she would be nowhere near the live show. She tells the judges she'll do everything it takes to get better (drink!).

The MacDonald Brothers. Dressed in some kind of Emo Braveheart outfits they limply exhale "Sailing", one of them is even playing a guitar! They try to rock it up a bit at the end but it is frankly pitiful, this pair are even worse than Journey South, at least they had some chemistry - yes bland pub rock style chemistry is still chemistry... Let not their easy going Scots charm fool you thoughm they are a malevolent force for evil in this world.

Ashley. Dressed like Jack Johnson going to a comedy 70s party he does a pretty good version of "I'd Rather Go Blind" (Etta James/Ruby Turner). His voice is nice although it does have a hint of the patented Heather Small Honk about it, and he is very very pleased with himself. The judges love him, fair enough it was a pretty strong performance.

Dionne. Seemingly attired around the theme'"Essence of Ribena' she belted out "Tonight's the Night", and bizarrely seems to be doing a Tina Turner impression, only without being 1/1000th as sexy as Tina is on stage. She has a good voice, but there is something missing if you ask me - and I'm not talking about her font tooth either. Simon was once again right whne he said she needs to go and stand in front of the mirror for a week and learn to perform, at which point Sharon went spastic at him for being wrong. She really is an awful dick-head at times, like the time she cut all of Iron Maiden's power at an Ozzfest because Bruce Dickinson had fallen out with Ozzy about something.

4Sure (worst. name. ever). Did a creditable performance of the execrable "You're In My Heart", but at least it's a Rod Stewart song I suppose. The arrangement reminded me a bit of early Temptations stuff, except not as good obviously, and Chris seems to sing in a Brooklyn accent despite being from Brum and looking a bit like Flea from the Chili Peppers. I think they'll struggle to stay in with that one, it says here in my notes...

Nikitta. Sings "Bring It On Home to Me" (Sam Cooke), and she does an Ok job of it, despite the appalling arrangement that had Simon Cowell stamped all over it: Gospel choir, key change, pause for the lead singer to hit a high note - all the usual shite basically.

Robert. Sings "Try A Little Tenderness" (Otis Redding), whilst jumping around like Norman Wisdom on Ephedrine, his vocals are good but he drops to his knees at the end and I immediatley wrote 'dancing reminds me of Chico' which is frankly never a good thing. Once again the arrangement is terrible, practically verging on 70s disco and not giving him much chance to express himself properly vocally.

Eton Road. Everyone's favourite freaky boy band sing "This Old Heart O' Mine" (Isley Brothers). They start off appallingly out of tune, get a bit better in the middle, and end with the scary one who looks like Brian Molko wailing & screeching over the top of them. It wasn't great, and Molko always looks slightly apart from the rest in the performances they give - probably because they fear the darkness that is within him.

Ray Munster. Does "What A Wonderful World" (Louis Armstrong) and sounds like exacltly what he is - a stage school brat with an extremely punchable face. Also, the whole point of this song when the great Satchmo sang it was that he was about 127 years old, had lived through segregation, hunger, the depression, 2 Wold Wars and was now ruminating on the world that he saw as an old man. So when he sings the line "I see babies cry, I watch them grow. They'll know much more than I'll ever know" it brings tears to your eyes. When Ray sings it you just think "Well all you know is how to be indulged by your parents in your attempt to be famous, so yes I imagine they will, you twat!". As you can tell I don't like this lad, and actually feel he should not even be allowed in, having already been famous.

Ben. Does "Maggie May", how terribly predictable. He does a good job of it, and I like the bloke, but I still can't see why everyone is getting so excited about a bloke that sounds like Joe Cocker. The judges all say he is going to the final, ben does that self-effacing schtick that he has got down to a tee.

So, looking back out of the 11 songs sung tonight 3 (arguably 4) are what I would describe as Rod Stewart songs.

Results Show.

I missed the first bit of this, tuning in to see Rod Stewart having just finished butchering covering another song. He is wearing an Adam Ant style military jacket, which with his hair makes him look like he's off to one of those 1980's, 10-acts-for-the-price-of-one, depression inducing gigs.

Long story short, the bottom two are 4Sure and Robert. 4Sure go first and are as competent and bland as the first time, and Robert calms the dancing down a bit and clearly has more potential. Sharon votes to send 4Surehome, Louis helplessly says "I have to save my own act"(now that's what I call damning with faint praise!) and it's all down to Simon. He ponders for a minute, tells us his decision "may be a shock", and sends 4Sure home.

Nobody is shocked, and Kate Thornton is struggling to even look bothered.

See you next week....