America's Got Talent - 2009 - 06/23/2009
And, so we begin again. Wonder if we'll have a Susan Boyle on our side of the Atlantic, as the commercials indicated? We'll see. Neil E Boyd was the big surprise, last year.
If you look back into my archives, I review AGT as the shows play. When I can, I include links to videos, but not the first few shows.
Please note: I write these as the show airs. I don't have Tivo or DVR, so I only get to see them once. If I miss someone, I apologize. They flash through some who don't make it, and sometimes those who do. As the number of people in the show wanes, I will get better with the names and other info.
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New host: Nick Cannon
Judges are Piers, Sharon, and David, as before.
In the following, Buzzed = three "X"s.
First up is New York City
26yo shcool aide, Ray Schwartz... Sing and dance. Song: A Little More Conversation. He just didn't dance or sing well. David: How do you think you played. Ray: Well, obviously, I need more lessons. Piers: If that was improved, how bad were you to start with? BUZZED.
Jay Brunnel - Sing and play guitar on a unicycle. Buzzed
Any Lopata - Rap Buzzed.
Sky & Vlad sometihng - Fire dance. Buzzed.
Break. David: That was a terrible start... but entertaining.
Chicago
48yo Movie Usher, Moses Lanham ... Only known living person who can do his talent: Turns feet around 180 degrees and walks. Piers buzzed. David: That's not really enough to sustain an act. Sharon: No from me. Piers: It actually made me physically sick. Cannon turned his shoes around and followed him out.
FootworKINGz - Live in a bad neighborhood. 5-man group. Footwork performance (Dance). They did good, I thought. Piers: I liked it all... Energy, dynamism. Sharon: Awesome. David: I got a problem. Are you good enough to sustain a show where people will pay $70 for an hour. BUT, I do like your Chicago attitude. They're in.
Break.
Still in Chicago.
Sunny attitude. Brother & Sister act from Wisconsin, called Shine. 10+ years together. 14-21. Singing "Walking on Sunshine". Not that great. David and Piers buzzed them. Sharon let them go. Nick: I don't think they know that they were bad. Sharon: Polite and nice people. Piers: I don't think they know they're evil underneath. BUZZED.
The Positive Borthers. Another dance group. Piers and David, Buzzed. Nope.
Accordian lady. and a young girl dancing in a bikini. "We're original."
Christy Marie - "Phenomenal Singer". Nope.
Jay Jay - Composed a mamajam. Keyboard. Three "X"s. Nope.
Break.
Still in Chicago.
A Barack Obama imitator. "The Rock and Roll President". Pete Peterkin. Does some comedy and James Brown. Piers: Take the wig off. Sharon: How many more impressions do you do. 300 or so, about 100 instruments. David: It was good, but then it faded, for him. Sharon: Yes. David: paused - Yes. Piers: Yes. He's in. (The audience loved him...)
Blackfire Percussion: Group has been that for 18 years. 8-18 ages. Drummers. Sharon: Great. Yes all round.
Vocal Percussion: Anointed. Good. Piers: Best I've seen. In.
Unexpected Dance Step. They're in. (Large troup)
Break. David: The talent has returned. It always does.
Chicago, still.
Debbie Victor. 54yo. People are amazed when I do my talent. I think the judges are totally gonna love it. Animal sounds. Works for a law firm. Sharon buzzed on first - Dog barking. 3-4 in, she was buzzed out. Each "no" brought an imitation, and she walked out doing them.
Tommy and Diane Long with a miniature horse. Horse golfs. Nope.
Rockin Rory and his owner, Tony Hoard, 54. Dog is 7yo. - From New Castle, Indiana. With Rory, he gets to play with the dog. Flying disk dog. Good act, and I'm not just saying that because he's from Indiana. Piers: Most incredible thing I've ever seen... That dog flies! David: America deserves to see you and your dog. Sharon: Yes. Piers: Yes. COOL! He's IN! As they are leaving, Tony says, backstage: "He gets a steak, tonight!"
Break.
Seattle, now.
49yo Brad Byers from Idaho. When he was small, his grandmother ran a talent show. She put him in, and he was hooked. Put hook through nose out of mouth. Then swung an anchor (small one). Sharon... No! No! Then he put a drill into his nose (like those who pound a nail into their heads?) All the judges seem sick. Sharon: Do you do anything else? Yes... Piers: I loved every second of it. David: America deserves to see you, yes. Sharon: No from me. Piers: Yes. He's in!
Brad's act entertained the judges, but the rest of seattle was just weird! (Nick)
A guy who strips, someone with a suitcase, an accordianist with weird sounds, Fire group, Bad bagpiper. Nope! (Thank God!)
Break. Sharon: This place is absolutely barking mad!
Seattle, again.
Noel the Freak - hangs stones from his eyes and they're broken. Nope.
The EriAm(sp?) Sisters - Write songs and sing. Dream - To be the next Destiny's Child. Parents backstage. "I Want You Back (Give Me One More Chance)". Great. I think they're in. Audience loves them. Piers: Don't drift apart too much (onstange). David: You are the most talented kids I've seen on the show since the beginning. David: Absolutely, yes. Sharon: Yes. Piers: Yes. They're in.
Break.
Seattle, still.
Jesse White tumbling team. Yes.
Urban Nation Hip-Hop Choir. Yes.
Draconik (playing with fire). Yes.
30yo Loan Officer, David Johnson. Wrote a song about someone on Baywatch. Never done anything this big, before. "I wanna be the sand between your toes. You could teach me CPR..." (Bad start.) Song is about David Hasselhoff. (Had a crush on him in HS.) Piers and David had buzzed before he got to the name. Piers: Buzzed you too early. Could be a very special night, tonight, David. David: Absolutely, yes. Honored and humbled that someone would write a song about me. And saddened he's a man. Sharon: No. I don't think I could hear that again. Piers: Brilliant. Yes. He's in.
Break.
Aerialist. Bruce and Simone. Double-hoop. Piers buzzed. Piers: Just go and get a room. Sharon: Quite Fabulous. David: The kiss was nice... Makes me wanna go home and get a hula hoop. David: No. Sharon: Yes. Piers: Sharon says if I say yes, we can do it later. I've always wanted to swing from hoops with Sharon. Yes. They're in.
Break.
New York.
NYC Gay Choir - They're in.
32yo Joseph Maricina - Impressions. Scares him sometimes at how well he does them. Great at entertainment (his words). Jack Nicholson... Piers buzzed immediately. David buzzed on Anthony Hopkins, followed by Sharon. Didn't sound like those guys. Nope from all three. (Joseph: "Personally, I think it was jealousy, because there's no way I didn't sound like them."). I think he needs to get a recorder, and play both the person he's imitating and himself. He's NOT good. He had the lines down, but not the voices.
Big guy, small girl - Paradizo Dance. SHE holds HIM up. Well, they alternate. (Just married last September). Not bad. Not great, but interesting. Piers: She weighs around 100 pounds. He 240. How the hell do you lift him up. (She shows her muscles.) Piers: That was one of the most extrodinary things I've seen in my life. Sharon: Terrific. David: Grace and it moved me. Great job. Votes: Yes all around.
Break.
New York
Last act: Brother and Sister group. Voices of Glory. Three kids. 9, 13, 16. "God Bless America", for ALL of America. Three years ago, mom was in a head-on with a drunk driver. They started singing to her (in a coma for months). They sang to her and the hospital, and it went on from there. Wonderful harmonies. WOW! Standing ovation - Audience and judges. Sharon in tears. Piers: God bless you three, you are the pride of America tonight. David: Beautiful. Fantastic. Sharon: (can't speak). They wheel Mom out with a mic. Piers: You must be feeling VERY proud of your children tonight. Sharon: Amazing family. And they must be so proud to have you as their mum. Piers: Talent show. As powerful as the story is, it's a talent show. Singing: Best we've heard this year. Sharon: Yes. David: Yes. Piers: My great pleasure to say you three are going through to the next round. (Sharon is still in tears.)
As the show ends, Sharon's still crying. Piers: That's the most powerful thing I've ever seen.
New show, tomorrow.
See you then! ;-)
EDIT: NBC now has the full episode online for free viewing. See http://www.nbc.com/americas-got-talent/video/episodes/?vid=1129130#vid=1129130
6 comments:
http://goddessskyclaudette.proimageguide.com/
Sky Claudette Soto does her patented back bend with fire fingers, while Vlad Marco holds flaming skewers right over her stomach. Their act has always gone off without incident — until a recent performance on “America’s Got Talent.”
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_325/fireactcouple.html
Fire-act couple are incensed at Hasselhoff and NBC
By Lincoln Anderson
A former leading East Village squatter and his common-law wife are hot under the collar at “America’s Got Talent,” charging the reality show’s bungling techies created a dangerous situation that led to the woman’s hair catching on fire.
Vlad Marco and Sky Claudette Soto had performed their fire act 200 times prior to going on the NBC show. Typically, Vlad wields his blazing fire umbrella and fire swords, while Sky does back bends with her fire fans, or sometimes fire fingers.
They rehearse religiously in their Williamsburg loft. They’ve performed on Halloween at Webster Hall, and more recently on the roof at Grand Space in Brooklyn — always without a hitch.
But on “America’s Got Talent,” something went wrong, seriously wrong.
The segment was taped several months ago and recently aired.
Things immediately got off to a bad start, when the couple were told they couldn’t leave the stuffy green room at the Hammerstein Ballroom on W. 34th St. They were forced to wait in an uncomfortable “holding area” with 150 other performers for 13 hours, until they went onstage.
“They wouldn’t let us bring our fire safety person in,” Marco said. “They never offered us water.”
Marco said the stage setup looked “questionable.” Techies had put four boards down where Soto was to perform, and when Marco asked if they were fire retardant was told that they were.
“But it looked glossy, like laminate,” he recalled. A plastic covering may have been left on one of the boards, Marco suspects.
As a result, Marco said, when Soto did her trademark back bend, her right fire fan touched down and ignited the plastic, which caused the hair on the right side of her head to catch fire. Eventually, men with fire extinguishers rushed out, but, by that time, Soto’s hair was already out, as was Marco’s umbrella.
“It singed her hair — her reflexes are so quick, she was able to reach around and put it out,” Marco noted. “Sky’s trained in ballet and tap since she was 3. You can’t say this girl’s a novice.”
As they exited the stage, Soto angrily blasted Sharon Osbourne, one of the celebrity judges, screaming, “You can’t keep a performance artist downstairs for 13 hours! How dare you do this to me?” Yet, her rant was later removed from the segment that aired.
Marco was particularly incensed at a quip another of the judges, David Hasselhoff, made after the incident: “ ‘Well, that was a fiery end of the night.’ That’s what the dope said,” fumed Marco. “And then they’re like laughing, ‘Ha! Ha! She burned her hair.’ That’s bad taste.
“They put us on last, which makes me think this might have been intentional,” he added.
Adding insult to injury, a video of the fire-act fiasco popped up on AOL the next week, reaching as high as No. 7. Marco said boos were even dubbed into this video, though no one had booed at the actual taping.
“The contract says, ‘We can portray you in a false manner — like dubbing in boos,’” he noted. “We’ve never been booed. We did a show before 4,000 people at Webster Hall — they never booed. ... We did fire at Heidi Klum’s Halloween party four years ago. ... This is the sleazier side of reality TV.”
Maybe, Marco figured, it was all about one thing: “They wanted a ‘wow factor’ — because their ratings are plummeting.”
The Villager was unable to reach representatives from “America’s Got Talent” or NBC for comment.
Back in his squatting days, Marco “opened up” and/or “started” a lot of bricked-up abandoned buildings in the East Village, including See Skwat, Serenity and Sunshine.
“Pretty much every squat I ever opened is still going and standing,” he said.
Here's the act on AGT that's discussed in the prior comment.
http://www.nbc.com/americas-got-talent/video/clips/one-hot-act/1129354/
I don't know that "plastic" would have caused her to go so slow in that walk-over, or to slip and fall.
Other acts had problems, but they didn't complain about it.
BUT, I will never say that almost every act on the show should be doing what they do everywhere. It appears they've done this elsewhere with little to no problem. Why they had a problem on AGT is conjecture. If there was stuff on the stage that shouldn't have been there, they should have removed it before they started their act. (That would surely have been edited out.)
I hear you on that ,but some of these reality shows do things a certain way & will not listen to anything the performer has to say ,now if you look closely at some of Sky & Vlad's videos you on their site
you can see that she places her fire equiptment on the floor all of the time pretty much in each video without fail that I have seen on their site,and never a problem !
But on Americas Got Talent there was a problem & if you look at the Americas Got Talent video closely she does the same move she has done a number of times but something goes wrong ,honestly I think that the techs screwed up & are to embarrassed about coming forth & saying that the accident was their fault & not the performers,
cause in todays age most people like to cover up their mistakes by blaming the other person that has got the expierience & is very good at what they do ,so that they don't look bad because they don't want to get yelled at or fired.
You get the point I am sure,
thanx for the response
but please take the time to look over Sky & Vlad's site to see exactly what I am talking about.
whatever the case either it being Americas Got Talent screwing Sky & Vlad over or the Techs screwing up or both, what it comes down to is someone could have hurt her badly,by not properly removing the plastic from the stage & telling them the floor was flame retardent when it wasn't
or letting them try out the stage before the show .
when that is not what their act is all about as I can see on their main site & there is a lot to look at on there site.
I will never watch Americas Got Talent ever again after seeing what they pulled on their show !
Hello there & thanx for all the Concern,Yes Americas got Talent put 4 boards down for me to do my headstand & yes they knew that I was going to place My Fire Tools on the Stage Floor
it was all discussed earlier in the day, I usually do that in my act & have never had a problem,Myself & Vlad gave them a promo DVD of our show,
so they knew what our act had consisted of,they kept us waiting 13 hours before going on with no water ect. & we were not alowed upstairs,we saw them seconds before we went on pulling up plastic off the boards which should have been fully pulled off hours ago ,they told us the floor was flame retardent ,well it wasn't & I often place my Fire tools on the floor nothing like this has ever happened at any one of our shows as safety in Number 1 with us & what we practice.
We felt that it was our right to complain because this is no way to be treated, we have done our fire act on A&E TV,National Geographics, Fuse TV WebsterHall on the Mainstage, & The Nassau County Museum Of Art ,amongst many other places
And any artist that has been mistreated should have the right to complain,they made a big deal out of this & for what reason I don't know ,they contacted us we never contacted Americas Got Talent otherwise we would have never gone on that show because we are not into shows focusing on Competition that is not what our act. is all about ,we are spiritual performance artist we are one with what we do & love doing it ,so all of this Americas Got Talent backstabbing us is just ridiculous & needs to stop ,we did nothing wrong to them we were only curious because they contacted us.
Oh please, this is ridiculous. Firstly, when her hair caught fire she was doing a backbend, not a headstand. Secondly, during said backbend there were no "boards" on the floor. It was just the regular floor. Don't believe me? Watch the video! Her hair CAUGHT fire because her hair was OVER the flames. Nothing else combusted. Also, plastic doesn't combust, it melts. Hair, however, does.
Why don't you try taking responsibility for your own accident instead of blaming it on someone else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYuXo0XME94
Interesting. This happened over four years ago. Nothing has been said about it since she said something about it, and when someone finally does say something, they rail against the artist, when it's been noted by others AND them that AGT messed up. Ah, well.
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