"American Idol" tour kicks off
For months, as the entertainment world revolved around them, as desperate fans speed-dialed voting lines, as celebrity-driven tabloids and websites fought in mortal combat for every scrap of information about them, as television, music and Broadway rebuilt their firmaments in their wake, the contestants of "American Idol" toiled in the show's protective cocoon-like bubble. "We were in a white room for three months," said Irish songstress Carly Smithson.
But now, at last, their duties on the show over, America's Top 10 gladiators of competitive singing are leaving the bubble and taking their songs directly to the millions of "Idol" fans as they prepare for the 49-city "American Idols Live!" tour, which begins Tuesday in Glendale, Ariz.
As they looked ahead to the road trip, it was very clear that after months of absorbing Simon Cowell's acid lashings, the second-guessing of fans and ultimately each Wednesday night's verdict of the voters, the "Idol" ladies were agog with exhilaration at the prospect of finally singing for singing's sake. "It's not about what a judge is going to say. It's about the music and the fans connecting and having a great time," gushed singer-songwriter White.
Looking back, the five remembered the trauma of their greatest challenge, Mariah Carey week, as what brought them together. "That week was going to be the hardest week the girls were going to have," Smithson remembered. "Mariah Carey's voice is undeniably one of the greatest. How are we supposed to sing her songs and not be critiqued? That was why I picked something that wasn't well known, and I still got criticized. You have a boy coming to sing any of those songs, he's, in that moment, going to sound like he made it himself. If I slowed down on 'You'll Always Be My Baby', it would sound exactly the same." (excerpt from the Los Angeles Times)
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