America’s Got Talent’s Third Quarter-Final Show

FootworKINGz really came to play this week. Their moves were great and their outifts were cool too. Normally I’m not a huge fan of dance groups, but they were solid after being asked back. They brought a lot of energy, but the amount of dance acts dilutes their attraction.

Marcus Terrell & the Serenades – Replacing his backup singers helped a lot. Instead of his solid lead voice being “complimented” by lousy singers, the new ones really accentuated his performance. He’s good, not great.

Pixie Mystere – Cutesy. They run around and flip and bend. Nice for entertaining a PTA meeting, but certainly not an act that Vegas would love.

Jay Mattioli – Run of the mill magician. Nothing special and pales in comparison to the other magic act still alive.

Bri – She’s kinda annoying. Big voice, but she tries too hard to be someone she’s not. She’s taken two songs now and redone them for her performances – and neither of her arrangements were that spectacular. But she’s better than some still left in, although not better than some sent home.

U4IA Dance Crew – Scary. There’s nothing too special about them and for that they’ll go home.

Dave Johnson – What else could you expect? He did what I expected him to, wrote a song with somewhat entertaining lyrics and then sang it, but not very well. He’s one of the acts that shouldn’t have made it past the first audition let alone to the semifinals.

Hairo Torres – He had some very unique moves, but that being said, he’s a dancing contortionist which is somewhat intriguing, but not altogether entertaining. However, he is definitely different and some of his moves and mind-boggling.

G-Force – The guitar playing was solid, and the little drummer girl was amazing. But none of them can sing a lick. I doubt even their parents enjoy it when they sing. They shouldn’t have made it out of the original auditions either, but they did and then went on to embarrass themselves on national television.

Jeffery Ou – What a great pianist. This guy is really good, although using backup dancers was unnecessary and proved problematic when one of them kicked out the piano’s mic and no one could hear his playing over the accompaniment. But the dude’s a sick piano player nevertheless.

Mario & Jenny – Now here’s a Vegas act! Fire and danger are immensely entertaining and both of them are fantastic showmen. Juggling is really quite a mundane activity until you add more stuff and light it on fire.

Lawrence Beaman – An emotional singer with a fantastic voice. He’s rather plain though, so he’s going to need to expand himself a little in order to seriously sustain a Vegas show. He’s got an incredibly powerful voice and should use it as often as he can.

Lawrence Beaman performs at an America's Got Talent audition

The five acts from this evening’s semifinal I would have put through were Jeffery Ou (despite the technical difficulty), Mario & Jenny, Lawrence Beaman, FootworKINGz and Hairo Torres. I wavered in taking Torres as my last act in, but Marcus Terrell didn’t overwhelm me and I’ve seen girls like Bri before and didn’t like them then.

For the first time this season, the five acts I wanted to go through did. When the last act came down to FootworKINGz and Pixie Mystere, I assumed Sharon and the Hoff would fall for the cutesy tweens while Piers picked talent over cute. Piers did as I expected and then Sharon shocked me by agreeing with him.

Daughtry and Ashley Tisdale both performed during the live results show this week, a nice change of pace from previous weeks where the show had brought in a hit (Terry Fator -Week 1 and Pim & Keller – Week 2) along with a miss (Mariah Carey Week 1, LMFAO Week 2).