[xDramatick]

I went with my mate to watch the London live auditions last night and thought I'd pop in a few spoilers for anyone interested:

- There's a lot of generic R&B/Soul female singers this year &the majority of what I saw. One girl sang 'Hallelujah' and her voice was very similar to Alexandra Burke. Another girl had a really nice voice, but her song choices didn't suit her (acoustic version of 'Poker Face' & 'Don't Forget'). Another sixteen year old who was told to come back with a more contemporary songs after being turned down the day before performed 'Hero' and was criticized again, and therefore not put through.

- Annastasia (3:50) is back with a new look, and just scraped getting through after some criticism on song choice - 'I've heard trannies perform it better'.

- I viewed two boybands: one of whom I auditioned for a few months ago (they didn't get through LOL, I texted them afterwards and they said it went terribly, a 'nightmare'). The second, FYE', were actually decent, I weren't personally keen but I could see them being popular as they had that JLS appeal to them (decent vocals, could dance, nice harmonies but generally weren't good looking - except for one lad who had a weak voice but was absolutely gorgeous). They sang 'She Said' & something else, and Cheryl said they were the best boyband she's seen this year so far.

- One lad, 29 years old, works in a nursing home with patients suffering from dementia, sang 'You Are So Beautiful' fantastically. Simon stopped him because he hated the backing track - 'it sounds like someone's smacking an axe across the piano' and made him sing it a cappella. I could see him getting really far.

- Probably my second favourite act after the one above, a girl group (the only one we saw). They looked amazing, and are reminiscent of Bad Lashes. They described themselves as wanting an indie sound and did a reasonable version of 'Dog Days Are Over'. I liked them.

- Only saw a couple of really bad auditionees - a tone deaf brother & sister who performed as soloists, a sinitta lookalike who was completely out of tune&time, and a rather camp performing arts student who attempted 'And I Am Telling You'... badly. There were also two mega hot guys.. who couldn't sing.

- There's a lot of european auditionees this year. We watched a young chinese male perform 'I Will Always Love You', a 25 year old romanian woman perform 'If I Ain't Got You' & male french twins perform 'Halo' & 'Just Dance' who are like a more talented Jedward (cheesy.. but these guys can actually sing pretty damn well bar the accents).

- Most acts that could sing, but got turned away because there was nothing unique about them, or the song choices were either generic, or didn't suit them.

I can't think of anything else to say, so yeah.
This has got me quite excited, Simon reckons it's a really strong year.