Paula Abdul? Gone! Simon Cowell? Nearly gone. Kelly Clarkson? Sings “Already Gone.” Tonight, to mark the return of the ninth season of the in-flux American Idol, Rolling Stone will be following the action as it happens in our first live blog of the new decade. The auditions begin in Boston, where Victoria Beckham (a.k.a. “Posh” Spice) will be filling in as guest judge. Join as we track the best and worst hopefuls and remember some of Paula’s best moments.
Look back at photos, interviews and more of our essential Idol coverage.
8:00 pm: Remember when Kris Allen beat Adam Lambert? And then Paula Abdul left Idol? And then Ellen DeGeneres got her job? Ryan Seacrest is introducing “a new beginning.”
8:03 pm: Nine seasons and they still haven’t changed that weird cheesy opening.
8:05 pm: 9,000 hopefuls in Beantown for Kara DioGuardi, Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell and Victoria Beckham.
8:06 pm: “We’re so coordinated, we look like we’re on a night out,” Posh (in red) says to a PA (in red) who is having the best moment of his life.
8:08 pm: OK, first singer Janet McNamara has already plugged the Idol video game, pumped herself up in a bathroom, said “wicked” and murdered “Pocket Full of Sunshine.” Perhaps it’s a good time for our first Paula memory?
Remember when Paula spat her gum on Simon during an audition?
8:14 pm: Maddy Curtis is 16 and has three siblings with Down Syndrome. She evidently hasn’t heard that Leonard Cohen has called for a “Hallelujah” moratorium, but we like her. She’s going to Hollywood!
8:19 pm: Oh look, a cranky hipster! Who is not amused by the perky guy who’s “not scared to be myself,” Pat Ford. Ford is auditioning with Britney Spears’ “Womanizer.” And doing more choreography than she managed on her Circus tour.
8:22 pm: Big ups to the girl who auditioned with Mr. Big’s “To Be With You”!
You know who we’d like to be with right now? Paula Abdul. Here’s another moment: Remember when Paula and Simon kissed in a parallel universe?
8:30 pm: Amadeo Diriccio likes to be Italian and sing Muddy Waters. Cowell says he has a “likability thing.” Golden ticket! Is this guy the antidote to the Situation or what?
8:33 pm: Derrick the hippie likes long nature walks and “gragitating to music” (a combination of gravitating and graduating, we presume?). Even better, he clearly missed Chris Brown’s “situation” and calls himself an unabashed fan of the embattled singer. Then he imitates Elton John.
8:39 pm: A montage of people crying? The only cure of this mess is … another mess!
Remember when Paula saw a Jason Castro performance that never happened thanks to a tear in the space-time continuum?
8:43 pm: Is it just us, or do 99 percent of people who want to sing Janis Joplin at Idol auditions seem a little … off? Mere Doyle was “verging on terrible,” quoth Simon.
8:45 pm: A pair of solid guy singers from New York blow up the Boston audition. There’s a Yankees-Red Sox joke to be made here, but wait — it’s time for cranky hipster guy!
8:47 pm: You can tell Andrew Fenlon fancies himself a Rivers Cuomo type. A mean Rivers Cuomo type. He sings a slightly theatrical version of “House of the Rising Sun” and then gets a tongue-lashing from Kara over his ‘tude.
Fenlon was confrontational, but nowhere near as nutty as Paul Marturano, Paula’s mega-fan who rhymed “stalker” with “Peter Falk-er” and “Jimmy Walker” during his audition two years ago.
You can find the original article and other great content at this URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2010/01/12/american-idol-returns-live-blogging-season-nines-debut/
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