Just curious since no one's started a thread about the show other than a request for it to be taped..

Yep, it was mainly the rejects from Washington D.C.

The guy in purple, where the judges were timing him was pretty funny. There were about 4 really LOL funny auditions, especially the judges reactions to them that makes it even funnier. I got a chuckle from McGrath telling that one girl that she was hot, but her singing was not. McGrath liked to catch Simon's eye when a hot girl (like the one with British parents) could sing enough to get a yellow ticket to Hollywood.

This is the American Idol thread?

The auditions are always worth watching. That last chick I thought a cuckoo bird was going to spring out from her forehead. What a whack job! And her southern accent just put it over the top. She'd make a great character for MadTV.

not much to talk about in the first few episodes other than laughing at the rejects.

Holy shit, she was NUTS, totally. I mean, wow.

The best was the slob girl who said "It may look like I have a lot of money" while she was looking all trashy.

I wanted to take that pompous, self-important, pretentious cousin of Toni Braxton's and smack him around. What a fruit cake!

Did they show any auditions from atlanta? My friend swears that he knows the guy with droopy glasses who was on the preview.

thought atlanta was last year.

not that i watch this show or anything

My wife had never seen the show, but watched last night. She saw the sad sack who had to leave the room and ask for the next line of the song only to come back and sound terrible and said, "This is the show everyone watches?!?"

I'd like to think that a lot of these people were doing it for a goof, but anyone who would wait in line for 24 hours or more just the remote possibility of being on TV for 10 seconds has rocks in their head. Some of those contestants were totally crazy though.

My favorite part was when the AI cameras followed Constantin as he told his bandmates that he was leaving to go on the show. The drummer made no secret of the fact that he hates AI. It was funny because I've known lots of musicians and they all have that my-music-is-so-much-better attitude.

It was all Washington DC. We were subjected to a lot of mangled "patriotic" songs.

I thought Mark Mcgrath (Mr Sugar Ray) did a good job with the judging. He even jumped on Simon for a vote... "Yes or no, Simon!"

It'll be interesting to see how far the heavy metal singer (who had to inform his band he's "Heading to Hollywood") will go. Seems like he has the pipes... but he'll have to rein them in a bit so he doesn't overpower the songs.

Does anyone know what date or which night Gene Simmons is the guest judge??

New Orleans - which is next week's episode.

I thought two big improvements were raising the age limit and giving celebrity guest judges a vote in the first round of auditions. I never got the point of bringing the celebrities in during the last rounds. They don't want to say anything bad to these kids who have gotten that far and the judges don't even decide anything at that point anyway. I'd much rather see their reactions to the no-talent lunatics.

I called that guy Milli Vanilli while he was singing so I laughed when Mark McGrath said the same thing.

fun stuff, although I was cringing for the guy who couldn't remember the next line of the song. I thought they took that one a little too far.

I thought McGrath was better than ANY of the past celebrity judges. Not only did he actually seem to speak his mind, but he also had some personality. I hope the other celebs do as well.

I'm glad they actually showed a balance of the good and bad singers. Last year they concentrated so hard on the bad ones, by the time the semifinals came around I was like "Who are these people?" Everyone knew William Hung, but couldn't remember anyone else.

I too have felt that way. I know we are all entertained by the bad auditions but I would like to hear some good voices as well.

I guess that's not saying much about past celebrities judges since I found it annoying that Mark had to look at either Randy, Paula or Simon before saying something.

I don't know why I keep hearing about the age limit thing. They only raised it by 2 years, so basically everybody that could try out the past 2 seasons can still try out. They didn't even raise it enough to let people that could've tried out for the first one try out.

So with an even number of judges, what do they do in the case of a tie?

St Louis stunk. No celebrity judge and the only person they showed that seemed to have a chance at winning the thing was the cute farm girl. The girl who came in doing the rap was cool, but she didn't have much of a singing voice.

Agree. He was gauging how the others felt before giving his opinion. I really wanted him to speak first, but that wasn't gonna happen........

Wasn't the age limit 24 for the past 3 seasons? That means 4 years have been added to the age limit this season.

You might not be seeing a lot of the "good" singers because they auditioned with a song they couldn't show on the broadcast.

The blonde girl from Oklahoma was a decent singer, and the chipmunk rapper girl, I think, has some potential.

I couldn't stand Asia (rapper girl?) I didn't even know it was a girl until Paula made mention of it.