American Idol 2011: James Durbin, Scotty Mccreery and Haley Reinhart Owns The Night of “Now & Then”

Of the 5 left standing on this season’s “American Idol”, I should think it obvious that James Durbin, Scotty McCreery And Haley Reinhart should be the ones to take their places in the “Top 3″.  Yes, I’ve skipped from “4″ to “3″ as I personally feel that Jacob Lusk should be leaving the Idol stage real soon and as for Lauren Alaina who doesn’t seem to be able to unleash whatever talent that’s still in a “latent” stage (we had such high hopes for this young lass when she first made her appearance during her audition), it’s a little too late at this point in time seeing we’re almost reaching the “Finals” already.  And time being of the essence, I think it’s a case of being “too little, too late”.

Also it’s really quite unfair for Lauren to still survive week after week especially since she’s been inconsistent in her performance as opposed to James Durbin and Scotty McCreery who are being pretty steady throughout the duration.  And Haley Reinhart being the “dark horse” is definitely catching up.  So, even though Haley was not my earlier choice to be in the “Top 3″, she’s now won me over with her quiet tenacity.

The week’s theme being “Now & Then”, a 2-song night of a “modern-day” tune and a “60’s/70’s” classic should certainly be an interesting night of “today” vs “yesteryear” in the “world of music”.  So, it is with much anticipation that I tuned into the night’s performance.

First up, my thoughts on my man James Durbin who does what he does best – which is sing, sing and sing!!  Yes, but tonight we see a diverse situation of an up-tempo rendition of Thirty Seconds To Mars’ “Closer To The Edge” and a somewhat overly-emotional deliverance of Badfinger’s “Without You”.  When Steven Tyler connected his first song’s performance to Freddie (as in Freddie Mercury of “Queen”), I couldn’t help but think of it as a coincidence as I had also seen the similarity during one of James’ past week’s performances which I followed up with a mention in one of my articles on “American Idol”.  For me, even though I’m no fan of the second song, I definitely loved his take on it.  After all, James can do no wrong in my book, yes??  Even with all the emotions oozing out of him due to his self-confessed “homesickness” (yes, he’s missing his “better half” and kid like crazy) when he was singing this song, he still managed to lock it in.  Yup, James is on the way to the Finals for sure!!