Canada Rocks, But Not On Idol

08/12/08 4:47pm

by Michelle Singerman (CHARTattack)

"Canada Rocks" night on Canadian Idol was badly misnamed. Not only did the wannabe idols put on mostly boring performances, as was expected, but their song choices were an insult to Canadian rockers.

No Neil Young or The Band. Feist was chosen over Joni Mitchell. Our classic rock landscape is much stronger than what the remaining six chose to perform. Earl Stevenson was the only one to take advantage of our country's great musical wealth by singing a Steppenwolf song. To make matters worse, Simple Plan are the oh-so-big music name joining the show this week. God give me strength.

The episode was only an hour and we were only forced to watch six performances. Things are starting to look up around here. I was also highly entertained when judge Zack Werner responded to host Ben Mulroney's annoying opening questions by saying he was looking forward to moving on from this "lame part of the show where you ask us an inane question and we give you a petty pat answer." That was the beginning of the beautiful friendship that blossomed between Werner and I on Monday night.

Amberly Thiessen was up first and started the night with a flop. She chose Feist's "1234" and didn't sing it well. Thiessen has a knack for taking an easy, airy song and turning it into something else, like with Corinne Bailey Rae's "Put Your Records On" from last week. Judge Jake Gold thought that, despite not changing the song's arrangement like the show encourages, Thiessen still did a good job. Werner said Thiessen came across like "Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark singing a Feist song." At least the worst was over first.

Theo Tams and was up next, and was first lectured by Simple Plan about being true to himself and not worrying about what others want you to do. Thanks, Simple Plan. So Tams went back to the piano and sang another song by a woman: Sarah Slean's "Sweet Ones." Tams is good, but he's becoming increasingly more boring each week. If I were a fan of his music (I'm not), I'd only need go to one of his shows for the rest of whatever he hopes will be a music career, as every set would sound the same.

As if the show wasn't painful enough, we had to sit through a pathetic montage video of Canadian Idol fans. The biggest Idol fanatics were chosen to hang out with the pseudo-stars and get a glamorous backstage tour. How thrilling.

Mitch MacDonald was third in line and really impressed the judges with Joel Plaskett's "Love This Town." It was a fine rendition and I agreed with the judges when they said MacDonald sounded better giving an acoustic performance. But the panel likened him to Paul Simon, which I can't agree with.

We finally saw a cool performance with Earl Stevenson's take on The Tragically Hip's "Little Bones." I think I may have enjoyed his version more than the original. OK, busted. I'm not the biggest Hip fan, but I don't mind listening to them. This isn't a dig on one of Canada's most recognizable bands, but more of a shout-out to Stevenson's talent. The judges were all drooling by the end of the performance, and Sass Jordan continued her streak of creeping me out when she said that she's now ready to "buy a ticket to Planet Earl." Right, Paula.

Another predictable performance came with Drew Wright's interpretation of Big Wreck's "That Song" — the second number in a row by a former Gold management client. Let me start off by saying that leather doesn't make the man cool, but the man makes the leather cool. I only know Wright from what I've gathered this season, but based on my observations, he shouldn't have been wearing cowhide on Monday night. That said, Wright gave what he probably thought was a hard rock performance. Werner and I became friends again when the judge said he's accepted that Wright was probably being honest with this rock performance, but that Wright had to accept that he just didn't like it. Right on.

Mookie Morris was awesome. He sang the Philip Steir remix version of Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" while wearing big shades and taking an in-your-face stance with the mic. He pretty much had beads of coolness dripping from his sweat. There was a DJ scratching in the background, which worked really well with this reworked psychedelic rock song. Morris deserves to wear leather. Werner, my bud, summed it up for all of us whe he said, "Dude, you're killer. That's all there is to it."

Overall, Thiessen was the worst — and not just because I don't like her. The video recap at the end of the show proved it. Hopefully I'm right and she'll be voted off next. Find out Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT, when you can also see Simple Plan perform.