Armed with little more than an eyepatch, a sense of humour
and a streak of bravado, Sunanda Creagh joins the nervous
throng of hopefuls at auditions for Australian Idol.
I step out of the cab on a chilly Saturday morning looking
like something left over from Friday night. Short skirt,
eye make-up, tight top and flashy earrings. Oh, yeah,
and an eyepatch. The plan was hatched at Friday afternoon
drinks, half story idea, half dare: I'll audition for
Australian Idol wearing an eyepatch.
And lo, at 7am the next day I'm clip-clopping in my heels
towards Darling Harbour Convention Centre, sure that I'm
early enough to beat the queues. I'll get in, warble a
few lines and be laughing about it by lunchtime.
I round the corner to see my fellow Idol brethren lined
up in a queue that stretches from the door around two
sides of the harbour, six or seven thick and a kilometre
long. Judging by their tired, bedraggled and bored expressions,
I estimate these people must have been here since 4am.
Then I see the sleeping bags, duvets and mini-tents and
realise they've been lined up since yesterday afternoon.
I start walking and five minutes later reach the end of
the queue. I'm surrounded by young girls brushing hair,
applying lip gloss, straightening their sexy boots. Far
from being embarrassed by it, in a way my eyepatch keeps
me company - it reminds me that this is not serious, that
there's something really funny and amusing about standing
around in the cold on a Saturday morning preparing to
sing in front of strangers.
Nervous energy drives people to chatter and conversations
strike up all around me. "So, what are you gonna
sing?" and "Were you here last year?" There
are all sorts here. A guy dressed as Batman is talking
on his mobile phone, looking deadly serious despite his
chiselled abs and silly codpiece. The girls next to me,
however, are not amused. If you're not serious about Idol
you shouldn't be here. "It's not fair," one
of them complains. "We wait all day for all these
other people to audition, but they aren't even serious
about it." I nod conspiratorially and try to stare
down Batman with my good eye.
We're all bored. An Asian boy in a giant silver hoodie
listens to songs on his mobile phone. A group of Islander
girls croons a love ballad of which Alicia Keys would
be proud. Beside me, someone writing a text message calls
out: "How do you spell testicle?" We answer
in chorus. Plenty have brought friends, girlfriends, boyfriends
and family. Someone's dad offers me a blanket for my chilly
legs.
A security guard, looking a little like an agent from
The Matrix, hands out forms that we all sign greedily
- waiving all our rights, handing over our souls to Grundy
Television. A woman ahead of me notices that contestants
must be aged between 16 and 28. "I am 28 today. Can
I still audition?" she asks. "Sorry, love,"
says a man wearing a walkie-talkie headset. "If you're
not under 28, you can't go in." The woman shuffles
off dejectedly and we all shake our heads sadly. It's
a tough game.
A Channel Ten camera sidles up to me, followed by an impossibly
bouncy presenter who announces she just "lurrrves"
my leg warmers. They want to film me opening my coat,
flasher-style, wiggling suggestively and uttering something
about how much I want to be the next Australian Idol.
I resist for a moment, then realise that she who agrees
to wear an eyepatch and sing for reality TV has little
left to lose. I mustn't be good talent - after four takes
of arse-wiggling, the presenter loses interest and the
crew moves to its next victim.
Two hours later, we spot Idol hosts Andrew G and James
Mathison working the crowd, asking us to do a Mexican
wave for a cameraman chugging round the harbour in a little
boat. After about the seventh take, Andrew G patiently
calls out for us to wave one more time. A girl next to
me hurls an expletive instead. I like her.
At 9.30am, the doors open to the exhibition centre. They
let in groups of about 20 at a time, so the line inches
along slowly. Closer to the front, we encounter hairstylists
who are taking perfectly fine hairdos and ruining them
with litres of product. The results are greasy and bubblegum
flavoured - very Idol. An hour later, we're in the final
holding pen, stamping like racehorses. Then we're herded
into a huge auditorium, full of would-be stars. I'm not
sure how many people are here, but I'm handed a wristband
marked number 70645 - and we were the early group. As
I find a seat, I hear number 70040 called. Only 600 to
go.
A Maybelline stall is doing great business to our right,
patting powder on young faces, doing eyelashes, making
16-year-olds look glamorous beyond their years. A team
of roving hairstylists continues to pounce on heads. Staff
are handing out Telstra fake tattoos and Oz Idol merchandise.
At the back, pies are for sale.
Despite our boredom and fatigue, the mood is amiable.
We all have a long time to wait and friendships form quickly.
The corners of the room are filled with faces singing
to the walls, maximising the acoustics. Outside, the high
ceilings fill with the sound of a boy practising scales
with his singing teacher. Behind the pie cart, another
would-be Idol sleeps cradling a guitar. Someone next to
me pores over a hand-written lyric sheet.
I get to work making friends.
I start with Batman. Why is he dressed like that? "It's
a dare off people at work," he says, deadpan, long
bored of the joke. I hear ya, brother. He's singing Spider-Man
to win a $120 bet.
Over yonder is a boy with pink spiky hair, tight black
jeans and studded belt. What would a punk sing, I ask
him. "Sugar by Britney," he says in a fey little
voice. He has a J.Lo number prepared as a backup song,
which is lucky because I can't think of a Britney Spears
song by that name. No Ramones or Fugazi? "No, I'm
just dressed this way because if you want to be on TV
you need to make a statement."
In front of me is a couple who trucked in from country
NSW after work on Friday, then camped for a freezing night
on the shore of Darling Harbour. "We had about 20
minutes' sleep," she says, blaming the nervous chatter
of co-campers for her insomnia. Unlike me and Batman,
this girl can really sing: she's the Shannon Noll type,
the winner of an RSL competition, and she plans to impress
today's judges with a rendition of The Shoop Shoop Song.
We're joined by another couple. Again she's the singer;
he's here for moral support and has chosen the unlikely
Go the Mighty Panthers as his tune. "If you get in
and I don't, I'll never speak to you again," she
laughs, poking her boy in the belly.
We start to see people leaving the audition rooms. A girl
with frizzy hair weeps hysterically, comforted by her
family. Even her little brother looks respectfully sombre.
Others burst out clutching blue and pink cards, indicating
advancement to the next level of auditions. "I got
a 'wow' out of them," one girl says, and people she's
never met cheer. The girl from the country emerges, looking
brave but beaten. She hasn't made it. "Oh, well,"
her boyfriend says. "Let's go home and get some sleep."
The day passes excruciatingly slowly. This is real reality
TV: slow, boring, occasionally nerve-wracking, but mainly
banal. Tantrums, teary episodes and bitching provide temporary
entertainment. In the toilets, a girl calls out: "I
can't believe they didn't pick Tracey." The voice
in the next stall replies: "I can."
The dulcet tones of my fellow Idol hopefuls were entertaining
at first, but grow tiresome when I realise how many of
the voices sound the same. Most popular are those whimpering
Mariah Carey-style songs that trickle up and down the
octaves. I begin to long for a solid melody, not so much
wailing around a limited range. I wish someone would just
sing the national anthem. And it looks like I'm not the
only one tiring of the same tunes: at one stage, a producer
mounts the stage and announces: "If you're gonna
sing a gospel song, you better have a pop song up your
sleeve. We are hearing a lot of gospel in there."
I befriend a medical officer, who rattles off a list of
conditions he was anticipating today: headaches, cuts,
hypothermia, panic attacks, asthma. He's treated only
headaches so far, but his team is prepared for anything.
I fall asleep with my eyepatch on. At the rate people
are entering, I calculate that I might make my audition
debut about 6pm. The light begins to fade.
Suddenly, I'm on next. I rush to the bathroom to smear
on some lippy and totter back just as my number is called.
I'm herded into an anteroom. Unlike the cattle-class auditorium,
here it's quiet, hallowed. Producers scurry about whispering
and shooshing excited contestants, and the silence is
punctuated by trills and Mariah-howls. We sit on a line
of chairs and a kindly producer thanks us for waiting
and explains that we'll be assigned to one of four audition
rooms.
It's then that I'm struck by nerves. I try to remind myself
I'm here for a joke, that I'm not really auditioning,
but the reality of singing in front of strangers - wearing
a miniskirt and an eyepatch - is giving me a sick, heavy
feeling and my legs feel weak. "Be calm," I
tell myself. "They'll be kind and it will be over
quickly."
A producer emerges, clearly bored by such a long day and
so many bad singers. He starts monkeying around in front
of us, eliciting nervous laughs as he lip-synchs to the
voice of the poor girl belting it out behind the closed
doors of audition room one. As she strains to reach the
top notes, our producer starts laughing. "Sounds
like a bloody cat being tortured," he says, seemingly
unaware of how unnerving it is for us to think that we
are next to sing and be ridiculed.
I'm tapped on the shoulder. I'm up! I stumble into the
room and two judges look up from a pile of papers: a man
with glasses and a silver ponytail and a slight woman
with her hair piled up on her head. I guess they are singing
teachers, they are tired, they have had a long day and
are in no mood for jest. I, on the other hand, am wearing
an eyepatch, can't sing and am here in jest. This probably
won't be as funny as it seemed on Friday night.
"Why are you wearing an eyepatch?" the woman
asks politely.
"I have an eye infection," I lie. "It's
very contagious." The judges wince.
"Uh, OK," she says slowly. Pause. "Now,
you don't need to introduce your song, just start singing."
The moment is upon me. I stare. My mouth goes dry. I forget
the words. I need to pee.
"When you're ready," she says kindly.
I adjust my eyepatch, take a deep breath and begin. "I
can see clear-ly now the rain has gone," I squeak.
"I can see aa-all obstacles in my waaaaaay."
To my horror, I notice that I'm swaying and clicking my
fingers, stretching out my arms as I wail about obstacles.
I feel disembodied. I'm possessed by the spirit of Idol!
"Gone are the daaa-aark clouds that had me blind
... S'gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny daaaay."
Buoyed by my success so far, I sneak a peek at the judges
to gauge their reaction. The grey-haired judge has his
head in his hands. The woman has a grimace-smile plastered
on her face. I wrap up verse two and stand back, waiting
to be told there's nothing funny about wearing an eyepatch
and singing I Can See Clearly Now.
"That's an interesting choice of song," the
female judge says, finally. "It's not really an Australian
Idol sort of song. Do you have anything else?" I
shake my head. I feel six years old.
"You have a very little voice," she continues.
"Do you want to try it again and give it a bit more
oomph?"
Amazingly, it seems they are taking me seriously. They
don't get the eyepatch joke. I mumble something about
that being all the oomph I had.
She takes a deep breath. "Well, thanks."
It's over.
I offer a tight smile, resist the urge to curtsey and
rush out. My face is hot. I'm so glad it's over. Outside,
I'm secretly thrilled to find that even real singers have
fared as poorly. A serious singer-dancer was cut off three
lines into her Bette Midler number and one of the girls
I befriended earlier is looking equally miffed.
"No luck?" I venture. She shakes her head. It
emerges that, although she didn't make it, her boyfriend
- singing Go The Mighty Panthers - made it into round
two of auditions.
With my pride dashed, I bid farewell to my new friends,
wish them the best of luck and totter out.
"See you next year!" someone calls out to me.
I shudder at the thought.
BIRTH OF ANOTHER IDOL
* More than 6000 people auditioned in Sydney for Australian
Idol over three days last month.
* 180 were selected and subsequently culled to 49. Those
49 joined the successful contestants from other state
auditions to form a final audition group of 153.
* They auditioned in front of Kyle Sandilands, Marcia
Hines and Mark Holden at the Sydney Theatre Company last
week and 30 were selected.
* Those 30 sing in the semi-final episode and nine will
be chosen. Then the judges select their personal top three,
making a total of 12 finalists.
* The third Australian Idol, starting with the semi-final
episodes, goes to air at the end of this month.
* Business Review Weekly lists the winner of the 2003
Australian Idol, Guy Sebastian, as Australia's 35th-highest
earning entertainer, raking in about $2.1 million a year.
The former Adelaide singing teacher lives in a $1.1 million
home in Palm Beach.
* The 2004 Australian Idol winner, Casey Donovan, is signed
with Sony BMG, but has enjoyed less success than runner-up
Anthony Callea.
Shock jock Kyle is Idol's
new Mr Nasty | BACK
| 10 July 2005
Shock jock Kyle is Idol's new Mr Nasty
By FIONA BYRNE
20feb05
THE sparks are set to fly on Australian Idol, with outspoken
and unrepentant radio shock jock Kyle Sandilands joining
the judging panel.
Sandilands was a vocal critic of the second series of
the show. He landed the coveted role after a four-month
search by producers to find a replacement for Ian 'Dicko'
Dickson, who quit Idol last year.
Music entrepreneur Glenn Wheatley was understood to have
been sounded out for the role but declined.
That left the door open for Channel Ten to sign Sandilands
to a three-year-deal.
Sandilands, 33, is one of the biggest names in Sydney
radio. He has vowed to tell it as he sees it, no matter
who he offends -- and that includes fellow judges.
He said Idol judges Marcia Hines, Mark Holden and show
defector Dickson failed to find a true Australian Idol
last year. They also were not critical enough of the performers
and the series was "disappointing".
"Dicko was at his best in season one. Mark had more
to say that made sense in the second season. And Mark
had absolutely nothing to say in the first season."
"Marcia is nice but she does not criticise . . .
I can see her and I clashing a bit."
Sandilands said the series two winner Casey Donovan lacked
the X-factor.
"Based on record sales of the second group, they
got it wrong. Casey is out there, and she is very recognisable,
but will never make any money from her CD.
She just does not have the whole package."
But he was "not out to be a Mr Nasty Pastie",
like American Idol's infamous Simon Cowell.
"Contestants have got to be an all round talent,
they have to be able to speak, act, and handle the schedule.
They have just got to be a star."
Australian Idol 3 starts in
July on Network Ten | BACK
| 10 July 2005
Idol, the worldwide television phenomenon, is returning
to Network Ten after last year's phenomenal success. Network
Ten Australia has confirmed that Australian Idol will
premiere on the network over two nights in July. The hour-long
specials will start from 7:30pm both nights.
Australian Idol will air weekly for 17-weeks, with two
shows a week on Sunday and Monday evenings. Australian
Idol Extra will once again be screening extra footage
from the making of the series and will be broadcast exclusively
on Channel V starting in August. A show dedicated to the
worst of the auditions will also be screened during the
17-week series on Ten. The final episode will be filmed
live from the Sydney Opera House during the final ratings
week in November.
Australian Idol is produced by Fremantle Media subsidiary
Grundy Television in association with UK company 19TV
for Network Ten Australia.
Australian Idol promos air
on Ten | BACK
| 10 July 2005
Network Ten are currently airing 30 and 10 second promotional
adverts in primetime programs to generate interest in
the third series of Australian Idol. The advert features
Marcia or Mark waiting for new host Kyle Sandilands. The
sequence of commercials aims to promote the upcoming series
and the official website as well as generating public
interest in the July premiere of Australian Idol.
Australian Idol secures million
dollar sponsorships | BACK
| 10 July 2005
Ten is understood to have once again signed lucrative
sponsorship deals for Australian Idol 3 including- a clothing
brand to outfit the Idol contestants, fast food outlet
McDonald's and the cosmetics company L'Oréal.
Australian Idol 3 Program
details | BACK
| 10 July 2005
Details about Australian Idol have been released. The
top 117 contestants from auditions in capital cities around
the country went on to the next competition round which
was held over a week in June 2005. The top 30 contestants
of Australian Idol have been selected following a week-long
audition held at a secret location in Sydney. The top
117 contestants from around Australia were reduced to
30 after the intense auditions. Australian Idol cameras
were there to capture all the actions for the upcoming
series. The top 30 will be split into smaller groups.
Each week, starting mid-series, a different group will
be featured on the show. Viewers then have the chance
to cast their vote for who progresses through to the finals.
Through this voting process, the top 30 will be trimmed
down to just ten finalists.
From mid September, these ten finalists will perform in
front of a massive studio audience and the show will be
broadcast live. At the end of each live show, the studio
audience and the home viewers will be able to vote for
their favourite performer through phone and SMS voting.
Each week, the number of performers will be reduced until
there are only two contestants left standing.
In a major live event, the final episode will feature
these two aspiring stars competing for the ultimate title
of Australian Idol, chosen by the national TV audience.
The next Australian Idol will then be announced.
Judges and Hosts of Australian
Idol announced | BACK
| 10 July 2005
The judges and hosts of Australian Idol have been confirmed
by Network Ten. The judging panel on Australian Idol will
once again consist of singer Marcia Hines, former singer
and writer and producer Mark Holden and new addition Kyle
Sandilands.
Australian Idol will be hosted by Channel [V] personalities
Andrew G and James Mathison, while the behind-the-scenes
program Inside Idol will be hosted by Leah McLeod, former
host of Nine's Renovation Rescue and Ten's House of Hits.
John Foreman has also signed on as a Music Director for
the third series.
Inside Australian Idol
is Back | BACK
| 10 July 2005
The most popular unofficial Australian Idol fansite, Inside
Australian Idol, is back for the third series of the
country's most popular reality TV series Australian Idol.
Inside Australian Idol has been relaunched today,
10 July 2005. It is an unofficial website for the Network
Ten TV show- Australian Idol. The site features news,
show information and multimedia content. The URL for Inside
Australian Idol has changed from http://insideaustralianidol.com/
to http://www.insideaustralianidol.com
. Please bookmark the site for the latest from Australian
Idol.
||
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