Indian Idol 4 - Day 8 - 11th Oct 2008

Indian Idol 4 - Theatre Rounds



This article has been taken from curlio.com since they cover the indian idol in a much better way and I feel like I am sitting in front of television watching the episode as I read their coverage.


Welcome one and all to the Fourth Edition of Indian Idol. If you have been following the Idol for the past few weeks then you would know that we have passed through some major and minor cities of India and a couple of international points, too, in search for our fourth Idol. Out of these auditions, the judges chose 157 contestants whom they thought had enough potential to make a claim for the title.

Before we go on to the Theatre Round, a few words on the esteemed judges:

1) Anu Malik – The judge who makes us understand the meaning of the saying “can't live with them and can't live without them”
2) Javed Akhtar – The judge who we thought had the most common sense in the lot but proved us wrong towards the end of last year's show
3) Sonali Bendre – The cute, lovely, ravishing, beautiful judge who makes me go "gaga". She's an ex – actress but what she knows of music I cant understand...come to think of it she wasn’t an exceptional actress, either
4) Kailash Kher – A wonderful singer and a very humble man. The “koolest” judge of the show to date.

Thus the 157 contestants and the four judges welcomes one and all to the Theatre Rounds of Indian Idol 4...

157 TO 50

Hussein Kuwajerwala, looking as smart as ever, was the host of the Theatre Rounds. It looked like II crew couldn’t decide who was best suited to be the host. If you remember, Meiyand Chang and Deepali were the hosts for the auditions. They signed off the auditions mentioning that we will get to see them soon in "a new look". I wonder what that will be.
Anyways, the show started off with the usual introductory scenes of some contestants during their journey and in the hotel rooms. Some small but totally unimportant interactions between the contestants were shown like the situation between Janvee and Laxmi where Laxmi did something with Janvee's lens, etc, etc. Hussein opened the show by giving us an intro as to what was going to happen next. The frame work is this: over three days the judges will cut the 157 into 28 in three steps. First, judges will hear the the singers in a group. Then, the judges will split the contestants into groups of twos and threes and, depending on their performance, the judges will cut the 157 into 50. The 50 will sing with a live band and, on that performance, they will further be cut down to 28.

The judges gave the contestants the usual advice which went like this:

Sonali – Congratulated everyone and asked everyone to congratulate themselves.
Kailash – "Please concentrate on one's singing as its easy to go wrong because of the anxiety and excitement"
Anu Malik – "No good singing, no place…" (As if one didn’t know that, duh?)
Javed Akhtar – "This round will be a competition amongst the best singers, so give your best shot."

Then there began a parade of groups with which it was not humanly possible to keep up and the results were announced. The only notable exit was of one Meenakshi who had made some bird calls during auditions and gained entry.

The second day of the auditions arrived where the singers were supposed to sing with partners. Some confusion, as usual, was shown with people trying to find their partners. Bhanu was the first singer shown who had such a big confusion as he couldn’t find both his partners. If you remember, Banu was the contestant who had reached the Theatre Auditions in all three of the earlier editions of Indian Idol only to be eliminated.

Onto the performances:

First up was Jodi, Purnima, and Mohit. They looked nice together and they sung pretty well together, too. Second to sing were Tanushree and Ali Hassan. Ali Hassan forgot a couple of words which put Tanushree totally off and she forgot everything…in the interview which followed, the usual "blame game" started with her accusing him while he put the full blame back on her. Finally, she took out the ultimate weapon of girls – tears - and as usual that shut him up pretty quickly…that one always works. The next singers were Laxmi and Janvee and, again, they forgot the lyrics. Laxmi forgot the lyrics and Janvee tried to help her along. To be fair, both of them didn’t sound all that great. Jasraj and Ananya were on the stage next. Ananya is a pretty 16-year-old from Varnasi and Jasraj was a freaky-looking guy. In the end, Ananya missed a couple of words and ended up in tears (again), but she still looked cute.

While all this was happening, Bhanu was still searching for his partners... and guess where he found them? In the ladies' rest room! Their explanation was that they were practicing. That’s nice, isn’t it? Well, Bhanu and his partners Torsha and Pallavi were up next. I thought their was song was way offbase. Following them were three boys, Avinash, Randeep and Sandeep. They sung their song beautifully together. They were followed by Remo and Ritika, who didn’t sound very good together.

At this point, loads of couples and triples were shown but one couldn’t follow up with all the names. There was a couple who sang Pehal Nasha from Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. The gal's name was Bhavya Pandit but I didn’t get the boy's name. She used her own harmony in the song and AnNu said that resulted in one person overpowering the other.

The contestants who were shown as selected were Ali Husain, Jasraj, Ananya, Bhavya and her partner, Avinash, Sandeep, Randeep, Remo, Nikita, Pallavi, Torsha, Mohit and Bhanu. Initially Bhanu was told that he was not selected. He was made to sing a song as a "goodbye" song. When Bhanu was told that he was selected, he cried a river. I forgave him because he is allowed to be emotional when he finally got the chance after 3 years of trials.

With that ended the first round of Theatres. I thought that it was a bit stale compared to last year, not that last year's round was anything of great class. II crew always tries to give more focus on drama and crowd-pulling stunts than on the performances.

50 TO 28

For the second round, the contestants had to sing with a live band. They were supposed to reach the theater early but were delayed because one gal, Sunakshi, was late. If that isn’t the best opening a singing reality show can get, I wonder what is. Anyway, after loads of discussions on whether to let the contestants practice or not, it was finally decided to let them practice once. Loads of other stuff happened but this time I am sticking strictly to performances and results.

First up was Ananya with Mere Dholna. She sang it beautifully. Her voice was very sweet and she doesn’t sound like a 16-year-old. Bhavya Pandit followed up with the same song and she sounded really good. Rajdeep was next with Jab Se Mere Naina. He also did it pretty well. Cry baby Bhanu Pratap Singh was next and he started off well, but I didn’t feel that his high pitch was that great. Monalisa was up next and she couldn’t sing a thing - she just broke down. Next up was the highlight of the show - Kailsh Kher singing Ya Rabba from Salaam E Ishq. He sang so well that I think he did it better than the original track. The last contestant was Sunakshi. She came on stage with a cute teddy bear and sang Zara Zara from the movie Rehna Hai Tere Dil Main. She did a very good job.

Then we were shown the judges discussing about the quality of singers and how the singers of II4 was great and blah and blah and blah blah. Then Hussein showed the long walk the contestant will have to take to reach the judges to hear the verdict and that was a long walk indeed. The following were the contestants whose results were shown:

Remo – Selected
Ananya – Selected
Somil – Rejected
Sreejitha and Nirali – Sreejitha selected and Nirali rejected
Sunakshi – Selected
Bhanu and Kiran – Bhanu Selected and Kiran rejected

Then Hussein explained that the judges selected 30 instead of 28 because of the “high quality of talent” present. The last scenes were the judges singing and dancing with the 30 finalists.

These two episodes had nothing much to write about. I have covered the important parts that I felt required writing. Please note that voting and eliminations will start from next week onwards. I hope that we will get to see nice singing from then on. Priyanka Chopra will be there next week to encourage the contestants and as a guest judge.


Mohit and Purnima, Ali Hassan and Tanusree

Janvee and Laxmi, Jasraj and Ananya, Banu and team, All boys team, Remo and Ritika, Bhavya Pandit and Partner

Ananya, Bhavya, Rajdeep, Bhanu, Monalisa and Kailash

Sunakshi






Indian Idol 4 Day - 8





Selected Candidates List from Theatre Round. Thanks to http://indianidolv4.wordpress.com/ for the detailed list.

1- Akanksha Palkar
2- Ali Hussain
3- Ananya Mishra
4- Bhavya Pandit
5- Charit Dixit
6- Kapil Thapa
7- Kuldeep Singh
8- Megha Sharma
9- Mohit Lalwani
10- Parashar Joshi
11- Pooja Ghosh
12- Priyanka Negi
13- Prosenjit Kosambi
14- Purnima Vishwanathan
15- Rajdeep Chatterjee
16- Roshan
17- Saurabh Mehta
18- Shini Kalvint
19- Sourabhee Debbarma
20- Sreejita Kar
21- Sunaikshi Raina
22- Tullika Ganguly
23- Bhanu Pratap Singh
24- Keshav Prasad
25- Pranav Srivastava
26- Remo Ghosh
27- Nirali Fozdar
28- Raina Lahiri
29- Sandeep Ubale
30- Torsha Sarkar

So now the candidates will be handed over to public and their fate will be decided by the public vote.