Rock On, Pop•Tarts!

My man Frank may have posted weekly recaps of American Idol, but I'm throwing down the gauntlet to declare myself the bigger geek, I mean fan... because last night I ventured back to the muddy sounds of the Allstate Arena, but instead of power-popping myself to death, I had tickets to the American Idols Live! Tour... presented (with wild abandon) by Pop•Tarts.

Disclosure: I worked on a promotion with Idol, so this was a company outing with free tickets.
Full Disclosure: I secretly kinda just wanted to go.

It's hard to know where to go with a review like this. If you hate Idol and all it stands for, the sight of the 10 "best" singers in America covering a random smattering of hits isn't going to change your mind. If you're a fan (and a 9-year old girl), tho, it's everything you could hope for and more.

Embarrassingly Full Disclosure: The last time I attended a teeny-bopper show, I thought that maybe half the audience was half my age. This time, I'd consider myself lucky if half the audience had double-digits in their age. Sigh.

The tour is basically a series of greatest hits performances from the previous season: Phil sang Blaze of Glory looking like an extra from The Matrix, Melinda sang You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman looking like she had her neck surgically removed, and LaKisha sang I Will Always Love You looking like Whitney Houston ate Dolly Parton.

The crowd ate it up, altho it's debatable whether the actual performances or text-messaging shout outs like "screem if u luv Blakeee like me do!" posted on the jumbotrons got more response.

Other highlights and lowlights (your call as to which is which):

• Local girl Gina got engaged on stage, followed by a staggeringly bad performance of Life is a Highway
• Sanjaya led the crowd in a cheering contest to determine which part of the audience liked Pop•Tarts more
• Chris joined Blake in a beatbox-y medley of Virtual Insanity and Geek in the Pink
• The guys played actual instruments for a cover of Crazy that morphed into Hey Jude
• Haley wore an assortment of increasingly shorter skirts
  
• There was an odd twenty-minute intermission... an hour into the show
  
• Jordin (your actual American Idol) got her own set to belt out the lone original song, This is My Now
• Blake made an impromptu mashup of himself beatboxing the rhythm section, himself singing She Will Be Loved and himself singing With or Without You

In truth, Blake's prolly the breakout star. It'll be interesting to see whether Jordin Sparks joins the Kelly Clarksons and Carrie Underwoods of the world, or is reduced to the Fantasia Barrino/Rueben Studdard/Taylor Hicks level, but say what you want about Blake Lewis... that sumbitch can beatbox.

So - a good time was had by all, particularly if you loved Pop•Tarts and assorted Kellogg's products, as the Idols closed the show wearing retro cereal shirts and made sure to thank their corporate sponsor (Pop•Tarts, if you hadn't been paying attention) as well as their friends in Chicago as they walked off the stage.

Oh, and the Season Seven auditions are going on now. We'll catch up with Idol in January – for now, Stewart out!