American Idol: Rock and Roll All Night

I have a feeling there’ll be considerably less square dancing on stage at the end of tonight’s results show.

Though the mood was downright exuberant at the end of last night’s entertaining Rock and Roll Hall of Fame episode — the third, strong performance episode in a row — I’m expecting things to be a touch gloomier after tonight’s sure-to-be-though results show.

I’m not even going to complain about the fact that AI yet again recycled a theme from a previous season (Whoops! Guess I just did) because there were no dogs last night among the performances.

Well, that’s unless you count Jacob Lusk’s incredibly off-putting comment during his pre-performance package that, “If I end up in the bottom three, it won’t be because I sang the song bad. It won’t be because I sang the song wrong. It’ll be because everybody in America wasn’t ready to look at themselves in the mirror.”

Now, even if “American Idol” hadn’t stepped up its online presence this year — for the first time in the show’s history, contestants have their own official Twitter and Facebook accounts — I’m guessing some of the singers would have gone on the Internet and at least read a sampling of what’s being said about them. That sampling would include me saying that I can see that Jacob is a talented singer, and I’m very impressed with what he can do with his voice…but I just do not enjoy watching or listening to him AT ALL. It’s also not hard for me to imagine that the previous sentence might actually be among the least harsh things Jacob would come across on the web So

I can appreciate that he may be frustrated at people making fun of his weight, his jarring facial expressions or his femininity when he performs. My problem with his statement is that he’s saying the ONLY possible reason he could be voted out is if we’re intolerant or cowards. Um, how about maybe we don’t like the way you sing…or we just don’t like YOU. And not because of the reasons you may think…but because you’re an a-hole.

His version of “Man in the Mirror” was fine, but it certainly didn’t back up the tough talk from his pre-performance piece. On top of that, I found it disingenuous that he busted out a series of vigorous pelvic thrusts after deciding not sing “Let’s Get It On” because it was overtly sexual. All that being said, I don’t think he’ll go home tonight. However, I DO think he’ll get a necessary kick in the ass by being placed in the bottom 3. The frustrating thing is that, with so many talented singers, a stupid comment like Jacob’s really could be the difference between staying and going.

If I had to decide who was going home last night on musical merit, it’d be an incredibly tough decision. I’d probably lean Stefano Langone’s way.

In addition to getting one of the few honest-to-goodness negative critiques of the night (Randy called his performance “jerky” at the beginning), I just feel that he’s extremely labored whenever he sings. There’s a difference between being into a song while you’re performing it and looking like you’re in pain, and Stafano falls into the latter category too often. That being said, this was an improvement over the last few weeks. He looked relaxed at the start of “When a Man Loves a Woman” and his upper register was pretty.

I think a previous bottom 3 dweller like Casey Abrams, Paul McDonald or Haley Reinhart could return there.

Casey sang “Have You Ever Seen the Rain”, but also continued his quest to remind people why he was considered an early front-runner by bringing back the upright bass. I don’t think it had the same impact it did in Hollywood week, but it was still pretty cool and allowed him to display his musical chops. (Meaning, he didn’t seem crazy.)

I don’t see Paul returning to the bottom 3 this week after an energetic pimp spot/episode-ending performance of “Folsom Prison Blues.” At first, I thought the tempo was a little too fast and frantic (and Paul looked a bit uncomfortable), but once he got into it he delivered one of his better performances. I also liked that he pushed himself vocally and as a performer.

More than likely, I can see Haley returning to the bottom 3, even after she capitalizing on last week’s “Bennie and the Jets” momentum. Haley seems to be settling into a musical groove — though maybe Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” was a little too on-the-nose for someone who’s been repeatedly compared to Joplin — but she’s still endearingly awkward on stage. (I say “endearingly awkward” because I like her — if she were someone I didn’t care for, “endearingly awkward” would become something like “uncomfortably off-putting.”)

But which one of the season’s four front-runners would be most likely to put in a bottom 3 cameo for the first time.

I’m guessing it’s not Scotty McCreery, who has so many fans that they can’t help but rush the “Idol” stage. (Seacrest’s look of confusion was priceless.) Scotty sang Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right”, but was still decidedly more country than rock. (Which is perfectly ok.) Even though he has such a distinctive voice and style, he at least tries to do something different every week.

Speaking of which, Pia Toscano made her eagerly anticipated non-ballad debut with Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High.” (I was mildly shocked she didn’t do the Celine version, since that’s her hero. Actually, she kinda did.) This was a small breakthrough for her, but I agree with what Jennifer was trying to say as she was walking on egg shells. Pia is still a pretty robotic performer that could benefit from more experience working a stage. Then again, my biggest problem with Carrie Underwood when she was on this show was that she performed like a robot, but I saw her live a few months ago and she was phenomenal.

The most predictable thing about this episode was that James Durbin would go “intimate” after last week. (Of course, pretty much anything he did last night was going to be low-key after setting a piano on fire last week.) It wasn’t his best and it certainly wasn’t his most electrifying performance, but it was a smart strategic move to change things up for one week.

So that means that I believe the singer most likely to make her bottom 3 debut is Lauren Alaina. Don’t get me wrong: I think she did a REALLY good job with “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”, a titanic song. However, it was still short of greatness, which has been the story of Lauren this year. Hell, it wasn’t even better than Kelly Clarkson’s version in season 1…or even Crystal Bowersox’s more low-key cover during Hollywood week last year.

Oops…I know we all agreed that we wouldn’t talk about last year. My bad.

So what’d you think of this episode? Do we even need to hear from the judges at this point? Can will.i.am come an be a guest mentor every week? (I thought he was funnier and more insightful than Jimmy Iovine has been all season.) Finally, who do you think is going home? (I’ve got Haley, Jacob and Stefano in the bottom three with Stefano going home.)