Archuleta-inflicted Hearing Loss

My TV watching happens in spurts. I'll have seasons of shows where I'll watch religiously, but then I'll skip the next season or so. I've only seen seasons 1, 4, and 5 of '24', for example. When it comes to reality shows, if I don't start from the very beginning of the season, I'm just not emotionally invested into the outcome of the show, so I don't watch it. The only seasons I've watched of American Idol were #3 (where Fantasia won, but I enjoyed Jennifer Hudson and Jon Peter Lewis most) and #4 (where Carrie Underwood won) and the current season with the battle of the Davids. I watched every episode this season, many of them with my good friends Robin and Sarah.

So when the American Idol Live tour was coming through Salt Lake, we just had to go. It was a blast! Even the performers I had very low expectations for (Chikezie, Ramiele, and Jason Castro) sung well, and were pretty entertaining. Quite a few of the performers commented on how loud the crowd was. Which means we were louder than they were used to? We were the 10th show they did, so you wouldn't think they would be super surprised at people yelling and screaming.

They had the top ten perform in reverse order, and each performer did three songs. Well, they had some big screens up, and would show some promo footage of the contestants, and some commercials that they had made. Since David Archuleta is from the area, the noise level pretty much doubled whenever he had a bit in one of them. He came in second overall, and so after Sayesha (who ended 3rd) got done with her last song, the crowd went wild. She kept talking and talking. Couldn't she tell that all we wanted was a little David!?!?! But NO! "Is she still talking!?" Finally she got the hint (with the crowd chanting a name that was not hers) and left the stage, and then cute little David Archuleta came up out of the stage behind a grand piano. The crowd went W-I-L-D. It was seriously one of the loudest environments I've been in. Including drum line practice in the band room. YIKES! You could barely hear the poor kid sing at times. But they let him sing four songs. And he got all choked up and bashful just like on TV! It was fun!

There had been some speculation by the media as to the reception David Cook would receive, having beat out the Utah boy, but he got a really loud reaction from the crowd, too. Just a smidge quieter than Archuleta's.

So by the end of the night I was hoarse from screaming, had ringing in my ears from the noise, and felt oddly relaxed as a result of the vibrations from the bass that shook my whole body. I'd say the night was a success!