So live show number one has been shown and almost ALL of my first impressions were turned on their heads and more dramatic, professional performances leapt into sight.
Firstly, Cher Lloyd blew me away with her stage presence yet needed a little work on her vocals. Belle Amie did well, but they're not connecting as a group just yet. Storm was okay, but Louis has turned almost ALL of his category into parodies of what made them so original in the first place. Diva Fever brought the place down with the most camp performance The X Factor has ever seen! And Wagner was... interesting. But there were two clear favourites this week. The crowd loved Mary Byrne, the 50 year old Tesco woman with a HUGE voice and she was awesome. But the best performance of the night, for me, was someone I wrote off as "the same as any other male solo singer out there" - Aidan Grimshaw (pictured).
He sang the Tears For Fears classic "Mad World" - from a throne of chains, in a stark spotlight... it was a very chilling, very dramatic performance. There was almost something scary about it. I described the performance on Twitter as like "being sung to sleep by a known murderer" and I stand by that! It was the ONLY perfect performance of the evening, if you ask me...
The whole competition has shuffled for me, now. Those I loved were just okay, those who were terrible before were incredible. I want to watch Aidan's performance again and when I find it on a popular video-sharing site you will be able to find it below. Roll on next week...
