Question: Being one of the seven people who watched Rock Star: INXS on CBS last summer, I was excited to see a mention in your column a few weeks ago that there would be a second season. I haven't been able to find out anything else about it. So what do you know? Will INXS kill off that jackass JD and try again? Or will it be a new band with a dead lead singer? Will it be worth watching without Marty and Jordis? I and the other six people who watched last summer wanna know!
Answer: I only know CBS is gearing up for a second season, but as far as I'm aware, they've revealed nothing yet about the format or the end prize for the winner. They're probably saving that info for closer to the launch of the summer season ...
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With an overindulgent run of nearly two and a half months, it's surprising this series didn't OD like so many rock stars before it. Lord knows that recapping it for two, sometimes three, consecutive nights each week brought me closer to joining Jim Morrison in that bathtub in Paris than I've ever cared to be. And I didn't make it easy on myself tonight. On the finale, of all nights, I set the VCR and headed out to catch a wicked live set by lap-steel wiz Slo-Mo and Philly's underdog roots-rockers Marah. So it's very late, and I'm watching Brooke Burke introduce all the past contestants. Who are some of these people? Wil? Tara? Maybe it's the Rolling Rock still on my breath, but I don't remember them. And apparently INXS didn't remember how solid their fellow countryman MiG has been throughout the competition, 'cause they showed his Aussie ass the stage door.
Which leaves us with the final two: Marty and J.D.
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I used to hate Oasis. I mean I hated those Beatles wannabes. Then I saw them perform "Champagne Supernova" on the Video Music Awards — back when the VMAs were worth watching — and that was that. I was hooked. Liam Gallagher slurred his way through the lyrics, spit dramatically on the stage and gave everyone in the audience (and in his own band) the hairy eyeball. It was so very rock and roll. And J.D., while thankfully not spitting on his fans, had the same effect on me this week with his performances, especially "Pretty Vegas." From the series' start, I just didn't like the guy. But damned if he didn't win me over with his I-am-who-I-am 'tude and versatile voice. Did you catch his falsetto runs in the acoustic "Vegas"? Simply sublime. Yet J.D. still ended up in the bottom three, with sultry Suzie and Broadway MiG, who I thought would be bounced back to the boards. But I was wrong; Suzie was sent home, an
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I'm still awed by Marty's show-closing set. He damn near knocked me over with his light-as-a-feather interpretation of "Everlong" — a song title that could just as easily describe the series itself. But as we enter the final three weeks of this magical mystery tour, it's becoming clearer who will be among the last rockers standing. Here's how my new front-runner, Marty, and the remaining fab four played out last night as they each performed a two-song set.J.D.: "Come as You Are" has been played to death on modern-rock radio, and I don't think I'd even want to hear Kurt Cobain himself come back and sing it again. But J.D.'s reworking made it sound nearly new. That lounge-lizard arrangement fit him like a sharkskin suit, too. As did his own composition, "Pretty Vegas." Overall, though, his set seemed as contrived as that cake fight back at the mansion.Suzie: It's hard to believe this is the same woman who flubbed the lyrics to "Remedy" months ago
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If any of the singers ever deserved an encore, it's Suzie, the self-proclaimed "Queen of the Bottom Three" (I once knew a dancer with a similar moniker, but that's for another column). Her version of "Start Me Up" was even better than the one she strutted her way through on Tuesday. And apparently it paid off, 'cause she finally escaped the bottom three. Ty, Deanna and Marty weren't so lucky, however, and all had to interpret INXS. Mr. Mohawk mugged his way through "What You Need," while Deanna did justice to "Elegantly Wasted," one of the coolest song titles of all time. If only I could spend my mornings and afternoons that way. But it was Marty who impressed the most with "Don't Change" and, earlier, with his honesty. Instead of sycophantically selling his soul for rock and roll by proclaiming INXS musical messiahs, Marty did something almost as risky as hooking up with Courtney Love: He flat-out told the band that he wouldn't change h
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