Thank you so so much MJ. This is awesome!! I am so excited!! Blake has grown so much since the very start of this tour. He is absolutely INCREDIBLE!!!! I loved the shout out to his mom and dad. He is so adorable and talented and, and, and !! Thank you, Thank you !!

Awww, Blake and his voice crack after he says,
“I love you, Mom & Dad!”
Could he get any more adorable?

Awwwww. He is so aweet. Loved that.
I wish I live in Detroit. Heh. I hope someday Blake gets to work with his dream collabortators (Maroon 5 and Robin Thicke). He mentioned them in the EW article.
Can’t wait to hear that single.

Awww, Blake and his voice crack after he says,
“I love you, Mom & Dad!”
Could he get any more adorable?

I lost it at that point. Seeing other people cry, gets me all the time. But, for some reason, when a guy cries… I’m done.

Must say I love when Blakes mom says “Guess I can’t give birth to him either!” The security there were was ridiculous. The guy in my section kept running up and down my section yelling “NO VIDEO!” throughout the whole show. He kept looking at me because I was taking pics in the continuous mode. It was totally ridiculous.

Also…That final TOTS performance is the best one I’ve ever seen. I love his outfit.

Awww, Blake and his voice crack after he says,
“I love you, Mom & Dad!”
Could he get any more adorable?

I dont know if Blake becoming more adorable would be possible.. and Mrs. Lewis Rocks.. just it! I love the sas!

Yah, we need to get it together TeamPlaid-ers and make Blake win on all those polls!

hso, Dearborn is outside of Detroit and the headquarters of Ford Motors. Since it’s a Ford sponsored event, I’m guessing that’s why. Ford also sponsors AI.

Yeah, and from what I understand they have the winner and runner-up perform at this event every year.

Yeah, and from what I understand they have the winner and runner-up perform at this event every year.

I wasn’t familiar with this function until last year with season 5. I’m sure it will end up on youtube one way or the other.

@Dinah-You go girl.

@YGLABN-Am I the only one who is kinda sad that that was the last time he is ever going to performer that song?

No.

But I’m happy I had the opportunity to see him perform it.

But I’m happy I had the opportunity to see him perform it.

Same here. :)

I’m sad, however, that we won’t be seeing it anymore. =/ Maybe he’ll do it tomorrow?

OH OH OH OH!!! Blake is winning in the People’s Choice by 3%!! come on lets make this a landslide!!

That’s awesome! The last time I looked at it, it was a tie between Blake and Danny Tidwell.

BTW, in random Idol news…Bucky did a video here in southcentral KY at a moto cross place this week. There is a news clip I guess at our local station:
www.wbko.com/news
(there is a video box that pops up on right side–Bucky’s interview option is on list of choices)

I was proud. It’s good to see the Idols get out there, and be loved.

I asked jordin about this over the weekend in Manchester, she didn’t know much just that she and Blake each were singing 2 songs, she said she was going to sing “You Were Meant For Me” and i forgot the other but i wanna say it was “Broken Wing” and her and blake are also going to be singing 2 songs together as well, but they hasn’t decided on the songs yet!

Can’t wait to hear more about it:)

Eeee he’s singing This Love, tam sent a little audio slideshow to my blakeberry!!

Ok, he also did yglabn, now a duet of “you were meant for me” awwww!!

I’m back at work, you guys!!! What a whirlwind. I didn’t get a very close seat, and my phone video quality sucks rocks (and my phone battery died, ahhhhhh!) so I don’t know whether my video will be worth anything, but I can send it to someone who knows what to do. I sure hope other people were getting vid!

No idea whether they did autographs after or anything. There were way too many people milling about and I had to get back to work, alas. I will share the set list, real quick:

B: This Love, [eta: Beatboxing lesson, yay!], YGLABN
J: Broken Wing, TIMN
Duet: You Were Meant For Me with J on acoustic, B on “shaker” and harmonies during the chorus. (Sooo good)

Bshorty was in the house, y’all!

the deal was at Ford’s conference and events center in Dearborn. Luncheon was in the lobby (and was quite yummy, catered by Opus One, a great Detroit restaurant). Afterward we filed into a small auditorium with a stage set up, cool lighting, (eta: smoke machine), and lots of vid screens showing the AI logo. I wasn’t sitting very close, but it was small enough that you could see the stage from every seat. There were just often people in the way, especially since B had people get on their feet for his songs!

After introductory remarks by the hosts, a marketing guy for Ford came out and started talking about AI, etc. They showed the “I Fought the Law” video and some of the “bad” auditions. Then they showed a little Seattle clip and how the top two ended up being from there, Simon was wrong, yada yada.

Then the guy started talking about beatboxing, and went on to say that he knows how to do it. (He was pretty young, maybe mid 30s, and dressed in slacks and a cool patterned shirt; when he said that about beatboxing, he put on a cap, heh.)

So we started to hear beats and I could tell the guy was making a few of them, basically just the whole notes, and in a few seconds, Bshorty is joining him on stage! YAY! He was wearing the gray slacks with the suspenders and a cool black jacket; didn’t even notice his shirt, LOL! His hair was spiked to the heavens. They do a little beatboxing “duet.” Fun!

After that, Blake said hello, asked them to turn up his monitors a little, then asked the crowd to get on their feet and launched into This Love. For everything except the duet, there were pre-recorded backing tracks only. No band. Alas, no loop pedals or acoustic for B (I was hopeful.) He was really moving around, went into the audience (but stayed up front, didn’t go down the center aisle, which was a bummer because I was close to the center!) and was very “on” and energetic. Seemed well rested, fo sho.

After TL, he asked if we wanted to learn to beatbox or hear some beatboxing. Everyone said “hear” but he said he was going to give us a lesson anyway, lol. He did his usual intro about the bass drum, kick, drum, high hats, etc. and had us mimic him. Then he started elaborating with more beats, did a little riff for a minute or two including his electronic sounds, and then stopped and said “OK now you guys” and pointed the mic to us. His timing was perfect and he got a big laugh! Then he even talked about how you can hum underneath it and then move your mouth to do the beatboxing, and said it was “old school 80s hip hop style) and proceeded to demonstrate. He was kickass on the beats, as always.

After that, someone brought him a mic stand (I thought for a sec that it was the drummer and they were going to do the beat-off live, alas, no) and as he was putting the mic into the stand, the pre-recorded track for YGLABN started, but he just said “Oh no, don’t start that just yet, I’m not ready” or something like that. He talked for a few and then he cued them and they started it again (it kicked off with the background vocalists singing “shot through the heart”). He rocked it out, running to each side of the audience and letting a little boy sing the chorus on one side and a group of young girls sing on the other side. A lot of Ford and/or Adcraft people had their kids there and they were all up front, which was cool.

Whew, more to come I promise!

when he did the beatboxing lesson, he said something like “so when you’re in your cubicle” and went on a little riff like people would all be beatboxing up a storm in their offices. He was quite the riot, I tells ya.

OK, here’s more:

After YGLABN, B left the stage and the marketing guy came back out to introduce Jordin. They showed the clip of her winning and then she came out. She was super cute and just said “hi guys” and sort of talked to us like there were five of us instead of 500. She said that she still gets chills watching that. She also said that Blake is such a great performer that she was standing back there thinking “I have to follow him?” It got a good laugh.

She said she was going to sing Broken Wing and talked about why it’s a special song to her. After singing BW, she talked more about the moment when Ryan announced her as the winner. Then she did TIMN. After that they brought her the acoustic and the marketing guy came out to say that we would hear one more song from “Jordin and Blake.” I was all, WTF? She explained that she had performed Jewel’s YWMFM on tour and that they were going to do it as a duet for the first time ever. They were both on stools and B was holding his mic.

He did a very soft, subtle shaker sound as she sang the verses, then came in on with harmony (sometimes singing higher than her, hee!) for the chorus. It sounded a teensy bit rough at the very beginning, but by midway through the first chorus, he had worked that shib out! He did a delayed harmony on the final “you were meant for me” and it was really cool (hard to explain though!) From there on, they just sounded lovely together. They both sang fairly softly and it was really nice. At the end when J was repeating the chorus, B was just riffing some humming type harmonics that sounded really, really sweet.

I kind of wish they had done it on tour. I’m guessing that song might actually have been the planned duet, because they would have at least had an arrangement already when Ford/Adcraft (presumably) told them they wanted a duet.

Anyway, that was it, they took their bows and exited, and people started filing out. I’m sure the kids and VIPs were able to get autographs, etc., but I couldn’t tell whether they’d have something set up for everyone else, and I couldn’t really take the time to stick around.

OMG it was AMAZING

She has more highlights posted over there, and said she will be posting pics, videos and a longer recap.

http://idolforums.com/index.php?showtopic=523493&pid=13684940&st=80&#entry13684940

It is here if you want to check it out.

ETA That was sweet Nikki:)

So this is off topic, but I teach fourth grade and my students keep bringing me Blake things. I have a poster that one of my students made on their computer that says I love Blake and has pictures of him. A newspaper article about his CD, and we are all now BFF’s (Blake Fans Forever)! We now have a Blake wall in our classroom. I love it! I even have students in other classes writing about Blake.

awwww Nikki that is so sweet! :D

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aSkgPDmY1TI

She has photos up over on IDF. Blake looks so cute, and so does Jordin.

http://idolforums.com/index.php?showtopic=525190

ETA just watched the video, mostly Jordin singing but when B joins in his voice is so sweet next to hers. Love these two together:)

I’m going to post it out front and then switch it out if we get one with more Blake.

Looking forward to Sarah’s and MJ’s fuller recaps…

It’s coming, I promise. :) I’ll probably be posting it this weekend. Meanwhile, if you are my friend on myspace, click on my name up above this post, and you can view a few pics in my “Me and Idols” photo album. :) I put the Tampa and Manchester pics in the same album.