Canadian Idol is again making its way to Edmonton with season 4 auditions scheduled for Feb. 18 and 19.
The 11-city audition tour was announced last night on CTV's eTalk Daily. No word on the location yet.
This year, the show has raised the age limit for competitors from 26 to 28. Auditions will now be open to Canadians between the ages of 16 and 28.
Weekend auditions in other cities include Vancouver (Feb. 25-26), Regina (March 4-5), Winnipeg (March 11-12), Montreal (March 17-18), Halifax (April 8-9), Ottawa (April 22-23), St. John's, N.L., (April 18) and Toronto (April 28-30). A date for the Yellowknife auditions has yet to be announced. The Kitchener-Waterloo visit is scheduled for March 25-26.
Flying in the face of Canadian Idol being an embittered competition, last year's winner Melissa O'Neil and runner-up Rex Goudie are on tour together this year - they've even become friends. They've also had one of their dates cancelled because of poor ticket sales.
They were slated to play at Sault Ste. Marie on Feb. 20, but the promoter cancelled the show because only about 100 tickets were sold by early January.
O'Neil and Goudie are slated to play in Edmonton at the Jubilee March 3.
However, lacklustre ticket sales shouldn't reflect negatively on either O'Neil or Goudie. In fact, when O'Neil made a brief appearance at Red's in West Edmonton Mall in November, you had to feel for her. Her representation shafted her by giving her a lousy time-slot while kids were still in school - teens tend to comprise the 17-year-old champ's core audience. O'Neil can definitely sing; it's just a shame there were only about a handful of people there to hear it.
If there's one Idol that's transcended the singing contest machinework's shortcomings, it's Kelly Clarkson, American Idol's first winner from 2002.
In the last year, Clarkson really turned things up. Her hit, Since U Been Gone, got ample radio play from a rock community that tends to look down on the Idol format. Her album, Breakaway, also earned a Grammy nomination.
With all that achieved, she's also seemingly turned her back on what got her there in the first place: American Idol.
Idol contestants always sing cover songs, but Clarkson isn't letting any of her songs be used by new contestants on the show. American Idol must get permission from owners of song licences before the music can be used on the show.
Clarkson's camp says the restriction is nothing personal - they're not allowing her tunes to be licensed for any reason - but personalities behind the show are a little peeved.
"No matter how talented Kelly Clarkson is, she would not be in the position she's in now without winning this show," said American Idol host Simon Cowell. "It's the public who bothered to pick up the phone to vote for her. If she refuses to give songs to be used on the show, it's like saying to every person who voted for you, 'You know what? Thank you. I'm not interested in you anymore.' ''
And we all know what a humanitarian Cowell is. Of course, this could all be an elaborate ploy to simply drum up sales for Clarkson or even bigger ratings for American Idol - Tuesday's season premiere was the highest yet with 35.5 million viewers and the show was the highest-rated American TV show last year.
Clarkson's post-Idol success is almost an anomaly. These days, few seem interested in the Idol's alumni that includes Reuben Studdard and Canada's Ryan Malcolm.
While everyone wishes every Idol finalist well, it's the failures many people want to see. Forget about who will be the next Kelly Clarkson; who will be the new William Hung?
- With files from The Canadian Press
