It was the penultimate week of Blind Auditions on The Voice and the coaches found things were getting increasingly more difficult. With few places left on their teams, they had some tough decisions to make…
First up was 24-year-old supermarket worker Karl Loxley from Coventry. He impressed the coaches with his version for Puccini’s Nessun Dorma, the operatic song made famous by Pavarotti during the 1990 World Cup in Italy. With the coaches getting nervy about filling the last remaining spaces on their teams, only Will turned but that didn't matter because it still meant Karl got through to the Battle Rounds!
Next up was Si Genaro, 43, from the New Forest. He auditioned for The Voice last year, but failed to impress the judges with his performance, although he did entertain them afterwards with his own composition Chicken Train! Unfortunately, his luck didn’t improve the second time round with his version Falling Slowly from the film and musical Once.
The following two performers didn’t have much in the way of luck either. Mia Sylvester, a 27-year-old electrician from Luton, sang a fantastic version of Avicii’s Addicted To You but none of the coaches turned. Rita was gutted but said she had too many females on her team to have another. Keedie Green, 31, from Torquay once had a Number 2 single with Blue star Duncan James, but her rendition of Titanium by David Guetta wasn’t enough of a hit to get the coaches spinning in their chairs.
They weren’t the only performers who failed to get through to the next stage. Also unlucky were south London thirty somethings Anthony and Michael – aka The Rise – who performed Pop by ’N Sync, and Susan Lovejoy, 49, from Oxfordshire who sang MacArthur Park by Richard Harris, and covered by Donna Summer. Disaster struck for 39-year-old Damian Dalton-Smith, from Lincolnshire, who’s the older brother of actress Sheridan Smith. He lost his voice before the audition but soldiered on with Johnny Cash’s Fulsom Prison Blues. The coaches could tell he was struggling and didn’t turn.
Lara Lee, 29, is from Brixton, south London and describes herself as a “spoken word artist”. She surprised the judges by performing There Are Worse Things I Could Do from the musical Grease. Tom loved it and hit his button.
Will was the next to hit his button and add another act to his team when Luton church singers Patrick and Simone aka Joyful Soundz performed the Motown classic You’re All I Need To Get By, originally sung by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. When London girl Christina Matovu, 24, performed If I Go by Ella Eyre, she broke down in tears when Ricky hit his button on the very last note she sang!
The most successful performer of the night was 24-year-old Sheena McHugh from Leicestershire. She got turns from all of the judges with Hold On We’re Going Home by Drake and after some deliberation she chose to be on Will’s team. Meanwhile, the second most popular performer of the night was NK, from London, who was celebrating his 21st birthday. He got turns from Tom, Rita and Ricky with Rixton’s Me And My Broken Heart and decided to “go with his gut” by choosing Ms Ora to be his coach.
At the end of the night Ricky and Will were left with just one place each in their teams, while Rita and Tom had two places each to fill when the Blind Auditions wrap up next week…
