The Voice top 5 performed for America’s votes last night with the stakes at their highest, as we find out this week who will be competing in next week’s finale.
It was a big night on The Voice, as the performers gave it their all to try to make it through to the finals. Both contestants and coaches brought out the big guns. Adam made some huge song choices, Blake wore a Cole beard, Cee Lo helped mentor a former contestant, and Christina talked and talked and talked some more.
The Performances
Top 5
Season 5’s semi-finalists kicked off the show with a group performance of “Best Day of My Life” by American Authors. It was great to see all five contestants singing together, and they really seemed to be enjoying performing with one another. Unfortunately, Cole Vosbury’s mic was acting funny, and his solos sounded a little fuzzy. Other than that, it was a perfect performance.
James Wolpert
Team Adam’s James Wolpert came back from a near-elimination last week to kill it this week with his performance of one of his coach’s favorite songs: U2’s “With or Without You.” He didn’t do very much to change up the song, but it is such an anthem, and was so well-delivered by James, that it made for an unforgettable performance at the perfect time. Coach Adam said he didn’t even care about how this performance would affect the competition, he was just so proud of James, and felt this performance was beyond what he even thought James could do.
Will Champlin
Will Champlin swung for the fences with his performance of Fun.’s “Carry On.” His teammate, Tessanne, called him a “walking instrument,” and he has definitely been the hardest on himself this season. Well, after this performance, Will was all smiles for once, and with good reason: this was his best performance of the season. The song selection gave him a lot to work with, and he pulled everything out of his bag of tricks, and threw all he had into this performance. And it certainly paid off.
Jacquie Lee
Christina chose Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” for her own “little angel”: Jacquie Lee. She wanted Jacquie to show a more soulful side, and have her performance allow an escape for the audience. Setting the bar even higher, she also wanted this performance to be inspirational to the viewers. After all that build-up, this was yet another vocally impressive performance from Jacquie. However, all the diva touches she added sort of took away from the emotional depth of the original. The ASPCA never would’ve chosen this version for a heart-wrenching commercial about abused and mistreated animals.
Cole Vosbury
Cole Vosbury drank Coach Blake’s country Kool-Aid and sang Garth Brook’s “Shameless” for his semi-final performance. Written by Billy Joel, Blake felt the song represented all the different facets of Cole’s talent: country, pop, rock, etc. True to Cee Lo’s comment in his pre-performance video package, Cole really does seem to be getting more and more comfortable as the competition progresses. He manages to make each song his own, and his voice is getting better and better.
Tessanne Chin
Tessanne Chin closed out the show with a show-stopping version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” We saw in her video package that she is obviously dealing with some troubling personal issues right now, though they weren’t discussed specifically. That emotion, along with Tessanne’s always-consistant vocals, made for a very moving performance.
Watch The Voice live results tonight at 9 p.m. on NBC.