The Gorham Events Board last Wednesday held the second semi-annual USM’s Got Talent competition. The variety show and competition was organized by Dominque Hilton who also served as a judge along with two other students.
Contestants competed for prizes such as a basket of nick knacks for third place, sweat shirt and sweatpants for second place, and for first place, an IPod Shuffle.
The show was hosted by last year’s winner Roger, who opened the show with a song by Kate Nash and introduced the next act after the obligatory half-clever, half-patronizing joke. The show itself was plagued by constant technical problems that were probably more the cause of a hasty setup than anything else.
The first act of the night was guitarist John Finison and singer Paul Wooton. The pair performed a couple of cover songs, “All About a Girl” by Nirvana and “I Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash. Paul had a good voice but very little stage presence which made his performance come off as a little flat. John, the most charismatic of the pair, made jokes between songs to lighten the mood.
Finison would go on to perform later in the night but said that he most enjoyed playing with Wooton. “I know a lot of musicians who really dislike cover songs but I see them as a challenge,” he said. “Having to learn to play someone else’s material, often in a style very different from your own, can be much more educational than practicing scales or chords for two or three hours.”
Next came Warren McPherson, who sang “The Wind Beneath My Wings.” McPherson had a very nice voice and played the piano very well and overall had a very good performance for which he received a lot of audience praise an ultimately, third place.
The next act was Emily Leblanc and Corrine Bellwood singing “Halleluiah.” The performance was very good. The vocals were soft and soulful and very breathy and the guitar section was very well preformed – especially near the end of the song. The pair performed acoustically which is their most impressive feat.
Grant Dodge came next with his performance of Lewis Carroll’s “The Jabberwocky.”
Dodge seemed to pay less attention to the words, which he spewed out with unbelievable rapidity – making the poem almost unrecognizable – instead focusing on odd movements which he used to tell the story of the poem. The judges enjoyed his performance and awarded him second place.
John Finison returned playing the instrumental song Black Maddie and then performing a song he wrote called “Freudian Rhapsody in the Key of A,” a song Finison called “a bit of a mystery to me still. The lyrics are pure imagery to me. The music is what is so resonant to me, it has a certain mysterious, yet still child-like feel to it and that is the drive for me much more so than the lyrics or vocals.” The song was very sad and mournful with an alternatively fast and slow beat at the end.
The next act was Brandon Baines who performed a series of yo-yo tricks, which excited the crowd. Baines is a semi-professional yo-yoer and came up with his routine on the spot. Baines was the master of audience participation. “When I yo-yo on stage, I try to get the audience into it as much as I can,” he said.
Baines got the crowd to hoot and holler at all the cool tricks that he performed. “This allows the audience to loosen up a little and really have fun during a performance,” he said. His lively performance stole the show and he took first prize.