A grueling wait for everyone whilst the seven judges retired to convene for the top 5 contestants for round 2 of the Grand Finals. The top 20 were separated into two groups to give two group song items to entertain the waiting crowd during the interval.
And the emcees went to work and asked some of the contestants questions and let the audience know more about these contestants as well.
The top 7 out of the top 20 contestants chosen after the long break where the judges reportedly had a hard time choosing the 5 contestants so much so that they decided to give 7 instead of 5 contestants another chance to prove themselves onstage. Out of these 7, only 3 will be given air tickets on the spot to fly to Taiwan to PK in the One Million Star Season 5 competition.
Teo Zuo En 张祚恩 picked another groovy song for her second round and put in extra effort to show her near-perfect Broadway style of singing. I really enjoyed the performance and I began to see how the seven contestants start to loosen up to truly strut their talents.
Teo Zuo En 张祚恩 was impressive all the way to the end. Although her projection of voice was not up to ideal standards, she was definitely one of the more memorable ones who really immersed herself into the song and enjoyed herself onstage.
Yutaki Ong Soon Tat 王顺达 picked another dance number and added a rap portion as well to showcase what he was made of. Some of his dance moves actually reminded me of those I had done during my schooling days for those orientation camp dances.
Yutaki Ong Soon Tat 王顺达 eventually ended with a dramatic drop onto the floor of the stage but the longer I saw his performances, the more I felt that his dance repetoire seemed limited and he did not use the opportunity to improve his singing techniques and show any other new singing feel to his earlier song. I started to doubt his chances at this point.
Tan Diya 陈迪雅 picked another song which I could not care to remember because I was thoroughly enjoying round 2 where the contestants seemed stronger than before in some ways or at least much more relaxed enough to truly entertain on a live stage. Diya still retained her kiddy leg moves but turned a little more serious in emoting her song this time and delivered more techniques to impress the judges.
Tan Diya 陈迪雅 in her signature kiddy leg moves again. I thought the Taiwanese would surely comment on this as uniquely hers but I do worry some of the Taiwanese judges may start to wonder how come her facial expression was so serious but her body language was so happy-go-lucky...
Sylvester Sim Siang Long 沈祥龙's performance was a little disappointing for me because he did not use the second round's opportunity to show another side of him but instead got stuck with the same kind of body language - stiff and unmoving. Although his vocals were very impressive and remained impressive, I thought it was a regression since he made less effort to stand out more than the remaining six contestants.
Sylvester Sim Siang Long 沈祥龙. I held my breath hoping he could at least do something more but his body language was still unresponsively rooted to more or less the original position and I thought that would have more or less ruined his ticket to Taiwan.
Yeo Chia Ying 杨佳盈 started out very well and began to put another more emotive side to her performance and pushed herself even more to show her strengths and vocals.
Yeo Chia Ying 杨佳盈's troubles began when the ending part of the song required extensive free range expression and although she tried really hard, the increased background music volume started to take over her voice projection and she nearly broke one of the endnotes as her throat sounded as if it was drying up fairly quickly. The first thought that crossed my mind was that she did not prepare adequately for the ending free range portions.
Ng Chee Yang 黄智阳, after listening to the judges' comments that his first performance was mechanically too perfectionist to the point of losing its live soul, improved the greatest by dropping his cares and singing his heart out.
Ng Chee Yang 黄智阳. I saw the Zhiyang again during the Campus Superstars Season 1 competition, singing without worrying too much about what happens next and delivering what a live performance should have - sincerity and soul to the live audience, not just to oneself. Zhiyang's chances in my mind just went up two notches.
Chua Ai Jia Rachel 蔡艾珈 was the final seventh contestant to perform and just like the earlier first of the twenty performances, everyone held their breath to see what the little powerhouse could do since the other six was nothing short of awe-inspiring.
Chua Ai Jia Rachel 蔡艾珈 sang a very powerful number, which I believed utilized the most number of singing techniques that I have ever seen in the entire competition and Rachel's experience and familiarity with those techniques shone out just right. She seemed to cut down a lot of stage movement to accommodate the delivery of those note-changing techniques and I thought that must have cost her every ounce of power to push that performance worthy as a finale piece for the entire competition.
By the time all the seven contestants finished, even the resident judge of One Million Star competition, Xiaoling Laoshi had to resignedly put her head onto the judges' tables - because she found it so difficult to choose three out of the seven onstage “我的天呀！这么难选！可不可以全部七个都带去呢？”
Tan Diya 陈迪雅 (Top 3) was chosen as the first of the three after 20 minutes when the judges finally came out of their second meeting. Diya was so moved that she started tearing and Carrie had to calm her down with tissue paper.
Chua Ai Jia Rachel 蔡艾珈 (Top 3) was chosen as the second of the three to go to Taiwan. What she was holding in both her hands was the air ticket and qualifying papers as a PK Challenger.
Ng Chee Yang 黄智阳 (Top 3) was the last of the three and the competition finally ended with much cheering and applause although some of the supporters' groups seemed disappointed with the results and left Kallang Leisure Park dejectedly, squatting by the kerbs looking into space.
I stayed back for another few more group shots of the winners. Diya still looked as if she could not believe she was going to Taiwan.
The three PK challengers alongside with the seven judges who had to crack their heads to decide the eventual three.
A final group photo of the top 7 along with the judges before I headed home. My legs were aching like crazy from standing for nearly 6 hours and I knew I had plenty of uploading to do back home.A few pointers for singing enthusiasts who want to improve themselves. These are summed up from the judges' comments on the various performances and I thought they would be useful to some of my readers who are so passionate about singing and learning more:
“唱歌就像在讲个故事, 你要想要如何把这故事表达出来”
“听得出你的歌声中的热情，可是为何你的肢体语言是冷的呢？”
“不要只因为你喜欢歌曲中的某个部分，而忽略了整首歌想表达的感觉”
“歌曲中有大起小起之别，不能只依靠一层的感觉就能把歌曲唱出来”
That's all. End of blog series for One Million Star Season 5 Singapore PK Challenge Finals Competition. Hope my readers enjoyed the three posts! ^__^
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