Akademi Fantasia 6 - Concert #3

At last! An Akademi Fantasia concert this season that is worth my staying up for! Was it the "Rock Kapak" theme? Or was it the effort put in by the trainers and the students? It was probably a bit of all of the above. AC Mizal seems to be getting more comfortable in his role as the host. Also, I appreciate that there is less of the draggy dialogue before the results were announced that was prevalent during Aznil's days - probably not Aznil's fault as well as the producers decide the direction of the show, not the host.

Yes, those people who slammed AC Mizal should keep their mouths shut now. I thought he handled the show very well, keeping to his style without mimicking Aznil. Jokes were kept to minimum and his antics fell mostly right into place.

Ogy's back and thank God there's less of her nonsensical comments.

Ning Baizura is more critical now and she voiced out her disagreement with Ogy twice. I expected Ning to say more about Faizal's mostly off-pitch singing but she didn't.

Adlin Aman Ramlie provided good comments and his chemistry with AC Mizal really helped the show.

The show kicked off with Stacy singing Pelesit Kota. Fantastic vocal performance although she was criticised about her "aimless" stage performance. I liked her performance very very much!

Faisal 's Sentuhan Kecundang was off-key for most of the song! I grimaced so many times throughout his performance that my facial muscles felt tired afterwards. Lousy! Keep going on like this, Faisal and you might find yourself booted out next week!

Nadia was superb singing Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart.! Fantastic vocals. Her diction improved too! In one of the diary episodes, I heard her say, "Tawtal eclipse of the heart..." but tonight her diction improved a lot! Nice voice, pitching and dynamics. Congratulations, Nadia!

Alif was just OK for me. The judges thought he was OK but I wasn't moved.

Lufya's performance of Medicine's Tika & Saat Ini was actually her personal best in my opinion. But sadly, even her best paled in comparison to her fellow contestants. I predicted she would be out this concert.

Naim actually has a good voice and I thought this was his best performance. But like Lufya, most of his fellow contestants did so much better.

It's surprising that the tenor of the lot had a lot of pitching problems and his singing style seemed so wrong. Maybe, he will perform better the next time round.

Saida was just not in her element. Maybe rock just doesn't do it for her. Her version of Ella's Sepi Sekuntum Mawar Merah sounded tired. She has quite a good voice though.

I thought Nubhan would do Don Henley's Summer of 69 well as he has this husky voice that is something like Mr Henley's.(Correction: Summer of 69 was originally performed by Bryan Adams and NOT Don Henley - Thanks Alex F for pointing that out to me!) Alas, his diction and lack of power made the song sound a bit weird.

Riz was really good. One of them who made this concert a memorable one.

Toi being his usual selamba self. Nice and cool performance though nothing spectacular.

Rina was the clearly the best performance of the night! She did the Metallica "Sandman" song very well and coupled with a fantastic performance she managed to get loud cheers from the audience form the crowd and thumbs-up reviews from all judges!

The Menuju Puncak song was done with live vocals again. Not too bad, only a few parts that was terbabas. The students also danced with much better precision and synchronicity.

2 bags were brought out. But I wasn't surprised as to who was voted out. I do believe that the voters have wised up!

One bag belonged to Lufya. This is her making her farewell speech.

Naim - as I have said earlier - no surprise!

The best concert so far. Hope future concerts are as entertaining as this one.

Ciao!

Amir Fuad.