Tonight the 8th season of American Idol came to an end with the crowning of a new winner after several months of auditions, performances, and eliminations.

All of the top 13 appeared in white to sing Pink’s song ‘So What’. Once again, I believe the stylists for this show should be fired and reassigned to the nearest Marshall’s or Belk.

As usual there was a ton of filler and performances before we find out who had won between Adam Lambert and Kris Allen.

Season 7 winner David Cook, wearing a black armband in memory of his brother who recently passed away this year after a 11 year battle with brain cancer, sang his new song ‘Permanent.’  The song was a touching and very moving tribute to his late brother, Adam Cook.

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Golden Idol Awards

Outstanding Male - Nick Mitchell (Norman Gentle) - The talented comedic singer took the stage and performed a funny impromptu, not so impromptu performance by Nicky.

Outstanding Female - Tatiano Nicole Del Toro - One of the craziest contestants in American Idol history.  Tatiano rushed the stage (staged) and past security to sing part of one of her favorite songs for the fourth time for the judges.

Best Attitude - Katrina Darrell - Katrina, known as Bikini Girl (pics), showed up every more flashing, popping and with a Boom Boom Pow boob job.  Idol judge Kara DioGuardi, whom Katrina dogged for not being able to sing during her audition, joined her at the end of her performance to show that she can in fact sing pretty darn good.  Kara even was donning a bikini under her dress but made sure to keep it covered as best she could. These photos show that Kara has a very sexy and toned bikini body.  Katrina still managed to give her a few dirty looks and eye her body as to say ‘whatever!’

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We were next treated to Memphis born Lil Rounds singing the duet ‘Que the Rain’ with the great Queen Latifah, who was dressed in spandex from head-to-toe and looked like a svete 2009 version of the California Raisins.

Season 8 contestants Anoop Desai and Alexis Grace sang a brief intro Jason Mraz’s ‘I’m Yours.’  The rest of final 13 contestants chipped in a bit on the song at the end.  Even Michael Sarver got a bit of camera time.

The highlight of the night for me was Kris Allen joining one of my favorites, Keith Urban, on stage to perform Urban’s latest hit ‘Kiss a Girl.’  Keith is one of the nicest celebrities I have spent time with over the years.  Allen showed that he could possibly go the country route as well.  The performance was one of the more authentic true rock performances of the season.  It will be the most popular downloaded song on iTunes tomorrow.

The Idol finalists did a seductive performance of Fergie’s ‘Fabulous’ before introducing Fergie onstage to perform ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry.’  I had heard the song so much on Kidz Bop I was like what is she doing singing a kids song, but she is the reason it made it to Kidz Bop.    Fergie has great legs, but overall has some miles on her.

The Black Eyed Peas then joined Fergie to sing the horrific song that is comprised chiefly of ‘Boom Boom Pow.’  Fergie is talented and can really sing. I was not that impressed by the rest of the Peas. Either Fergie or the Peas did something vulgar, because Idol threw up their logo for about 10 seconds on the screen to censor them.

And that was just the first hour of the show….and now for the second act:

Blast from the past portion of the show teamed up 17-year old Allison Iraheta with Cyndi Lauper for ‘Time After Time.’  Lauper seemed to royally struggle with the lyrics of the show and start an Ozzfest mumbling and rambling job through her portion of the song.  For the record this song was recorded about 8 years before Iraheta was born.

As the free concert rolled on, semi-finalist Danny Gokey did his best impersonation of Lionel Richie on ‘Hello.’  Danny knocked it out of the park before Nicole Richie’s dad joined Gokey on stage for a soulful duet of medleys.  Lionel was pretty much on his game and come have only been better if he had his mid 80’s fro. Speaking of 80, I would put the odds at 80% that Paula Abdul rocked Lionel at some point in the late 80’s or early 90′

The big shock of the night was Adam Lambert dressed up with beaded shoulder like angel pads.  Oh my, then he introduced KISS….a FAVORITE and it easily became the best finale results show.  Adam went from singing ‘Beth’ to singing ‘Detroit Rock City’ with Kiss in full makeup.  This has to be the highlight of Adam’s life.  Adam’s outfit was extremely feminine, but he fit right in with Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Tommy Thayer, and Eric Singer.  They concluded the set with ‘Rock & Roll All Night.’

To calm things down after the powerful KISS performance the magic that is Carlos Santana took the stage to jam on the guitar, before having Matt Giruad join him for ‘Gypsy Woman.’  All of the final thirteen then joined Carlos on stage for his modern classic ‘Smooth.’

For the folk part of the song Steve Martin strummed the banjo as a bluegrass band played for Michael Sarver and Megan Corkey to sing along to ‘Pretty Flowers,’ a song Martin had written for his new album.   It was the most unique song of the night and was actually really good.

All of the Idol men did a snazzy version of ‘If You Think I’m Sexy’ and naturally they were joined by the dinosaur that is Rod Stewart (how old is he? age 64) and his hair piece for his own performance of ‘Maggie May.’  It is always impressive to see all of the veteran performers like Rod, KISS, etc. actually sing and perform their songs instead of lip sync like the younger generation.

The final performance of the night was yet another duet, but this time with Adam and Kris, singing Queen’s ‘We Are the Champions.’  This set up the big surprise of the night as the stage opened up, the dry ice cleared and the surviving members of Queen were backing the two finalists on drums, guitar, and bass.  The only thing missing from the performance were the late Freddie Mercury and the eccentric Axl Rose.

RESULTS: Kris Allen (100 million votes cast)

Runner Up: Adam Lambert

I predicted last week in my live blog after Danny Gokey was eliminated that I believed in the possibility of Allen pulling off the upset over Adam.

Next week should be very interesting with Allen and Lambert competing for the victory.  Lambert has a strong base and is very talented, but he is perhaps the most polarizing public figure since Hillary Clinton entered the public arena.

I predict most of Gokey’s supporters will turn over to and vote for Kris in the final and set up a potential David like upset against the Goliath of Lambert.

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Fans of Lambert will cry and moan and make pledges to never watch the show again, but they shouldn’t be so extreme. Adam will have more freedom to do his own album and more control of his career.  Both Adam and Kris are going to be legitimate stars in the music business.

Major props to Kris Allen for overcoming the power of Lambert, the judges, and his own shyness to win the biggest reality TV contest in the world.

It was a lot of fun covering this season of American Idol as the final six contestants were the most talented since I started watching the show.

View Last Night’s Live Blog of the Finale

Complete American Idol Coverage

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