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"It&amp;#039;s finally here - we&amp;#039;re down to only three singers on American Idol and that means it&amp;#039;s time for the semi-finals round. With only Jessica Sanchez, Phillip Phillips and Joshua Ledet still in the running, it&amp;#039;s anyone&amp;#039;s guess as to who will take home the grand prize next week! While each contestant has given solid performances and received positive praise over the season, only one can be victorious.  Who will rise above to have a &amp;quot;star moment&amp;quot; during tonight&amp;#039;s performances? Stay with Digital Spy live from 8/7c to find out! &amp;gt; &amp;#039;American Idol&amp;#039; poll: Who do you want to make the final?  21:57Well, that&amp;#039;s it for tonight! Join us back tomorrow night to see which two will be going through to the finals! 21:55Randy thinks it was the perfect song at the perfect time, calling it his best performance on the show ever as he finally had a &amp;quot;moment&amp;quot;. Jennifer knows one thing, which is that he has millions of girls out there who wish he was singing to them, calling it &amp;quot;really sweet&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;just like a lullaby&amp;quot;. Steven agrees, saying that he sang like something that the network apparently had to blank out.  21:52Last performance of the night is Phillip, and Jimmy&amp;#039;s chosen Bob Seger&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;We&amp;#039;ve Got Tonight&amp;#039; (which is meant to address his male and female fans, according to Jimmy. LOL!). Phil&amp;#039;s hair looks purple in the stage light but he&amp;#039;s singing it actually on melody. Not bad. 21:45Steven thinks it was the perfect song and that she &amp;quot;nailed it&amp;quot;, additionally calling it &amp;quot;gorgeous&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;wonderful&amp;quot;. Jennifer also praises the song choice, saying that she had the perfect tone and almost sounded like the late Michael Jackson in certain parts. Randy &amp;quot;liked it, okay, but didn&amp;#039;t love it&amp;quot; (word), admitting that it lacked a &amp;quot;moment moment&amp;quot;, which is necessary at this point in the competition.  21:41Jimmy&amp;#039;s pick for Jessica is... Jackson 5&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;ll Be There&amp;#039;. Again, what a boring choice. Do they not want Jessica to win or something? She does a great job with it, though. Not much else to say besides that. 21:34(Update: he did sorta take it to church at the end there, but I still wasn&amp;#039;t feelin&amp;#039; it entirely - no-one can outdo Mary!) Anyway, Randy says that at this point, no matter what he does, he&amp;#039;s laid everything on the stage that there is, telling people to stand up and vote for him as he&amp;#039;s a natural performer and delivers every song. Jennifer appreciates that he knows what he&amp;#039;s doing but still lets go, adding that everything he does feel so natural. She also steals my thoughts and applauds him for taking everyone to church. Get your own thoughts, J.Lo. Steven calls it beautiful and speaks a lot of other nonsense. Why is he on this show? You have to wonder sometimes...  21:30It&amp;#039;s time for Jimmy Iovine&amp;#039;s choice - for Joshua, he&amp;#039;s picked Mary J Blige&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;No More Drama&amp;#039;... I approve of this choice! Great track and gives him a chance to do something a bit more modern to see how he fares. He seems to be rushing the song a bit and needs to slow down and take his time with it a bit more. He also seems pretty distracted and doesn&amp;#039;t really seem to be connected to this track but it&amp;#039;s one of his least annoying performances, so take from that what you will. 21:23Jennifer thinks it was an &amp;quot;easy-going&amp;quot; performance but that it lacked the &amp;quot;wow&amp;quot; factor that the show needs right now. Steven agrees, saying it wasn&amp;#039;t over the top but was still true to who he is. Randy also didn&amp;#039;t like it (though he tries to make some roundabout joke about getting to his point), claiming that it was a &amp;quot;subdued moment&amp;quot; for him rather than showing something new. 21:19Phil&amp;#039;s choice is Matchbox 20&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Disease&amp;#039;. God, Matchbox 20 - totally takes me back to 2001 and my first &amp;quot;serious&amp;quot; relationship (I was all of 17, so take that with a grain of salt) and how I was obsessed with their song &amp;#039;Hang&amp;#039; because I thought it was melodramatic and romantic. LOL to the past. Anyway, this song is a good choice for him. I&amp;#039;m going to try to be nice until... the end of this broadcast. 40 whole minutes of positivity! Let&amp;#039;s see how long I last.  21:17I will say this - I love Phil&amp;#039;s whole &amp;quot;I love my family, I&amp;#039;m a country boy&amp;quot; vibe. And yeah, he is pretty cute. Fine. I said it. 21:14The last hometown visit is Phil - who still owes some dude back in Leesburg, Georgia $10, according to a sign held up in the audience. The girls have to be held up, like industrial farm animals, behind a chainlink fence. It&amp;#039;s insanity. He gets a police escort, a parade, etc - just look at what the others got. That&amp;#039;s Phil&amp;#039;s experience, too. 21:07Steven thinks that she took a great song and made it greater, dubbing it &amp;quot;beautiful&amp;quot;. Jennifer says it was a &amp;quot;big deal&amp;quot; as Steven never likes covers of his own songs. She also appreciates the final note, adding that it &amp;quot;sent everybody into the heavens&amp;quot;. Randy admits that she&amp;#039;s chosen some tough hills to climb tonight and is bold, applauding her for delivering such a tough track.  21:04Oddly enough, she&amp;#039;s chosen Aerosmith&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;I Don&amp;#039;t Wanna Miss a Thing&amp;#039; for herself. What? I thought she was keen to be singing more R&amp;amp;B type stuff, which is up her alley? I think it&amp;#039;s a bit of a weird song choice and while she sings it well enough (because she could sing the phonebook), it really misses something and may not have been the best move for her going into the finals. 21:00Up next, Jessica gets to head home to Chula Vista, California, who was happy to see how popular she is. She gets the short end of the stick by traveling in a black Escalade rather than a private plane since she&amp;#039;s just up the state. Oh wait, she does get a helicopter ride, but whatever. She also performs at the Amphitheatre for a massive crowd of fans, which is a bit of an emotional experience for her, as well. Incidentally, it looks like she lives in a gigantic house with her siblings and parents. She also gets a parade and the usual hometown visit fare. 20:52Steven calls it &amp;quot;beautiful&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;another &amp;#039;thank you, God&amp;#039; moment&amp;quot;, adding that he takes it over the top every week and telling him that he&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;so fine&amp;quot;. Erm... okay? Jennifer appreciates that he was able to pull it back, saying that she understand that singing is a form of preaching for him. She believes that he is willing to dig deep into the words and the meaning of the music, which makes him very special and courageous. Randy is happy with his reason for picking the song and encourages him to continue choosing things that touch him and that he has an emotional connection to, which is why people feel what he does every single time he&amp;#039;s on stage. 20:48Back to the Idol stage, though. I wish Joshua would choose a Beethoven sonata. Get it? Cos then he wouldn&amp;#039;t sing? Thanks, I&amp;#039;ll be here all night. In all seriousness, he&amp;#039;s singing John Lennon&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Imagine&amp;#039;. Ugh. Couldn&amp;#039;t get any more imaginative? I want to like him! I liked him in auditions! This just falls flat, however. Whatever - I&amp;#039;m sure the judges will love it.  20:45Time for contestant&amp;#039;s choice! Before he gets started, Joshua gets back to his hometown in Louisiana in a private plane. I want a private plane! He&amp;#039;s happy to be there and greeted by his family and fans and he makes a joke about being Barack Obama and I can&amp;#039;t make a joke with him. He also has a crawfish party and sings at his local church, which is tiny and emotional for a lot of people. I can&amp;#039;t even hate on that - that&amp;#039;s lovely. He also goes back to his high school, has a parade, etc. Enjoy the fame while it lasts, kid. 20:34Jennifer thinks he&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;very funny&amp;quot; because he messed with the melody. Yeah. &amp;quot;LOL&amp;quot;, indeed. Still, he &amp;quot;rides it&amp;quot; all the way home - his individuality, that is. Steven says it&amp;#039;s beautiful to watch him unfold on stage, adding something about shadows falling behind you when you&amp;#039;re facing the sun, blah blah. He also thinks Phil could be a &amp;quot;new age Bruce Springsteen&amp;quot;. Dream on, bro. Randy feels like he was at a Phil Phillips concert. Hope the tickets were free!  20:30Steven has picked &amp;#039;Beggin&amp;#039;&amp;#039; by Madcon for Phillip to see if he can handle some serious melody. This may well be a disaster, but apparently with teen female hormones comes years of deafness, so he should still get through all right. Somehow, he manages to take the inherent melody of this song and completely destroy it... and not in a good way. it&amp;#039;s so all over the place. There&amp;#039;s one thing in making it your own, but is he serious? I&amp;#039;d almost rather listen to Joshua. 20:23Randy think it was &amp;quot;absolutely beautiful&amp;quot; and the perfect song choice, adding that while they usually advise people not to sing Mariah, it&amp;#039;s definitely one of the best covers that&amp;#039;s ever been performed on TV. I think that&amp;#039;s slightly over the top, but okay, Randy. Jennifer also sees that it&amp;#039;s a hard song but applauds her for doing it so beautifully and in her own way, using that &amp;quot;tenderness&amp;quot; and avoiding the big part, instead choosing to show control. Steven says that she makes people &amp;quot;hang on [her] every note&amp;quot;, telling her to &amp;quot;get used to encores&amp;quot; because she&amp;#039;s an &amp;quot;over the top&amp;quot; singer.  20:20Next up, Jessica Sanchez. Jennifer has chosen Mariah Carey&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;My All&amp;#039; for the 16-year-old, which is... eh. Bit old for her, but whatever. She sounds good but I hate the arrangement. She sounds great, though - the kid can sing, which is, I suppose, what this competition is (supposed to be) about. 20:12He gets a standing ovation for his efforts, as predicted. Steven thinks it&amp;#039;s another moment, calling it &amp;quot;so surreal&amp;quot; to hear the song delivered perfectly and &amp;quot;a dream come true&amp;quot;. He adds that Joshua sang like a true American Idol. Jennifer admits that they struggled to choose a song for him as they were unsure whether or not to go with something modern. However, she loves that he&amp;#039;s such a throwback and is able to &amp;quot;bring down the house&amp;quot; with every performance. Randy thinks that he&amp;#039;s a &amp;quot;classic stylist&amp;quot; and the song &amp;quot;fit like a glove&amp;quot;, saying that he hopes that Joshua can bring his style into modern R&amp;amp;B music in his career.  20:09First up, Randy has picked an Etta James song for Joshua, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;d Rather Go Blind&amp;#039;. Remember what a great job little Rachel Crow did with this on The X Factor USA last season? I just want to talk about that so I can forget what&amp;#039;s on screen right now. He&amp;#039;s doing is classic scream-singing and the judges are going to love it and you are going to hate me for ragging on him and NOTHING EVER CHANGES, okay? 20:04By the way, guys - the first round is songs chosen by the judges, the second round is contestant&amp;#039;s choice and the third is Jimmy Iovine&amp;#039;s pick. That&amp;#039;s right, three rounds of this tomfoolery. In addition, next week we&amp;#039;re one night ahead of schedule, so that means performances on Tuesday night and the winner is crowned on Wednesday. Go on, I&amp;#039;ll wait while you plug it into your Google calendar. 20:01Well, here we go! Next week, we&amp;#039;ll have an American Idol. We all know it should be Jessica Sanchez (it SHOULD HAVE BEEN Skylar Laine!) but it will probably be Phillip Phillips. If it&amp;#039;s Joshua Ledet, I&amp;#039;m going to lose all faith in humanity. You guys are going to miss me when this is all over, aren&amp;#039;t you? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/american-idol/news/a382055/american-idol-season-11-semi-final-live-blog/>