BEST PERFORMANCE WAS NOT BY ONE OF THE SHOW'S CONTESTANTS

Did you catch the sweet bass guitar work during Brandon Rogers' take on I Just Want to Celebrate? Seeing as how American Idol is a singing show, the fact that the best performance went to someone working for scale, well, it was not a good night. The woes even hit local guy Phil Stacey. He started his song rough again, this time missing the low notes on I Need You, did a few nice falsetto runs, then did an OK job of landing the thing. He'll be sweating out Thursday night's results.

-- The good news for Stacey: 1. Randy compared him to Journey's Steve Perry. 2. His sense of humor is intact; he promised to change his eyes by next week after Simon said they were strange. 3. He unveiled a Taylor Hicks-style appeal for votes: "Bring me back, baby."

-- Dig the dome? During the video intro to his song, Stacey said he chose his bald pate when he was required to get a short haircut for a choir performance. He may like it, but that didn't stop him from going for the Bing Crosby look on the show again.

-- Can't get enough reggae hip-hop: Blake Lewis was way ahead after his catchy, vigorous performance of 311's ditty All Mixed Up. How is it that at least two of the three judges had never heard the song before? The other decent performance was put in by Chris Richardson.

-- Cowellism of the night: "You need to work on coloring up your singing." Just kidding. That was Paula. I know, I'm stunned, too. She harshly assessed Jared Cotter, someone she never would have criticized in the past. And he did a passable job. Paula must have gone to the Wizard for some courage.

-- Most likely to go: Just after 10:30 p.m., DialIdol.com said Cotter and Sanjaya "Shake My Booty Hawaiian Style" Malakar were hurtin' for votes.