"Philadelphia has a rich history," Seacrest intoned, reminding us that the Declaration of Independence was signed here and Betsy Ross and Ben Franklin both lived here. "Now, it's the first stop on our audition tour, and Philly is making history all over again as our biggest crowd ever showed up to audition." (Idol executive producer Noel Lythgoe has put the number at more than 20,000.) The show included plenty of shots of the contestants jamming a parking lot at the Wachovia Center, where the auditions were held on Aug. 27.
Philadelphia came away without so much as a sneer from the famously sarcastic Cowell. In fact, there was almost no hint at all of interaction between the judges and the city, except for a shot of Abdul receiving a warm greeting from a fan. Cowell, Abdul and Jackson were seen almost entirely in an audition room that could have been anywhere.
As usual in the early rounds of Idol, last night's program had a freak show quality. There were some stunningly bad performances and obscenity –laced meltdowns by disappointed auditioners. "As you would expect in the city that produced the Constitution, people were not shy about using their right to free speech," Seacrest said.
The weirdness trophy had to go to Ben Haar, 27, of Newark, Del., who went out and got his chest waxed because Abdul said she was put off by the amount of chest hair his bizarre costume was revealing. But New Hope comedian Paul Marturano, 32, made it a contest. Marturano, aka Pauly Nipple, contributed to the weirdness quotient with "Stalker," a song he said he had written for Paula Abdul. "I'm not much of a talker, so I guess that I'll just stalk her," he sang. Abdul, perhaps not totally thrilled with Marturano's comedy, shrank toward Jackson, while Cowell decided he'd heard enough. "That was really creepy," he told Marturano. "There's something very disturbing about you."
