Blowin’ In The End: Jason Castro’s Craptastic ‘Idol’ Final-Stretch Performance

If we can rely on American Idol for one thing, it’s to witness some of our favourite pop and rock standards get mutilated in increasingly graphic and elaborate ways, like some nubile brunette exchange student wandering unwittingly into an Eli Roth movie. It was Jason Castro who delivered last night’s purest moment of armrest-clutching terror, an aural torture in two acts that first required him to channel Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff,” apparently as interpreted by a special-needs monkey. Predictably, the performance inspired some extra-vicious critiques from Simon Cowell. (We were a little surprised, however, that none of the take-downs involved the term “dredful,” or his envy of the sheriff’s sweet, silencing fate.)

But were that all! For, in what will all but certainly go down as the lyric-forgettingest season in Idol history, Castro’s second “Bob” homage saw him blank on the lyrics to a Dylan song your mother probably knows the words to. (It was “Tambourine Man,” as much as we wanted to see someone sing, “The answer, my friend…is…uh…” in front of 30 million people.) Luckily, the season’s dependable shaved-koala brought his A-game, wowing the judges with heartfelt (you know this because he squints his eyes and nods!) takes on “Stand By Me” and “Love Me Tender,” both smothered in extra Archie sauce.

• americanidol.com