The X-Factor Boot Camp Task One 
The contestants hopped on a plane to the Mondrian Hotel in South Beach in Miami, Florida for the next phase of auditions and eliminations. Some rose to the challenge. Some cracked under the pressure. And the judges wondered how they could have put through others.
The groups we saw tonight included Emblem3, Group Citizen, Sister C, L3vel, and Jetset. I don’t care much for the group sounds this year at all.
Tonight we also heard too many people try to do Whitney Houston. Some did fairly, but they should tell them no Whitney songs and no Adele songs and maybe no Mariah songs either. Diamond White, Paige Thomas and Trill Cece Frey all did, “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney song. For a 13-year-old, Diamond did a pretty fair attempt. Paige did better than Diamond, but she seemed to be out of breath.
Diamond White
Cece–well I don’t care for her at all. The young woman needs a lesson in humility. She is conceitedly overconfident, “On a scale of 1 to 10 how confident am I? How about 25?” Her conceit comes off in the song. Instead of connecting with the song and the audience, it was more about her beating Paige’s audition that immediately preceded hers. All ladies will make it through this task.
Trill Cece Frey
Paige Thomas
Austin Corini sang Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love” most recently done by Adele. He has a very nice song, but this song was very boring. It’s unclear if he was in the final bunch making it through to task 2.
Austin Corini
The judges seemed to like Dinah Jane Hansen, Lyric Da Queen, Jason Brock, and Carly Rae Sonenclar.
Carly Rae Sonenclar
San Antonio girl Jessica Espinoza did well (in my opinion), but the judges in the end send her home.
Jessica Espinoza
Vixen Jennel Garcia performed Gavin DeGraw’s sexually charged “Sweeter” that certainly got a response from not only the judges but some of the male contestants.
Jennel Garcia
This year’s Josh Gracin, Vino Alan has a strong vocal performance on the song “Bad Company” and is put through to the next round.
Vino Alan
Then came the awful vocals: Johnny Maxwell (rapper who forgot his lyrics), Annie-like-looker Jordyn Foley, Manny Acosta, faint-at-heart Trevor Moran, feeling-good Nick Perrelli, and pastel-purpled Jake Garza. I really felt sorry for Jake because I have been on stage when the words just do not come out in front of a large audience and you crack. Of that group, Trevor Moran definitely does not make it through.
Tara Simon who showed Simon more than her animal-print dress murdered Queen’s “Somebody to Love”. Freddie Mercury must be turning over in his grave. She thinks she nailed it. Somehow they let her through.
Tara Simon
Willie Jones is an anomaly. I am not sure what to make of him. He has good and bad moments within the song, “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” by Kenny Chesney. He is through to the next round.
Willie Jones
They divide the singers into groups. Group A includes: Diamond White, James Tanner, Jason Brock, Vino Alan, Jennel Garcia, Paige Thomas, Sophie Tweed-Simmons (the daughter of KISS rocker Gene Simmons), David Correy, Carly Rae Sonenclar.
Group B includes: Jessica Espinoza, Rizzloe Jones, Jordyn Foley (at which point I knew exactly where this group was going—home), Trevor Moran, Ben Westphal and Quatrelle Smith.
Group C includes: Jeff Gutt, Cece Frey, Tate Stevens, Freddie Combs, Nick Youngerman, Willie Jones, Johnny Maxwell, and Jillian Jensen.
Groups A and C get to stay; group B is sent home. My advice to Cece Frey: While your conceit and overconfidence might get you through to the next round with the judges, remember that America will be voting for you and no one really likes you right now. I suggest a healthy dose of humility if you want to stay any longer than week 1 once the voting begins. People will vote for a humble person who gave a good attempt, not even perfect, but good, but will quickly send home people like you.
I leave with the question America wants to know: WHERE IS PANDA?
Panda
Pbmom's Blog 
I find it interesting you don’t like Cece, given her confidence and ’25’ answer. But, you don’t have a problem with Jennel flaunting her sex appeal. I guess for some, when a women show’s confidence, she’s a diva and not liked, but when she show’s sex appeal, that’s fine.
For me, confidence is a woman is sexy, and I hope Cece, Jennel, and Paige make it through. Cece and Paige are going to battle, but Jennel is in a different market (aka Rockers, Pat Benatar).
All are exceptional.
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My favorite contestant, if you must know, is Jillian Jensen. I will be voting for her. There is a difference between confidence and conceit. There is a difference between being confident and being humble and being kind to others versus being conceited, being stuck-up about it (do you see the faces she makes towards the other contestants–that’s just rude). There was a contestant like that last year, Brian Bradley, aka Astro. People did not like his attitude.
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Watch at 58 seconds into the video and Paige is making faces. It goes both ways. Don’t play the victim to what the media presents to you.
At 28 seconds into that video Cece is giving props to the other female contestants. That shows respect.
During this video I don’t see either of them ‘making faces’.
I also notice she NEVER states she’s better than anyone else, but she is going to take every opportunity and nail it. That’s confidence, not conceit. So, yeah, I do understand the difference.
You seem to put a lot of emphasis on what faces you think she’s making towards others. We can agree to disagree on what she’s saying, or not saying, with those expressions.
I’m sure X Factor is going to manufacture more out of these 2 and the perceived battle. There may be some conflict between the 2, but I will never know since TV can manufacture stories to generate ratings.
I like Jillian as well, but not sure she has the vocals. Need to hear her more.
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I do agree with you that these shows will try to create things that are not possibly there, and I will concede that. Cece has a good voice but she overly affected. That is not something that gets manufactured by editing. I’m glad she has you as a fan and appreciate the rational discussion here with you. That second video at 28 seconds that you say she gives props, again, her face is saying she is lying. The way she looks away when she is speaking. Little subtitles that make her not sincere. Instead of speaking directly to Paige when she makes the comment, she looks away and smirks, which can be interpreted as “I don’t think you are fierce.” Body language, tonality, facial expressions when one is speaking all convey underlying sentiment. I’ve become very tuned in over the last 16 years on body language/facial expressions because of my son with autism (nonverbal) and everyone we’ve had to deal with. Like I said, we can agree to disagree. In the first video, I took Paige’s facial reactions to whatever she just listened to, enjoying it. Whether or not it was Cece or someone else we’ll never know because we aren’t in the editing room.
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It’s disheartening you’ve changed your stories. First, you stated she was ‘making faces’. Now, you state it’s her body language. Cece just can’t win with you, no matter what she does since you’ve interpreted her body language.
Again, I haven’t seen her make any derogatory statements or faces towards anyone.
I noticed in this video that Paige has some derogatory body language. check at 36 seconds and 43 seconds:
For me, I don’t hold that against her. But, maybe my interpretation of her body language is not accurate.
I hope both Paige and Cece make it far, I’m a fan of both.
I understand it’s your position that you’re an expert on body language and thus it won’t matter what she says, or even does. If you feel you’re the expert , don’t make mistakes, then more power to you. To think there’s been about 2-3 minutes of Cece that’s in public, and based on that you’ve already know her. Wow, impressive.
It sounds like it’s a judgmental world you live in, not based on words or actions, but body language. Best of luck to you. Your world is not really a place for people like me. Little too scary….
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Abe: “Making faces” is body language. It is not “changing my story.” I was commenting specifically on the videos you sent for me to look at. It’s okay to not like an individual. I don’t know her personally, of course. I’m only basing my opinions of her based on what I am being presented by the show. Perhaps she is Mother Theresa in real life. But for the sake my being a critic (and if you read my new story you will see that I did not care for Paige’s performance in Task 2 either), I am going on what I’ve seen and heard (and what you have shared with me that I didn’t pick up on until you showed me it and I examined it more which actually did not help her cause). I appreciate you stopping by the blog. Hope you’ll be back. I used to blog for a site that required me to not say anything negative about anybody (or storyline) on a particular science fiction show I watched even though I am free to share that with the former producer on his own blog. I will share my honest opinion. I’ve been doing blogs for American Idol since season 2 (not on this site but my local Fox station’s site). Actually was flown out to Los Angeles for the American Idol by Fox 2 years ago. The blogs on that site were eventually stopped, so I found myself here. And I was never censored about writing about my opinions. This isn’t a “news” piece that just presents facts (for example, me just reiterating what the judges say and not interjecting my opinion in it whatsoever); this is a blog of my own opinions. I am not sure there is anything that can be done to change my mind about Cece. And I’ll say it again–she might be a terrific person in real life. Being a critic of something inherently means to be critical or judgmental. It is part of the job. I really am glad that Cece has such a devoted fan. Everyone needs a champion in their corner. And she does make it through to the judges’ homes.
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