The New American Idol Is Crowned - May 20, 2009

After 100 million votes and a two hour finale tonight, we have a new American Idol. Kris Allen defeated Adam Lambert to win season eight of American Idol. A shocker but I had been thinking all day that Kris very well could win this thing. It seemed like Adam was such a clear favorite that Kris was almost getting overlooked. Kris has been very strong leading up to the finale. He improved every week and fought hard for the Idol crown. Congrats to him and congrats to Adam for the second place finish!! They both showed a lot of class tonight with the results. Fun finale with a lot of great performances and surprises. I always like the group performances and getting the group back together. I loved the performance of Pink’s song "So What" that got the performance side of the show going. Other favorites of mine were Kris Allen and Keith Urban, Allison Iraheta and Cyndi Lauper, Alexis Grace and Jorge Garcia with Jason Mraz, and Matt Giraud with the group along with Santana. Other stars on the show performing with the Idols were Queen Latifah, Rod Stewart, Lionel Richie, KISS, Fergie and The Black Eyed Peas. Adam was the one to perform with KISS. Great line from Ryan afterwards when he said that it was like New Year’s Eve for a moment. Queen was on the Idol stage as Kris and Allen performed "We Are The Champions" with them. Great to see David Cook on the Idol stage. He has had a rough couple of weeks. His performance of “Permanent” is available on iTunes with the proceeds going to ABC Squared which is in honor of his brother’s memory and is a group raising money to help find a cure for cancer. The Idol award thing was fun. Nick Mitchell was great. He walked up on stage to accept saying that he wasn’t ready for this moment as he was just there to watch the show. Then, he yelled “hit it” and the music hit. Off came the clothes and he was in full Norman character. His performance was a lot of fun!! That brings us to the other similar moment of the night. Katrina, otherwise known as Bikini Girl, accepts her award for Outstanding Female. She performs "Vision Of Love" and then out walks Kara DioGuardi behind her singing the same song. They battle over the song and then the song ends with Kara unbuttoning her dress to reveal a bikini to combat Katrina. This was a golden Idol moment!! Hilarious!! Ryan said that they had a big bet going that Kara wouldn’t do it and now were going to be donating a lot of money to charity because of it. Tatiana. Of course, there had to be some Tatiana on this finale cause she was a big part of the early part of the season. Idol alums all over the place as Mikalah Gordon was in Conway, Arkansas with Kris’s fans. Carly Smithson was in San Diego with Adam’s fans. Carrie Underwood was shown in the crowd. Hey, can we get her up on stage again so we can hear the rest of her performance of Home Sweet Home??!! Justin Guarini was another Idol alum in the crowd with plenty more. Once again, Kris Allen is your American Idol champion. I really enjoyed this season. I haven’t been crazy about the last several seasons but, to me, this has been the best season since season five. Strong group of performers. The competition really seemed wide open from the beginning. I know people have been back and forth on whether they liked the addition of Kara as a fourth judge. I liked her immediately and have been happy with her. I hope that they bring her back. Overall, fun season of American Idol. Idol returns in January. If you want to see the Idols on tour, check and see if they are coming to your city.