Australian Idol / Vin Lowe / 18 October 2009 / Leave a comment Bet Now

Hmm, was I shocked this week, only a little, let's be honest, Scott Newnham only lasted this long because of some great early performances and his good looks, writes Jayme Jenkins.

While all the other performers are starting to hit their stride, Scott peaked about three weeks ago and it has all been downhill from there. There is no doubt the boy has talent, but he also has no training or experience and it was definitely starting to show.

A little surprising was the return of Nathan Brake and James Johnston to the elimination stage, they have both been there before, but there were a lot of performances far worse than theirs last week.

It was Big Band night this week and all the contestants received training from one of the Big Band greats, Harry Connick Jr. Nathan and James knew they were fighting for their lives and both delivered knock out performances.

James sang "Fever" and captured the seduction of the song, using the stage and interacting with the band. The judges loved it and so did the audience.

Nathan delivered arguable the best performance of the night with "It Don't Mean A Thing". Now it leaves the big question as to whether these boys have done enough to stay another week. A part of me wants to say yes, but if we have learnt anything from the voting, it is to expect the unexpected.

Based on this weeks performance it can easily be said that Kate, Kim and Toby should be up for elimination. I don't know how Kate holds on every week. There must be a huge population of country music lovers out there and she is yet to really impress me.

Kim has one good week, one bad week, but she just isn't in the realm of the other performers like Stan Walker or Hayley Warner.

As much as all the signs point to Kim, I won't be surprised if James or Nathan actually goes home this week.

Still leading this competition is Stan Walker, but Hayley Warner is closing the gap each week. They both have extremely different styles and it will be interesting to see what Australia actually prefers when it comes down to the final two.