Going ‘Live’ now

The battles have just concluded. Now comes the next stage of “The Voice of the Philippines”: Live Shows.

The name describes it quite accurately. Performances and critiques are all going to happen live, in real time. No more pre-recording. Home audiences will get the experience at the same time we do.

Live Shows will take place at the Newport Performing Arts Center of Resorts World Manila on Sunday nights after “Rated K.” On Saturday nights will be featured the more “reality-based” episodes, to help televiewers get to know the artists better. There will be special performances by the artists (some of them will be inter-team numbers).

Here’s hoping I’ll be home every Saturday night to see these episodes; we may be rehearsing the following night’s Live Show!

Back to the Sunday performances, which begin on Aug. 25. Here’s how it works: Each coach puts up three of his/ her team members for solo numbers in competition. The other three will perform in production numbers. Live voting (including text votes from home) will then begin. Results will be revealed at the end of the telecast.

The team member with the highest number of text votes automatically heads to the next round of Live Shows. From the remaining two, the coach will select who gets to move on, and who goes home. This same type of elimination round is repeated on Sept. 1 with the remaining three artists on each team.

From six team members, each coach is then down to four. On Sept. 8 and 15, two of those four perform in competition. Their scores will be determined by a combination of the text votes and their coach’s scores in equal parts.

And from four, each team goes down to two members. Elimination mechanics will be the same as in the two previous weeks, until we get to our Grand Finalists, the final four.

Downloads

There is more to the voting than just texts and coaches’ calls. There will also be iTunes downloads (the number of downloads is factored in) of the full versions of the songs performed in competition, as well as original songs written for these wonderful singers. I cannot wait to hear them!

Within each Live Show there will be special performances by the non-competing artists and their coaches. This should be a lot of fun, too!

This stage of the competition is the most nerve-wracking, as the expectations from each artist is very high. Some of the decisions that went into the selection of each coach’s final six were very controversial, prompting much debate on social media, with certain coaches accused of favoritism.

As I had written previously, we may not always agree on whom a coach picks, but we can always respect his or her decision.

For everyone who has been keeping a close eye on the show, thank you very much from the bottom of our hearts. Keep watching until Sept. 29 when the first “The Voice of the Philippines” winner is proclaimed.

In case you need a list, here’s the current roster:

Team Apl: Thor, Janice Javier, Jessica Reynoso, Tristhan Perfecto, Cora de la Cruz, Penelope Matanguihan.

Team Bamboo: Angelique Alcantara, Lee Grane, Myk Perez, Talia Reyes, Paolo Onesa, Isa Fabregas.

Team Lea: Darryl Shy, Radha, RJ de la Fuente, Diday Garcellano, Mitoy, Kimpoy Mainit.

Team Sarah: Yuki Ito, Eva de los Santos, Klarisse de Guzman, Morissette Amon, Maki Ricafort, Junji Arias.