Superstar of the future Kirby Frost has lost her place in The Voice, despite an epic performance of Gnarls Barkley’s major hit Crazy.
The teenager, from Swadlincote, has not made it to next week’s live semi-finals after her superstar mentor Olly Murs picked Jamie Grey over the former William Allit School pupil.
During Saturday’s The Voice, in the final round of the knock outs, the 18-year-old met singer Craig David who she greeted with a very Swadlincote ‘Ay up’.
Before her penultimate performance, speaking to camera, Olly told viewers: “She is so young but wants to win this competition. She is ready. She is ready to fight.”
Her mother, Beverley said through tears to the camera; “Kirby comes alive, I am proud beyond words. She is my baby.”
Olly added about his unusual choice of song: “It is about showing how great she is as a singer.”
Kirby was delighted to be given the 2006 Gnarls Barkley number one, saying: “I want to show I can do something different. I will have to up my performance game on this.”
And her perfect performance blew fellow judges, Will-I-Am, Jennifer Hudson and crooner Tom Jones, away.
Will-I-Am told her after the performance: “You did great tonight, I forgot how awesome you were.”
Jennifer Hudson praised Kirby for her confidence on stage, saying: “I am just a fan of your attitude and you are always ready.”
Her mentor told her: “That was a knockout, you took me to another place. I see you singing you in the charts right now.”
While Kirby said she hoped and prayed she had done enough, she was also up against Shane McCormack who performed City of Stars from the Hollywood blockbuster La La Land, while Jamie Grey, who failed to get through the blind auditions last year, gave a haunting rendition of George Michael’s Faith.
Following all the performances, when asked to pick, Olly said: “I can’t be prouder of how great they did tonight. They were all amazing.”
However, he has picked Jamie to go through to the live shows.
Later Kirby said: “Thank you so much. I will just keep going. I have done my best and that’s all I could do.”
Previously, the young singer sailed through the first knockout stages where she battled against fellow contestant Bailey Nelson
She performed a rendition of Friends by Justin Bieber in the second round of The Battles, an episode that sees participants sing against each other in a bid to stay in the competition.
How does The Voice work?
The first stage is the blind auditions, in which the four coaches, listen to the contestants in chairs facing away from the stage so as to avoid seeing them.
If a coach likes what they hear from that contestant, they press a button to rotate their chairs to signify that they are interested in working with that contestant.
If more than one coach presses their button, the contestant chooses the coach he or she wants to work with.
The contestants who successfully pass the blind auditions proceed to the battle rounds, where the coaches put two of their own team members against each other to sing the same song together in front of a studio audience. After the vocal face-off, the coach must choose only one to advance.
The penultimate round before the live finals is the Knockouts. This is where the six singers from each coach’s team have to perform again for survival, with the number of singers being halved.
Only three from each team will be successful and make it through to the live shows, meaning that we will be left with a total of 12 finalists for the live shows.
