'The Voice' Recap: First round of eliminations

Tonight was the first elimination episode of ‘The Voice’ with eight hopeful singers leaving the show.

The show kicked off with Team Blake performing ‘Free Ride’ by The Edgar Winter Group. Ray and Nic struggled to keep up with the rest of their teammates and the voices didn’t exactly mesh. Luckily, ‘The Voice’ is not a contest for a musical group, because if it were, we feel fairly certain this group would not be victorious.

Then it was time for the results for Team Blake, with Austin Jenckes the first to be saved, followed by his other bearded friend Cole Vosbury. The tough part then came for our pal Blake, where he was forced to choose between his remaining three contestants, only able to save one from elimination.

Although Shelby Z may have seemed the obvious choice to have some female vocal power on his team, Blake ultimately chose Ray to move on to the next level. Shelby's departure may have been a bit of a shocker to some, but Nic’s elimination came as no great surprise. For a show called ‘The Voice,’ we are still a bit confused as to how he made it this far in the first place. See ya, Nic!

Next group performance: Team Cee Lo, with ‘Give a Little Bit’ by Supertramp. You guys - this performance was NOT good. In fact, it was bad. Even more than Team Blake, Team CeeLo is filled with diverse voices and styles, and ones that should not be paired together. Even our front-runner sweet Caroline sounded flat and awkward. Ack. So painful to watch. Let’s never do that again, okay Team CeeLo? We can’t bear it.

The contestants nervously held hands as they awaited their fate. Caroline was the first save from Team CeeLo. No surprises there. Second save: Jonny Gray. Apparently America loves boys with long hair.

CeeLo rambled on and on about how difficult this decision was and how he will support all his team members, no matter what. The girls stood still, looking as though they were five seconds from vomiting. Luckily, CeeLo finally announced his decision, which was to keep hippie rocker Kat Robichaud, which left Amber and Tamara packing. Farewell, ladies… it’s been a slice.

Then it was Team Christina’s chance to entertain, with a group performance of ‘Love Somebody’ by Maroon 5. Maybe there was something wrong with the sound on the stage, or maybe there wasn’t the same pressure to impress when there was no vote on the line, but regardless of the reason, Team Christina gave yet another disappointing group performance, with missed notes and off-key harmonies all over the place. Disaster. With a capital D. Sigh.

America’s first save from Team Christina was sixteen year-old Jacquie Lee, the youngest contestant in the competition. Voters also chose to save Matthew Schuler, leaving Christina with the task of saving one final member of her team. Before saying her verdict, Christina pledged to stay in touch with her team via email. Hmm. We’ll see about that, Christina. A nice sentiment though.

After talking, and talking, and talking some more, it was finally crunch time for Christina and Josh was the lucky winner, sending home Stephanie Anne Johnson and Olivia Henken. We really felt that Stephanie was more deserving, but it seems Christina has a soft spot for Josh. We’ll see how he fares next week.

Dax Shepard then had a very brief and random cameo, where he talked to Carson Daly about CeeLo and his guest role on a previous season of the show ‘Parenthood.’ The whole thing was random and weird. Very weird.

Team Adam then took the stage, performing Capital Cities’ ‘Safe and Sound.’ Parts of it were decent, but it felt like all the singers were trying to out-sing their teammates, which ultimately made for a lot of unnecessary screaming and belting in places where it was not needed. This was probably the best performance of the night, but considering our newly lowered standards, that’s not saying a heck of a lot.

Nerd-boy James Wolpert and Jamaican beauty Tessanne Chin were saved by America’s votes. Adam then gave his speech: “This is terrible. You can’t anticipate what it’s like to be in this position. You guys have done nothing wrong.” The credits started rolling, with Adam practically getting cut off at the last minute, but he made his decision right at the eleventh hour: Save Will, and give Preston and Grey the boot. Both of these singers had talent, but alas, someone had to go home. Such is the cruel reality of ‘The Voice.’

With week one behind us, we look forward to seeing what the remaining contestants bring to the table next week. Perhaps some better group performances? We can only hope.