If you’re a fan of singing and reality shows, you have to be a fan of The Voice.
While there have been plenty of different singing competition shows on television over the years, The Voice is one of the most consistently surprising and interesting.
Unlike so many other shows, The Voice has contestants do blind auditions for the judges where nobody can see them. If the judges like what they hear, they can hit their buzzers to turn around and try to recruit that person onto their team.
Because on the show, the judges also compete amongst each other to be the best vocal coach!
Though we’re all familiar with the American version of the show, The Voice is actually an international franchise.
It airs in all kinds of different countries and regions, each with its own surprising performances. One of those great performances took place on The Voice South Africa back in 2016.
Like any other audition, it began with a contestant walking out onstage to face the audience. The man in question was Vernon Barnard, dressed in a denim shirt and some black sunglasses even though he was indoors.
After a moment, the background music starts playing and he begins to sing.
The song Barnard picks is “Story of My Life” by One Direction.
As the background piano starts playing, Barnard’s deep voice sounds out in the audition room. While the original One Direction version is jaunty and fairly high energy, Barnard uses his audition to reinvent the song.
Instead of singing it in a higher register, he brings a certain shakiness and raspiness to the performance that gives it all more emotion. Although he starts on a lower note, it only takes a minute before his voice is soaring!
A second later, two of the judges have already hit their buzzers!
As he keeps going, Barnard turns yet another judge!
While the original song is definitely catchy, Barnard finds a way to make the song seem so much more heart-breaking and touching! Though the performance keeps going, the audience interrupts him to clap and give him a big round of applause.
As the song continues, Barnard’s performance is so strong that he even has one of the judges in tears. Though he’ll have to compete for Barnard’s talents, it’s clear he wants him on his team.
When it’s all over, the audience gives him yet another huge round of applause!
Though it’s hard to pick the right song to impress the judges in auditions like this one, Barnard showed exactly how it’s done.
Rather than try to imitate the original version, Barnard connected with the song in his own way and highlighted the emotion behind it. By doing so, he definitely got a chance to show off his emotional voice, but he also showed a little bit of his own creativity as well.
Although it’s always a risk to reinterpret songs that everyone loves, it’s pretty clear that it paid off for Barnard in this case. After all, it’s not everyday the judges start crying when the contestants sing!
Congratulations to Vernon Barnard on an awesome audition! Be sure to watch the whole thing in the link below:
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