Nice People in Portland, Oregon.

"I'm much too young to be this old," announces Steven Tyler as a blonde in a hat starts off Week 3 of the American Idol Series 11 auditions. We're in Portland, Oregon, where I have to conclude that a lot of nice people live. Brittany Zika was a good representative - fun, nice personality and a voice with a different tone to what so many others seem to offer. She could do folk, country and pop. Cool girl. Nice change.

Ryan is dressed in drab grey which sort of matches the cloudy sky and, as the greenest county apparently, Oregon is a good match to my part of England. I feel inclined to be generous with this lot. Whether that'll last we'll have to see.

Some bloke called Ren rather lets things down with a pathetic effort at a Lady Gaga number. Decent chap but odd, with just three notes in his repertoire. The producers run a chipmunk version afterwards which is funny. I'd like to have heard that adjustment to the judges too, which would have been even better.

Back to audition material from a bit of entertainment now, Jermaine Jones is 6' 8½". Don't forget the ½". His mum gets to talk a lot and she says he's a church singer. He breathes, eats and sleeps singing which makes you wonder how he grew so tall. She adds that he came out singing which might explain that but I'd rather not think about that too deeply and perhaps her last comment, "We don't know anything else" was the most accurate. At last the tall son gets to sing and he's good. Very good. He looks and sounds like someone we ought to see more of. "He has IT!", says Randy. You wonder why he didn't go for the X Factor then but that's another programme. His Carpenters' track Long Ago... was a bit painful in places but he was markedly better than several similar guys that got to the finals in recent years. He'd be a good choice for future TV live shows. He could do well here. Watch out for him.

Britnee Kellogg comes with a massive entourage of attractive sisters, mum, cute kids and could well get a part advertising anything, not just cornflakes, tomorrow after this appearance. Indeed, Mr Kellogg is probably on the phone to her agent already. She's a pretty blonde mummy whose guy has gone off so we're supposed to feel a bit sorry for her. You're No Good was a suitable track to sing and, obviously really, she gets through to Hollywood. Whether she can do anything else, though, remains to be seen, when she won't have the TV cute appeal of all the family around her.

Sam Girschman is another really nice girl. Great personality and looks good. She has true stage presence but screeches I'm A Woman and she's not really Idol material, they say. I'd have put her through to see what else she could do as I got the impression she was versatile and reliable. The screech could have been sorted. Oh well. She didn't seem too bothered and is probably already now on Broadway anyway. If not, she will be soon.

David Weed lived up to his name. Ryan was seen wandering around with a bush for absolutely no reason we get to know about. I love that quirky side to whichever producer decided to keep that bit in. You'd never had had Steve Jones doing that on X Factor. Well, not without a man with an autocue and several retakes.

A guy called Romeo something had a long back story so here was someone who'd be going through too. He reminds me of Labi Sifre from the 70s but has an unusual but quite good voice and style. Talented and bound to get through. The best part, though,was another mischievous take by someone outside the room.
Some huge, worryingly bad-looking guy in the big coloured shirt with an attitude says "Who Are You?"
"Ryan." says Ryan.
"I'm Junior." says the big bad boy.
"Obviously." says Ryan quietly.

Instead of showing us some of the many more who get through we get glimpses of those who didn't and a bad cake, supposedly iced with a Ryan Seacrest picture. Looked more like someone from Dandy comics.

Naomi Gillies does a pretty unimpressive version of one of Steven Tyler's tracks and gets through. Not sure why but they like her.

Baby face Ben Harrison can sing but looks way too odd to get any further. He doesn't get through.

We then see a load of 'not yets' and then Jessica Phillips with another back sob story. She sounds modern and, although not brilliant, she's likable and gets through. I reckon there's a sympathy factor going on there but she may surprise us.

At the end - boy, did this show fly by -we hear that 45 get through. That's 39 we didn't see. "they really liked me!" says one. "So, so good," says Randy about another. But who? No idea. probably nice people though.