Tuesday’s American Idol, for those who were watching, was set in beautiful sunny San Diego, with scenes from the July 30th audition. One of the clips in that show (also used as part of the teaser at the end of the Dallas tryout show) had a contestant named Sarah Long, who Randy compared to William Hung — the shot ended with Sarah giving a blank look to Randy.

Sarah is known in San Diego as Ashlee, assistant producer on Rock 105.3FM’s morning show The Mikey Show. After months of contractual obligations to keep silent (and she did honor them) she was finally able to speak on what happened and how it all went down. She did it on Wednesday; I missed it, but downloaded the show last night. La Angela and I had a listen while they talked for the better part of an hour.

First off, yes, that mass at Qualcomm Stadium was a mass, about 30,000 people. They were herded into the stadium starting at about 4:30 AM. At about 8am or so, they took the shots of the crowd screaming “Welcome to San Diego” in unison. After that, the auditioning began. There were several tents, I can’t recall the number — at least 10. Each tent had 3 judges. The auditions involved lining 4 people up at each tent, and the four got to sing individually for about 10 seconds each. Then they would give a “No, no, yes, no,” quickly rattling off who was going, occasionally peppered with constructive criticisms. Anyone who was given a “yes” was immediately shuffled off to sign about 12 documents and have their picture taken. They were then told when and where the next round of auditioning would be.

Now, this tripped me up a bit: Randy, Simon, and Paula weren’t at Qualcomm. We learned that from the show… they actually named the Rancho Bernardo Inn, about 20 miles up Interstate 15. What we didn’t learn on the show was, not only were Randy, Simon and Paula 20 miles away, they were 6 weeks away, as well. The three didn’t make their appearance until the middle of September. Ashlee went into detail about that, too.

The day started about 8am, where they were all in a waiting room that looked like the inn’s ballroom-slash-conference room. The chairs were neatly arranged, and divided; contestants sat on one side, while family and supporters sat on the other side. The contestants were, at some point, told that they were to learn the song “The Sweet Escape,” and were given the lyrics and subject to the karaoke version on repeat for the next hour. Those montages you see, where everyone’s singing the same song, are staged. So many people tried to sing it, and stumbled over it, because they were told to.

After that hour, Ashlee waited a little bit longer before being called in for an audition. She auditioned in front of a woman who was clearly put out by having to listen, and was a little put off by the fact that Ashlee is a popular radio personality. They reaffirmed Ashlee’s vows of silence before putting her through to the next audition.

When finally called, she got to the room’s entrance, looking like she expected — except there was no Ryan Secrest. She was quickly told by the staff outside the room that when she comes out, she is not to mention Randy, Paula, or Simon, only to refer to them in pronouns (he, they, etc). She was a little put off by it, but “O.K.”

She walked into the room, and it had the bright lights, the American Idol backdrop, the cameras… but the judges were Simon Lythgoe and two other unnamed British-looking fellows. Ashlee diverted the conversation for a minute to tell us all that she was actually more stoked at seeing Nigel than she ever would have been about meeting Simon. She’s a big fan of Nigel’s, and took the time to mention that to him. He graciously thanked her, and listened to the audition. First, the song she originally intended to audition with (James Blount’s “You’re Beautiful”), then the Gwen Stefani song they made her learn. Nigel then insulted her, much the same as Simon would have. The blank look that they showed on TV was Ashlee after a pair of insults. She said that at that moment, she didn’t really know what she was supposed to say, and she didn’t want to be rude, so she just kinda blinked. She thanked them for their time, and left the room. The cameras were very persistent, grilling her as she left the building, asking her about every detail of what went on in there. She even followed her previous instructions, only using pronouns.

Ashlee was especially stunned when she saw last week’s teaser, where Randy was the one comparing her to William Hung instead of Nigel. She couldn’t say anything, at all, but she was wondering exactly what the heck happened. The clip played on Tuesday didn’t change anything, either.

My eyes have been opened to a few things since watching that show and listening to the discussion. I finally realize how they were able to get vignettes of some of these contestants done, especially the ones who sing horribly and then leave screaming, cursing, and flipping the bird; I couldn’t imagine that that filming was done inbetween the mass auditions and the individual ones. That’s exactly what happened, though.

I also couldn’t believe that not everyone shown on TV was seen by our intrepid judges. I knew not everyone saw them; however, I didn’t know that Nigel was judging as well.

Finally, I’m both a little tweaked and a little relieved that the montages are staged. It’s tweaking because it removes some of what I thought was spontaneity from the audition shows, and relieved that there aren’t SO many people intentionally screwing up the same song.

In the end, it matters little; there should be 2 more audition shows by my count, then I go back to watching other things on Tuesday and Wednesday.

P. S. — no, Mom, La Angela did not audition. She’s too old.