It might be the end of the line for Andrew Garcia after a disappointing performance of I Heard It Through The Grapevine on American Idol last night.

This week’s mentor, Miley Cyrus, convinces Andrew to leave behind the guitar for a week and perform without it. It’s a lackluster performance. Garcia’s voice doesn’t work well with this type of song, and his stage presence is uncomfortable. Doing a Marvin Gaye cover has exposed the weaknesses in his voice. A lovable guy, but not good enough to be in the competition. The only thing in his favour is that there were far worse singers tonight.

I liked that Kara acknowledged how hard things are for Andrew after peaking in the early auditions stages. The thing is, we’ve given Andrew so many chances, hoping that he’d claw back that early magic. Simon’s comment, that they’ve “overrated that moment” he sang Straight Up, rings true. At this stage, I don’t think Andrew can be any better. We saw him at his best weeks ago.

Judges’ comments

Randy: Aw dawg, man. It wasn’t good, man. It was the wrong song choice, because this is not the kind of vocalist you are. It just didn’t work dude, it wasn’t good.

Ellen: You know how much I love you? You have a lot of fans, and I hope they vote for you, but that isn’t enough to get a whole bunch of people on board that are kind of teetering right now. It just wasn’t fantastic at all, and I hope people vote for you.

Kara: I feel bad for you, I do. You’re chasing that moment, which was brilliant, and I think it’s playing with your head. I think it’s messing with you. And you don’t know what to do up there, you’re really confused. And that’s what I’m getting from you, because these motions with your hands, it was like someone was moving you like a puppet. It didn’t even feel like Andrew. I don’t know who that was. That’s not you, you have more swagger. You need to get back to when you did Straight Up and get back to that, because you’re far from that. And I feel sick saying that.

Simon: Maybe we just overrated that moment in hindsight. It’s wasn’t like listening to Beethoven for the first time, it was a cute version of a Paula song. You’ve had enough time to sort yourself out. I think Miley gave you good advice to lose the guitar, because you were hiding behind it. I think the problem with that was the arrangement was horrific. You sucked the soul out of that song. You did. Sucked it out and tortured it and ruined one of the great pop songs of all time. And at the same time, you made yourself really corny.

Performance Video

Here’s a video of Andrew’s performance on the Billboard #1 hits week of American Idol: