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Quote :: Sometimes on "American Idol," you're only as good as your last performance. And for many of season eight's top 10, the "Idol" tour is their last performance — or at least their last shot at singing in an arena filled with screaming fans.

When even those who've won the show struggle to remain relevant — anyone heard a Ruben Studdard song on the radio lately? — the chances of a future career for, say, Megan "Caw! Caw!" Joy aren't stellar.

Still, more than 10,500 folks filled the Target Center on Tuesday night to see Joy and company sing many of the same songs they did on "Idol," freed from the harsh gaze of the show's judges. In turn, they provided numerous surprises and plenty of high-octane performances. It helped that the cast offers a range of talents, from seductive crooner Anoop Desai to piano pounder Matt Giraud to glam rocker Adam Lambert.

The aforementioned Joy dished up one of the few train-wreck moments of the concert when, during an oil-and-water duet of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" with Lil Rounds, she flubbed a line and burst into laughter like a tipsy sorority girl at karaoke. Oh, and who decided it was a good idea to pair Giraud's soulful bark with Scott MacIntyre's mannered wheeze on "Tell Her About It"?

Elsewhere, though, the lower-ranked contestants turned in some of the most fun moments of the night. Desai turned in a suave, sophisticated take on Ne-Yo's "Mad." Giraud's "Hard to Handle" threatened to stop the show.

Later, 17-year-old firecracker Allison Iraheta's fevered run through Pink's "So What," the blues/rock standard "Cry Baby" and Heart's "Barracuda" suggested she could well become the most famous fourth-place "Idol" since Chris Daughtry.

The top three, meanwhile, couldn't help but feel a bit underwhelming after such an action-packed evening. Danny Gokey pulled out the same annoying shtick he parlayed on the show and won no new fans in the process but, crucially, didn't lose any old ones, either. Season champion Kris Allen proved he could mimic Brandon Flowers ("All These Things That I've Done") and Rob Thomas ("Bright Lights") and even turned in a halfway decent guitar solo on the latter.

The show's most promising star, Adam Lambert, was more subdued than expected. He re-created many of his memorable "Idol" moments, including "Whole Lotta Love," "Mad World" and his dynamite Iraheta duet "Slow Ride." But his should've-been-a-slam-dunk David Bowie medley came across as awkward and forced. Whatever the case, Lambert already has shown he'll be one "Idol" we'll be hearing much, much more from in the future.

Author Unknown

Concert review: Youth storms the Glambert show

JON BREAM

Quote :: The millions of people who watched "American Idol" this season, the thousands of people who are reading this review, and the 10,500 people who turned out at Target Center Tuesday night knew that American Idols Live was going to be the Glambert Show.

Wrong. Oh so wrong. No, Kris Allen, the "Idol" winner, wasn't the star of the show either. The youngest finalist, Allison Iraheta, all of 17, absolutely stole the evening.

Sounding like the love child of Janis Joplin and Steven Tyler, the flame-haired California girl showed a big voice, big presence and big emotion. To be sure, she can wail, but she was all about range, power and control. She made believers of concertgoers young and old with a pugnacious performance of Pink's "So What." She commanded the barren, too-large stage with a riveting, goose-bump inducing reading of Joplin's "Cry Baby," and then tore it up on Heart's "Barracuda." What a rock-star turn!