A song written for a one-year-old who never got there
Stephanie Rainey, 36, walked into the America’s Got Talent audition room with a song that had already gone viral in a small room one Monday morning. She said she had been singing since she was 18 and that this was her first competition like AGT. The song, Please Don’t Go, was about her nephew, who died the day before his first birthday. “I wrote it about losing my nephew when I was a teenager,” she told the judges. “It took me a long time to write a song about it.” She was about to give up music when she decided to make something she believed in. The lyric “My pillow holds the screams I need” landed in a room that had heard a lot of heartbreak. One judge called it the best new song he had heard that year. Another joked that he was giving her about 4,000 yeses.
The shy 10-year-old who became a rock goddess
Maya, 10, told Howie that she watched her inspirations on YouTube. She named Adam Jones of Tool and Gary Holt, the guitarist for Exodus and Slayer. Simon said he was about her age when he tried to learn guitar and gave up. “You were so shy, and you’re 10,” he said. “And then you turned into, like, this rock goddess.” He told her to make noise amongst the noise. The room gave her a yes before the vote was finished.
A dance from Sydney that looked like one body
Zach, 17, came from Sydney, Australia, with friends and a mat. He had never performed in front of so many people. The number opened with a clean, sharp sequence and then kept adding layers. One judge said it was the coolest thing he had seen that day. “The beginning was spectacular, and the rest was as good as the beginning,” another said. “Even though there was a lot of you, it was almost like it was just one.” The group had spent months preparing, and the judges could see how much it meant to each member.
A Filipino family group and a late mother’s dream
L6 came from the Philippines as a family group of siblings and a niece. They run a small business selling gowns and clothes. If they won a million dollars, they said they would buy a big house for the family because they rented a small one. The dream belonged to their late mother, who wanted them to perform on America’s Got Talent. Simon told them to lose the track. “The track was terrible,” he said. “There aren’t that many great a cappella groups, and I think you’ve got the potential to be a great a cappella group.” When they dropped the backing track, the room changed. “Your voices didn’t need all that noise behind you,” one judge said. The vote was unanimous. Four yeses.
A chicken that read Simon’s fear
Corey brought Carrie, a chicken, into the audition room for a mind-reading act. The judges wrote down fears, mixed the papers, and let Carrie choose. Simon thought about giant spiders. Carrie pointed to giant spiders. Sofia thought about dark oceans. Carrie picked dark oceans. Then Howie opened an egg and found the word “drowning.” “This chicken needs to be famous,” one judge said. “I say yes to the chicken and you,” another said. The act was playful, but the mechanics were tight. The chicken did not need to be a star to make the room laugh and then lean in.
The rest of the room kept moving
The auditions kept shifting tone. A 14-year-old singer took the mic and boomed with a voice that drew comparisons to Aretha Franklin. An 8-year-old moved like Freddie Mercury. A robot dancer made the judges laugh. Two brothers performed a bit in which they only said the letter T. A juggler balanced 101 pots and four gas tanks. A rider brought a hobby horse to the stage. A gymnast landed what a judge called the most spectacular double aerial he had ever seen. Heidi pushed the golden buzzer for one act, and a 9-year-old called her grandmother after receiving a golden buzzer. The room also heard a judge ask whether an act was a million dollar act, the kind people would want to see in Las Vegas.
The full video is a long, uneven, sometimes absurd, sometimes devastating tour of the audition room. Watch it to hear the song, see the chicken, and catch the moments that make AGT feel less like a competition and more like a room full of people trying to be seen.