Mel B admits the music is not her thing. She calls herself a nineties girl who likes pop. But after watching Minnie sing and tear through an electric guitar performance, she runs through the reasons she cannot dismiss her: the vocals, the guitar, the look, the energy. “How could I not do this?” she asks, then hits the Golden Buzzer.
Gold confetti fills the auditorium. Minnie cries as her parents rush onto the stage and embrace her. Minutes earlier, she was playing amid smoke and red light with an intensity far removed from the quiet young woman Mel B says she met backstage.
That shift sets the standard for the video titled AGT 2026 Quarterfinals 2 Was INSANE! | Best Performances. Across nearly 40 minutes, the performers give the judges plenty to praise, but the praise comes with conditions. A beautiful voice can still leave them wanting more. A young act can hit the harmonies and still look unprepared. And a magician who has heard that he resembles someone else has to give the judges a reason to remember him.
Minnie makes Mel B cross musical lines
Before the confetti, someone on the panel makes a far less measured request: “NBC, give her the million right now.” Sofia tells Minnie she could win the competition, pointing to both her singing and her guitar playing.
Mel B gives the more revealing response. She remembers Minnie as quiet, humble and sweet backstage, then describes the change when she steps into the lights. Her approval does not depend on suddenly developing a taste for the genre. She can hear the control in the vocals and the guitar work even though she would usually choose something else.
The Golden Buzzer turns that judgment into a public commitment. The embrace with her parents gives the performance its second emotional register: after the fierce playing comes a young musician overwhelmed by the response.
Veronica adds a blindfold above the stage
Veronica works on a vertical pole suspended above glowing rose props. She bends and holds herself in positions that require the strength of an athlete and the precision of a dancer. Then, while hanging upside down, she pulls a blindfold over her eyes.
The blindfold changes what the audience can expect her to correct by sight. Every movement now looks more exposed. Mel B spells out the risk in her response, noting that Veronica performed without a safety net and without being attached.
Sofia says Veronica makes the work look so easy that she briefly imagines she could do it herself. Howie quickly tells her she cannot. He then names the different skills he sees in the act: aerial work, dance, athleticism and contortion.
His admiration comes with a warning to his granddaughter, who is sitting nearby: “Don’t you ever ever try this.” Veronica has made a dangerous performance look graceful enough to tempt an observer. Howie wants the child beside him to understand the difference between watching that control and possessing it.
The singers face a less forgiving test
The two young boys performing a duet on a moonlit stage receive a colder assessment. Howie hears their ability to sing and harmonize, but he also hears nerves. He frames the appearance as experience they can build on. Mel B thinks they should already have arrived with more.
“At this point in the competition, this should be your best. I should be able to feel the hunger, the passion.”
She compares their delivery to a carefree walk along Malibu Beach, then tells them to practice and return with more determination. Sofia softens the exchange without overturning the criticism. She calls them adorable, acknowledges their nerves and says they played too safe.
Mackenzie Soul gets a different reception. He sings under a sharp spotlight beside a grand piano; later, giant images of his face fill the background. Mel B praises the feelings, the trills and the vocals. Sofia praises his voice and recalls how much she liked his audition.
Asked how he thinks he did, Mackenzie explains the connection he wanted to make. He wanted listeners to feel what he felt while singing about hardship. That answer matches the judges’ response: they talk about the emotion they received alongside the sound of his voice.
Betty’s staging is more overtly dramatic. She stands inside a circle of flames rising from the stage. Yet the judges’ reservations concern the song itself. Mel B describes her voice as velvet, then says she played too safe. Howie says the song lacks the range Betty can deliver and that he preferred her audition.
Betty is celebrating her eighteenth birthday. She thanks her family and says she is grateful to perform. The warmth of that exchange does not erase the musical criticism. The flames made a striking picture; the judges still wanted to hear more of her voice.
A magician brings his grandfather into the act
The young magician introduces his grandfather, Steve, sitting in the audience, and explains that he inspired his love of magic at five years old. He remembers tricks made with things found around the house. On the judges’ desk, a wooden box and a collection of small objects turn that family history into the material for his performance.
He borrows Sofia’s ring. It vanishes and appears on his own pinky, establishing the movement he will return to at the end. For now, he places it beneath a handkerchief and asks Sofia to keep her hand on top.
Mel B chooses the five of hearts and marks it with a sticker. The magician has her sandwich the deck between her hands, then makes the chosen card disappear and retrieves it from the cards she is holding. He follows that with a larger disappearance: when she lifts her hand, the rest of the deck has gone. A clear block bearing her name takes its place.
He continues with objects tied to his grandfather. A metal lighter bears Sofia’s name. A photograph from 2009, the year he says he started magic, leads into a message whose hidden writing he reveals with heat. Each judge gets a personal detail to inspect.
Then he returns to the ring Sofia has been guarding. Under her hand is his grandfather’s ring. Out in the audience, Steve raises his hand with Sofia’s ring on his finger. The opening trick has expanded across the auditorium, and the grandfather who inspired the routine delivers its final reveal.
Sofia tells the magician that the performance feels true to him. Howie recalls praising his audition while finding it reminiscent of Mat Franco. His instruction had been to come back with something of his own. This time, he tells him, “You did you.” The family story gives the judges a clear answer to their earlier concern.
Larry and Grant give the judges a song to remember
Country duo Larry and Grant perform in matching trucker hats on a glowing red stage. Their original song offers faith, love and strength to someone running short of all three. They return to that offer throughout the performance, giving listeners a refrain they can recognize before the song ends.
Sofia says their original songs feel like hits that have existed for years. Howie calls this one another earworm and predicts it will appear on a chart. That remains a prediction in the video, but his response identifies a different kind of success from a difficult guitar passage or an aerial hold: he expects people to keep singing it tomorrow.
When the host asks whether they believed this moment was possible, they connect the song’s subject to the support they have received. They thank the people who have had faith in them and ask for the votes that would let them continue.
Watch the video for the full routines and the judgments that follow them. Minnie’s playing makes Mel B act, Veronica’s blindfold makes Howie warn his granddaughter, and Steve’s raised hand completes a trick begun at the judges’ desk. Stay for the performers’ responses, too, as they absorb the praise or criticism and ask for another chance onstage.