American Idol Top 24: McKenna Faith Breinholt sings her beautiful “Story” in Hawaii
American Idol Season 22’s first voting round started on Sunday night with the first 12 of Top 24 performances taking place at the Disney Aulani Resort in Hawaii.
For the first time, America can vote their favorite singers into the next round. The Top 24 is typically hit-or-miss as singers always seem a bit nervous as they perform on stage in front of the audience. And, the performances are outside, which means the audio can be iffy. However, the night featured several good performances, including from McKenna Faith Breinholt, who stood out as she shared her life story with a compelling performance. (Read our Recap)
The singer-songwriter sat down with American Idol alum, and mentor and guest judge of this round, Tori Kelly for her mentor session. With performances taking place at Disney’s Aulani, there were a number of references of Disney across the show. McKenna compared her family story to Nemo who “is trying to figure out how to get back to his family.”
McKenna’s parents adopted her. And although she reunited with her birth family at her audition, her mom died a few years before McKenna was able to meet her. She picks “The Story” by Brandi Carlile to perform and dedicated the song to her adoptive mom, Lisa who will be in the crowd watching. McKenna shared that she was “made for her” and that being with her adoptive family was meant to be. “I just fell in love with her tone,” Tori said, “She’s such a storyteller type of voice.” She suggested that McKenna connect through her emotions while performing.
McKenna dedicates “The Story” to her adoptive mom
McKenna begins the performance with the dedication. It’s the first performance in which McKenna showcased her guitar playing ability. Her phrasing was artistic and beautiful as she began. The song worked perfectly for her storytelling style and with the breaks in her voice. She added more rasp to it in the chorus part. It is the first performance where she’s showcased a more pop-rock style, as the song was more mid-tempo rather than a total ballad. It’s a very effective performance.
Katy Perry told McKenna, “You have that star voice.”. She liked how it showcased “intimate” and “upbeat.” Luke Bryan commented on her playing the guitar for the first time and said, “you have so many big-time singer-songwriter traits that you have going on.” Tori added, “You have one of those voices where I can already picture on a record.” Lionel Richie gave her huge praise, calling McKenna the “next closest thing to Joni Mitchell” due to her ability to tell a story.
Without a doubt the two standouts of the night were McKenna Faith Breinholt and Abi Carter who had a gorgeous take on “Oceans.” Hopefully they both move on, as only 10 out of the 12 singers from each of the two night will survive. American Idol will reveal the Top 20 next week.
