By After OVER TWO MONTHS of deliberating to get to this point, we have our final thirteen contestants and it's finally time for the first live show! It might be Halloween today but there's no Halloween theme this year - instead the contestants will be tackling "This is Me" (although for some of the contestants, maybe that theme will turn out Halloween-appropriate after all).
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We've got plenty of X Factor news to get excited about, including the returns of Monica 'Earrings' Michael as a wildcard and one of the best people to ever have been involved in the X Factor franchise, Peter Dickson!
We're excited to finally see the contestants perform live at last. Join us from 8pm and we'll be bringing you all the action live as it happens!
22:24SO THAT'S IT! The first live show is DONE! Thanks so much for joining us. Tomorrow there will be performances from Little Mix and Ellie Goulding and we'll find out who's going home. We love Little Mix so much. Ellie Goulding is the kind of act that everyone has seen live by accident about four times but we're hoping for a decent performance. Join us from Sunday, 1st November at 8pm for MORE liveblogging, MORE drama and finding out who makes it through to next week!
22:22So who do we think's in danger tomorrow? We're a bit worried for Kiera, and we hate to say it, but Bupsi. We can't imagine reggae Someone Like You went down too well though, so maybe Max will be out.
22:18And now we have a recap of all the shows performances. This is where X Factor loses people. We don't need a recap tonight, WE'VE JUST SEEN IT! Save the recap for tomorrow, yes?
22:16We've used Ben's performance productively to categorise our opinions on all the acts, by the way. So this is what we thought:
THE AMAZING:
Seann Miley Moore
4th Impact
Che
THE VERY GOOD:
Louisa
Mason
THE GOOD, BUT NOT LIKE, AMAZING:
Anton
Monica
Reggie n Bollie
Lauren
THE DISTINCTLY AVERAGE:
Bupsi
What to Read Next
THE WORRINGLY FORGETTABLE:
Kiera
Alien Uncovered
THE TERRIFYING:
Max
22:13Ben sings 'Second Hand Heart', a song which is actually good, much better than we would have ever expected to be given to Ben Haenow. Same goes for his shirt.
22:12So all of the contestants have performed, and the votes are now OPEN! Now we have a performance from last year's winner, the van driver from Croydon - BEN HAENOW! (Excitement not our own).
22:09Obviously all of the judges loved it. Cheryl was fixated the whole way through. Nick points out the song was 44 years old, and Seann still made it his own.
22:07Seann looks incredible and he sounds BRILLIANT. It's a theatrical, incredible performance. We can't believe how good it is! We think this might be one of our favourite X Factor performances EVER. Yes, we're calling it.
22:05And to close the show we have Seann Miley Moore singing 'Life On Mars?'. Ever since we heard about this song choice we've been INCREDIBLY excited, although he'll have to do a lot to live up to Jessica Lange's performance on American Horror Story: Freak Show...
22:03And we hope she's not the only one, Halloween party-goers!
@gonetodeadlock I've literally reading your blog on a night out for credible updates
— Emma Kelly (@TooManyEmmas) October 31, 2015
22:01Amazing.
"I feel like this is my home." The home you've been evicted from twice in two years? #xfactor
— Steven Perkins (@stevenperkins) October 31, 2015
21:59The judges enjoyed the performance. Rita publicly apologises for not putting Monica through last week, and then uses the words "rough" and "diamond" over and over again.
21:56Monica isn't wearing earrings so we might have to change our nickname for her. We aren't familiar with this song but she does sound great. We can't believe this was originally an ED SHEERAN song, given he's not exactly a belter. It wasn't the most thrilling performance of the evening, but we enjoyed it.
21:54Next we have Monica 'Earrings' Michael, who was the Wildcard. She's filmed receiving the news that she is going to be the wildcard. What with those cameras in her house and having to answer the phone in speaker, she must have had NO IDEA what was going on. None. Monica is singing 'Make It Rain' by Ed Sheeran. We can't believe that MONICA MICHAEL is doing an ED SHEERAN song. We never would have thought that Che Chesterman could have pulled off Amy Winehouse though, we suppose, so we might be proved wrong.
21:52The judges obviously loved it. If they hadn't loved it we would never have listened to them ever again. But we suppose that Max doing a reggae version of 'Someone Like You' went down well with the judges, so we can't REALLY trust them. Simon does a shout out to Brenda and Tessie, two of 4th Impact's biggest fans. But Simon, when are you going to do a shoutout to ABI, who does the Digital Spy liveblog and is Bupsi's biggest fan, eh? EH????
21:50The styling is horrendous, but the choreography is completely on point and they even do Iggy Azalea's rap. They look like proper popstars, and we love it. It's probably our joint favourite with Che's. Well done 4th Impact. We asked you to bring it, and you BROUGHT IT.
21:474TH IMPACT KLAXON! We really hope that this is good. We think that X Factor NEEDS this performance to be good. 4th Impact were originally given 'Shut Up And Dance' to sing but then have problems so end up with 'Problem' by Ariana Grande instead. This could be amazing, so BRING IT, 4th Impact. We are ROOTING for you.
21:44Nick wishes that the performance was a bit more "nasty" (the completely cringey catchphrase that Bupsi has been landed with but we refuse to engage. Bupsi is better than a catchphrase). The judges generally agree it wasn't a great song choice, including Simon himself, who admits that he could have done better for her.
21:42Bupsi is gorgeous in red. She sounds good and the dancing's good, but we're sorry to say that we aren't absolutely floored like we were when she did 'Pony'. We wonder why Bupsi has been given this song choice that people aren't that familiar with. We're a little worried for her, to be honest. So far we'd say it's her and Kiera in the likely firing line. And this isn't enough. Bupsi deserved better than this. (Sadface).
21:40BUPSI KLAXON! (If you haven't read any of our liveblogs yet: we love Bupsi). She's doing a Marvin Gaye song that she wasn't familiar with, and we weren't either - 'You're a Wonderful One'.
21:34So we missed this earlier - apparently 'Ben Haenow' is performing tonight?! 13 contestants weren't enough?!?!
21:33The judges' comments are full of cliches - "birth of a star", "only 17", "don't know how good you are", so on and so forth.
21:31Louisa sings some kind of slowed down version of 'God Only Knows' reimagined as 'Footprints in the Sand'. She looks beautiful and sounds amazing. We do go on throughout the performance hoping the song will kick off and that she'd just sung 'God Only Knows' in its proper version, but we can't deny that she was sensational.
21:28Next up, Louisa is singing 'God Only Knows' by the Beach Boys. She doesn't KNOW the song, which makes the choice to call this week 'This Is Me' week even more ridiculous. (If she doesn't know 'God Only Knows', does that mean she's not seen Love Actually? How young IS this person?)
21:27Nick comments "I never want it to end," when asked if he's enjoying his first live show. He then speaks for a nation when he adds as an afterthought "well, I do a little bit".
21:25Oh Rita.
"This thing called carnival"… oh Rita :(
— Jessica (@Poptastic) October 31, 2015
21:21The judges like the performance, and Simon describes them as "relevant." Nick tells Reggie n Bollie he dreams of singing that song with Simon at karaoke. What would you sing with Simon at karaoke? We'd go for 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart'.
21:19Reggie n Bollie sing 'It Wasn't Me' by Shaggy, a true modern classic. It does come off a little Jedward, but they can sing and we have a smile on our face. To their credit, they HAVE made a song about cheating on your girlfriend with your neighbour into a feelgood anthem.
21:16Next up we have Reggie n Bollie, who we have always doubted will survive this week of the competition (although we worry for Kiera now). Reggie n Bollie are the vehicles for the annual "LOOK HOW NICE THE X FACTOR HOUSE IS" VT, and we must admit, it does look quite nice. But then, we're typing from a South London houseshare during which a Halloween party is literally going on downstairs as we speak.
21:14The judges like it and Simon really hopes the public get behind him. To be honest, we really hope he does well as well, because he is undoubtedly good and would make a good popstar, and let's all take a good look at the charts and ask ourselves whether being a popstar and an arsehole are REALLY mutually exclusive.
21:12We think Mason would be a great popstar in theory, and he sings and dances well, but we are just unbelievably distracted by him looking Simon dead in the eye and singing "Is it too late now to say sorry?" Do we really think the British public are this easy to win over?! Do we really think that the British public are THIS BLIND to a structured narrative?!?
21:09Next we have Mason Noise. Everyone hates Mason Noise because at Boot Camp he threw a massive strop. But he's through now, so guess what we have guys, a NARRATIVE? We were just about to make a joke about Mason doing a song to do with apologies but he is LITERALLY, in real life, singing 'Sorry' by Justin Bieber. 'Sorry'. You couldn't make this up.
21:04As scary a Halloween thought as any: we aren't even halfway through this episode yet.
21:04YES.
Anyone else think Che looks like Toadfish from Neighbours? #XFactor
— luciecave (@luciecave) October 31, 2015
21:03The performance goes down really well with the judges. Simon makes a very odd comparison of the performance to his dogs, 'Squiddly and Diddly' talking to him. Well, that's an interesting Halloween mental image.
21:00We're very impressed with Che's performance. It would have been so easy to have shoved him on the stage to sing 'Footprints in the Sand' but it's a really interesting song choice. He sounds great and it's actually a really interesting performance. He does look a little like he's a guest at Specsavers Spectacle Wearer Of The Year awards, but in the totally best way. By far the best performance so far tonight.
20:57Next we have CHE CHESTERMAN, who's our predicted X Factor winner, so come on Che, do well so it looks like we know what we're talking about. He's doing a mashup of 'Tears Dry On Our Own' and 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' that we personally think sounds amazing so we are interested to see how it goes.
20:52The performance goes over well with the judges. Cliché, cliché, cliché, "doing what you were meant to do", so on and so forth. Anton completely wins us over in his post-judges comments interview though as he gets choked up talking about how X Factor has changed his life. What a lovely man.
20:49Next up we have Anton. He's singing the Luther Vandross classic 'Dance With My Father'. The vocal coach is coaching Anton to 'control his facial expressions' (aka 'not have crazy eyes, this is NOT Halloween week'), which we're quite disappointed about as it's one of our favourite things about Anton.
Anton is wearing a very sharp suit and sounds fine. Just fine. We aren't blown away. He does just kind of stand there and sing. His last note is bang on, though.
20:45Simon tells it like it is and says "I need you to do something better than that." Rita comes back to Simon with "What about Max?" We are clearly NOT big Max fans, but we think it's quite childish to bring him into it, personally. Simon's point revolved around Kiera not having an amazing voice so needing to BRING it performance-wise, which we think is fair enough. The other judges damn her with faint praise, and we're actually a bit worried for Kiera tonight.
20:41Next up we have Kiera Weathers, who's excited to be getting clothes sent to her for free, which we would also find one of the top perks about being an X Factor contestant, so we appreciate her honesty. Kiera's going to be singing 'Crying For No Reason' by Katy B, a song choice we are VERY excited about.
Kiera looks INCREDIBLE, but we aren't sure about the vocal. In the first verse she's very, very, quiet. It's quite interesting how she's sung a relevantly up to date song but for us this performance, styling and staging is all very 2004.
20:37Ha! We always wonder how much the judges actually DO as mentors anyway.
"You're a dream to work with" i.e. I don't actually have to do anything. #XFactor
— The Gizzle Review (@ed_nights) October 31, 2015
20:33What's all this focus by the judges on Alien Uncovered being British, by the way? We can't help but notice it draws attention to the fact 4th Impact, the obvious act that will be splitting their votes, aren't....
20:32Right, so next up we've got Alien Uncovered. They're doing 'Do It Like A Dude', and had the guts to actually stick to their own song choice when challenged by their vocal coach to sing 'Hollaback Girl'. We're hoping for big things. As usual, the styling for Alien Uncovered is a complete mess and there's way too much going on the stage. It's a shame because they are actually really good, but the fact they look like they've come dressed as themselves for Halloween is quite distracting.
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It goes over brilliantly with the judges, and we personally loved it, but we aren't sure how it's going to go down with an audience that voted with Ben Haenow to win (god, remember that?). We think it was probably good enough to get them over to next week.
20:26And as Edward_Grayson has clearly pointed out in the comments: "So, the theme is 'This is me' but they have their vocal coaches / producers picking the song out for them?!"
20:24Reggae 'Someone Like You' isn't going down too well over on Twitter, either.
Adele is at home sobbing #XFactor
— Ryan Love (@RyanJL) October 31, 2015
20:22We'll tell you what, we might not rate Max as an X Factor contestant, but he seems lovely AND capable. We'd definitely hire him as a personal assistant. Also, he hates fun, so we bet he's super productive.
20:20Look Max, we're sorry: hating fun doesn't make you a bad person, and we're sure you're lovely, and you've done some of your previous performances fine. But this is literally one of the worst X Factor live show performances we have ever seen. This is the ANTITHESIS of fun. Obviously, because this is the X Factor, the judges loved it. There's a lot of chucking about of the phrase "made it your own". Cheryl admits that she did not like the reggae version of Adele and she's now our favourite judge for having the guts to say that.
Syco/Thames/Corbis/Dymond
20:17IT'S A REGGAE VERSION OF SOMEONE LIKE YOU. Jesus wept.
20:16Now we have Max who Hates Fun. He's singing 'Someone Like You' by Adele, with a twist. When it comes to white men in their twenties who are surgically attached to their guitars, "with a twist" is very bad news indeed. Unless because it's Halloween the twist is a zombie invasion at the end!
20:14The performance goes down well with the judges, although Simon calls the dancing "clumsy". We literally didn't even notice she was dancing as we were too focused on the SIX FOOT GLITTERY COMB being carted around, personally. Speaking of hairdressing, Rita's bob looks like it was cut using a spirit level. We're transfixed by it.
20:12Lauren is up first and has been given 'I'm Every Woman', quite a dated song choice. We're surprised that she seems to have been given the graveyard slot as we'd have thought she'd be popular... Aaron the Stylist tells Lauren "I'm here to give you the popstar makeover you desperately need....every time I've seen you on TV so far you've looked like a mess." JESUS, Aaron the Stylist. We mean Lauren's always dressed a little like our mum did on holiday in the '90s. but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Lauren does 'I'm Every Woman', and to Aaron's credit does look banging with 10/10 hair. However in a TRIBUTE to Aaron's comments Lauren's entire performance and staging is HAIR SALON THEMED. She looks like she should be singing 'Beauty School Dropout'. Watching the dancers bandy about with giant glittery scissors is distracting. She sounds great, but it just sounds exactly like the original. We aren't blown over.
20:08The judges are discussing their decision to bring Monica 'Earrings' Michael back as a Wildcard. We were quite pleased to hear this (although we would have preferred Josh or Jennifer), but we do wonder why they chose her in particular. Wouldn't it make more sense to have some kind of public vote? Well, we suppose last time they did that they ended up with Christopher 'Nan' Maloney.
20:05We wonder how Caroline and Olly will cope with liveshows, given that their presenting styles so far seem to have amounted to "not being there" (Caroline) and "teaching the audience basic arithmetic" (Olly).
20:03Oh, it's so good to hear Peter Dickson's voice. We particularly enjoy "SEANN MILEY MOOOORE!" and "BUPSI"! We can't believe this is actually finally happening, but it is TIME! to FACE! the MUSIC!
20:01OH ALSO, PRE FIRST LIVE SHOW PREDICTIONS: We think Che will win. Watch it happen.
20:00It feels like SO LONG since we last saw a live X Factor performance so we are quite excited, to be honest. This X Factor series has certainly had its ups and downs, and we haven't been a huge fan of some of the format changes, but they can't mess with the basic "stand up on stage and sing" format too much, right? RIGHT?
19:54Who do we think is going to go this weekend, by the way? We have no idea what format the show will take but we presume to get through thirteen contestants in seven live shows there's going to have to be some kind of double elimination. Our crystal ball isn't so sure about either Reggie n Bollie or Alien Uncovered, although Bupsi is apparently the show's least favourite to win at this point according to 'The Odds'.
19:45We wonder if the contestants will acknowledge Halloween at ALL tonight. We mean, we feel after two months of viewers, as reward for our commitment we at least deserve Bupsi in some devil horns. Imagine! Having the first live show on HALLOWEEN ITSELF and not doing Halloween Week! No wonder Tom Bleasby walked out.
19:39We've thought about it a bit and we think for This Is Me week we would sing 'Footprints in the Sand' whilst a montage of our journey to becoming an X Factor liveblogger played in the background.
19:35HAPPY HALLOWEEN to one and all and welcome to Digital Spy's live blog for the first X Factor live show! We are extremely depressed that there is no Halloween Week this year, as Halloween Week is one of our ULTIMATE FAVOURITE X Factor theme weeks. What would you sing on Halloween Week? We think we'd do a stripped back performance of Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac wearing something floaty. Alas, instead, the contestants are doing 'This Is Me' Week, and we've got no idea what we'd sing for that. We'll spend the next half an hour (or let's be real, the entire episode) thinking about that. In the meantime, if you want to know what the contestants actually ARE singing, spoilers abound here.
