Danny Gokey Topples Karaokedome with One Unearthly Note

The final Idol four were trotted out last night wearing adorable leather top hats, aviator sunglasses, and shoulder-length Jewfros -- a loving tribute to their Rock Week mentor, Slash. And rock they did, Adam Lambert scandalizing Heartland America with purred pledges to give them "every inch of my love," and 17-year-old Allison Iraheta breaking middle-aged men's hearts with her bluesy take on the lesser known Jackie Jormp-Jomp song, "Cry Baby." Had host Ryan Seacrest not pointed at an overturned spinning orb straight out of The Big Book of Fascist Architecture dangling precariously at far stage right, you'd have almost thought that nothing was out of the ordinary.

But apparently the karaokedome was beset by disaster just minutes before the live broadcast. Stage manager Debbie Williams slipped on the show's rolling staircase and tumbled 20 feet to the ground. "She suffered a severe cut on her leg -- amazingly, according to one crew member, no broken bones," reports EW.com, "And was taken to the hospital by paramedics." THEN, the spinning Idol gyroscope toppled, "showering the stage with glass and causing them to evacuate the theater." The last of the limbs to be pulled out of the bloodied twosh pit were thrown offstage just in time, and the show went on.

And no sooner had Lambert, Iraheta, and, to a lesser extent, Kris Allen put the shaken audience back at ease, 2009 Idol ringer Danny Gokey -- the Idol so awful even nicest contestant in Idol history Melinda Doolittle thinks he sucks -- took to the stage for one of his plodding, holler-singing performances. It was Aerosmith's "Dream On," a composition notable for a final high note attainable by Steven Tyler, several 14th Century castrati, and perhaps now Adam Lambert. As you might have noticed, Gokey was not on that list. The ear-shredding results follow. Not surprisingly, the judges all loved it -- even Simon, who, despite likening it to "watching a horror movie," assured the singer "you're gonna be safe tonight though." Are they seeing something we're not seeing? Or are their loved ones currently bound and gagged, and looking desperately into the surveillance camera in a 8 × 8 cell 200 feet beneath Milwaukee's Faith Builders International Ministries?