The Stage season 3: Top 12 constestants get selected in a night of musical madness

The Stage 3 returned to our television screens this weekend and brought to us one of the most heated ‘showdowns’ that we’ve seen in a reality show.

The show took the musicians that were selected to go through the audition rounds and paired them up in a musical battle (with a twist) wherein the artists were not competing against each other. One or both the artists could make it through to. The Showdown resulted in providing us with the final 12 contestants that will now compete on the show.

Kicking off the first episode were Nisa and Zoe, the two artists who received the ‘Go For Gold’ in the premiere episodes of the show. This meant that the two girls had entered straight into the final 12, skipping over the Showdown stage of the competition. The ladies took to the stage and gave an electrifying performance on ‘Ex’s and Oh’s’ by Elle King as they vibed off each other and showed the audience why they were the ones to receive a direct entry into the Top 12.

Lekka and Tenzin were up next with a soulful rendition of John Legend’s ‘Love Me Now’ and judges Vishal Dadlani and Monica Dogra both felt that they could hear the work that Lekka had put in to improve her singing. Admitting that it wasn’t the “perfect performance by far”, Dadlani however was all praise for the duo, especially Tenzin and his powerful voice.

One of the performances that stood out was the collaboration between Akshay and Nitesh on a beautifully reworked version of Train’s ‘Hey Soulsister’. With Akshaya hitting the high notes with ease and panache, and Nitesh chiming in with complex harmonies, the pairing (which may not have worked off the stage) worked wonderfully on stage.

Another chill inducing (or the ‘gooses’ according to judge Debraj Sanyal) performance was given by the musical duo — Shaurya (with that unbelievably low baritone) and Diyatom (major John Meyer vibes). The pair was given ‘Perfect’ by Ed Sheeran to sing; a song neither of them were familiar with but ended up nailing. Their performance had moments that will be etched in the viewers memory for a long time to come. Dogra couldn’t stop gushing at the performance calling it ‘poetry’, with the host Shibani Dandekar declaring it to be ‘Boys II Men sexy’. We even saw judge Ehsaan Noorani attempt to whistle at the performance’s close.

The acts that made it to the Top 12 of The Stage 3 were solo artists Zoe, Nisa, Shaurya, Diyatom, Lekka, Urgen, Siddhanth, Arish, Akshay, Chochung who had participated in The Stage last year too but couldn’t make it past the audition round, the duo Das Vegas and Jalandar boy band The Rhythm Divine.

We've got our Top 12! Get ready to vote for your favourites on #TheStage3. #ThisTimeYouDecide@RenaultIndia @JabongIndia @MotorolaIndia pic.twitter.com/i2maSqhJcB

— Colors Infinity (@colors_infinity) October 16, 2017