MICHAEL BECKER / FOX

Andrew Lang, 19, of Columbia, Mo., didn't make it to the next round, despite his cheerleader contingent.

Part 2 of the "American Idol" season premiere saw one particularly emotional story and a lot of decent-but-not-gonna-blow-you-away auditions — well, save one.

Before we get into the meat of the second night of the season, I must point out a comment made by oft-maligned judge Paula Abdul. When 21-year-old Anoop Desai (see clip below) was criticized by Simon Cowell and Kara DioGuardi for wearing "geeky" clothes and flip-flops, Abdul said: "Forget the clothing stuff, you're good." Now just think about that for a second. That's a stunningly appropriate comment to make when you're asking someone to sing a cappella. If she keeps this up, all the fun of mocking her will be gone!

Now on to the Kansas City auditions. Despite K.C. being the hometown of Season 7 winner David Cook, not a singer rocker was shown making it through to Hollywood, which seems kind of odd.

The most dramatic story of the night was that of Danny Gokey of Milwaukee, Wisc. The 28-year-old music teacher delivered a soulful rendition of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" — despite the death of his wife just four weeks earlier. She died from a degenerative heart condition. No sympathy vote needed here: this guy has "chops" (which, incidentally, is now my least favorite word after hearing it used by the judges and Ryan Seacrest multiple times on Wednesday night).

But then "Idol" unleashed the star of the night in the form of 23-year-old Lil Rounds of Memphis, Tenn. She sang Stevie Wonder's "All I Do." Jackson described her talent as a cross between Mary J. Blige and Fantasia Barrino. Wow. She ... could ... go ... all ... the ... way!

First scandal of the season already?

Ah, the joys of the Internet ... It's just hard to keep your past indiscretions from biting you in the butt. One of Wednesday night's first to audition and score a pass to Hollywood was Casey Carlson, 20, of Minneapolis. Within hours of her appearance, photos surfaced of her posing in a bikini. As Tuesday night's episode showed, however, that's apparently not considered a no-no by Idol's powers-that-be anymore.

Keeping it in the family

Michael Castro, the 20-year-old brother of Season 7 fourth-place finisher Jason Castro, advanced to Hollywood despite having picked up singing as a hobby a mere three weeks before his audition. I'm going to take a wild guess and say he doesn't make it into the Top 36.

Before they were almost stars

One of my favorite things to do during the audition rounds is hunt up old video clips of the contestants. Here's a sampling of potential talent from two of the better singers to make it through to Hollywood tonight.

First up is Desai ("Noop Dog in da house!"). The student from Chapel Hill, N.C., performs in a group called the Clef Hangers (get it?). He's the soloist in this clip:

Then there was bordering-on-over-the-top Youtube sensation Von Smith, 22, of Greenwood, Mo. He shouted his way through his audition, but still managed to produce a nice take on "And I Am Telling You" in this clip from almost two years ago:

And in case you missed it ...

We've got a live Q&A scheduled with Sanjaya Malakar on Friday. Read about it here.