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High school groups, cheerleaders, girlfriends enjoying an out-of-the ordinary afternoon outing, a guy dressed as Ozzy Osbourne  – they were all in the crowd that came to Keller Auditorium  on a sunny Thursday afternoon to watch a taping of the NBC show, “America’s Got Talent.”

The TV talent competition was in town to tape performances by singers, magicians, dancers, bands and others who made it through local auditions held Feb. 28-March 1.  The “America’s Got Talent” cast – host Nick Cannon  and judges Piers Morgan,  Sharon Osbourne  and Howie Mandel  – are traveling around the country taping shows before live audiences through March and April. The tour started in Los Angeles March 12-13,  and then came to Portland. The show, a summer ratings hit for NBC, returns for its fifth season June 1.

While it’s produced by the company behind “American Idol,” “America’s Got Talent” is more democratic than its ratings-juggernaut sibling. Unlike “American Idol,” “America’s Got Talent” is open to all ages, and welcomes variety acts of any kind – ventriloquists, comedians, contortionists, and anything else you can think of, who compete for a $1 million prize.

Variety was definitely in the mix on the Keller stage Thursday afternoon, during the third of the show’s four Portland tapings. Before the show, crew members told the audience how to boisterously register their likes and dislikes – standing up, cheering, booing, making hand gestures to signal a contestant should be booted, and shouting “Vegas! Vegas! Vegas!” for ones they liked.

Then the judges came out, to thunderous applause. As they took their seats, facing the stage, Morgan displayed a souvenir someone gave him after the Wednesday taping – a “KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD” bumper-sticker.

Cannon asked the judges, “Is Portland weird to you?”

“It absolutely is,” said Osbourne. “But I love it!”

View full sizeRoss William Hamilton/The OregonianJill Fjeldman of Talent, Oregon, sang and danced while on three stilts.The afternoon’s would-be stars included Rachel Nedrow,  a 14-year-old  whose talent is stacking cups. The slim teen-ager stood at a table and stacked orange and green cups into pyramids, to the loud accompaniment of the song, “Maniac.”  The stage behind her was decorated in red-white-and-blue. Above the stage were three huge X’s, each with a judge’s name. Each judge has a button they can press when they don’t want an act to keep going; when they press it, the judge’s X lights up in red.

Morgan’s X lighted up as Nedrow dropped a cup. When she completed her act, Morgan asked: “Tell me the name of the most famous cup stacker in the world.” Nedrow knew who it was. Nevertheless, Morgan wasn’t convinced the larger audience was starving for cup-stacking acts.

Mandel, who takes over as judge this season for David Hasselhoff, was more supportive. “Piers, you don’t do this to children,” Mandel said.

Osbourne suggested Nedrow could increase the showmanship factor, maybe with “some bejeweling of the cups.”

Others trying their luck were hip-hop dancers from the Bay Area, a Bollywood-style dance troupe, and a septuagenarian harmonica player named Pierre.

Also on hand were performers from auditions held in Talent, the town in Southern Oregon. Morgan seemed amazed. “Is there really a town called Talent?” the British judge asked.

Talent’s Jeremy VanSchoonhoven  did a trick bicycle-riding act, lifting up the front wheels while hopping from platform to platform on the bike. The audience was as raucous as a Jerry Springer crowd, fist-pumping, screaming, “Vegas!” and acting very un-Portlandlike in their full-throated hollering.

Judges, from left, Piers Morgan, Sharon Osbourne and Howie Mandel were in town to give their takes on the competitors.Mandel noted that VanSchoonhoven fell at one point, with the bicycle seat perilously close to a vulnerable spot between his legs: “There was drama, there was thrill, and your friend almost ended up with nil.”

The talent from Talent kept coming: a woman who performed ballet while balancing on three stilts; and a young woman who hung from a trapeze while singing a song she wrote for a musical about the rain forest. At that, someone in the audience muttered, “Uh, oh.”

During a break, Layne Fish, 58,  observed, “It doesn’t seem like they have a whole lot of talent.” The pastor of Vancouver Vineyard Church  said her daughter auditioned, but didn’t make the cut.

Who from the Portland taping did the judges vote through to the next round? We can’t spoil the surprise. But the competition is far from over. “America’s Got Talent” next goes to Dallas, Texas; Orlando, Fla.; New York City; and Chicago.

Source: Oregon Live