The Final Three perform with their coaches on night one of “The Voice: Season Five”

By: Jacob Elyachar, jakes-take.com

This is it!

Tonight, Team Adam’s Will Champlin and Tessanne Chin and Team Christina’s Jacquie Lee performed one more time for your votes!

At stake…a recording contract with Universal Music Group and the title of winner of The Voice!

Which songs did the Final Three sing? Who stole the show? Read on to find out!

Once Carson retraced the Final Three’s steps, it was time for the original coaches (Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, CeeLo Green and Christina Aguilera) to perform one final time together! This time, the quartet performed Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” with several members of the southern rock band.

Round one started off by the artists reprising their Blind Audition song. Tessanne performed an encore of P!nk’s “Try.”  While there were a lot of great vocal runs in the song, Tessanne traveled across the arena too much and it distracted me from the performance.  I think that this vocal performance was NOT AS GOOD as the Blind Auditions! I hoped that the duet and final song could redeem her.  C+

Will Champlin performed Gavin DeGraw’s “Not Over You” for one final time! While I give Will major points for doing the original key of the song, I thought that he had a couple of screech moments during some parts of the tune. Do not get me wrong, I love Will but this performance was subpar! C-

Jacquie Lee closed out the first round with her rendition of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black.” Despite the band being louder than her, Jacquie blew the audience away with sensational tribute to the late and controversial British songbird. Win or lose this competition, Jacquie has a great career ahead of her! A-

The Final Three’s second round songs was a duet with their coaches! Tessanne and Adam sang the Beatles’ “Let It Be.”  I loved hearing their voices together and when they switched the Reggae-infused tempo, it was pure vocal nirvana! A

For Jacquie’s duet with Christina, they performed the “Your Body” singer’s single from The Hunger Games: “We Remain.” It was great to see Jacquie and Xtina’s sisterhood live and they sounded exceptional. A-

Will and Adam ended the second round with one of my all-time favorite Elton John songs: “Tiny Dancer.” This performance gave me goose bumps and Will redeemed himself from the last round. I just wished that they had a mini-orchestra on the stage because it would have taken it to another level of musical excellence! By the way, kudos to Voice Music Director Paul Mirkovich’s impeccable piano accompaniment throughout the song! A

As a nice interlude as a bridge between the coaches’ duets and the last chance songs, the Final Three performed a cover of the Jackson Five’s “I’ll Be There.” When you compare the Final Three artists side-by-side, it was very easy to see who was the stronger singer and it was Tessanne that stole the round.

For the Jamaican’s final song on the stage, she chose Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing.” In addition of running the risk of comparing her performance to the late R&B diva, she also had to remember that Jennifer Hudson stole America’s hearts on Idol with her signature cover. She weaved a brilliant story with her cover and I strongly believe that she won the night with this song! A+

Will Champlin’s last song on The Voice stage was Bryan Adams’s “Everything I Do (I Do It For You).” While I liked Will’s performance, I thought that the song choice was mediocre.  He should have gone out with a bang…Michael Jackson’s “Will You Be There,” Heart’s “Alone” and Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want Miss A Thing” would have been better choices and would have countered Tessanne’s performance! B

Jacquie Lee’s final Voice performance was “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going!” Why did you choose that song, Xtina? Jennifer Hudson won her Oscar with that song plus Jessica Sanchez and Sam Bailey stole their celebrity duets with Jennifer Holliday and Nicole Scherzinger respectively. All of these women ran circles around the poor girl! There was lots of shouting and shrieking, if I had an “X” I would have buzzed Jacquie. C-

 Tomorrow night, a slew of superstars including Celine Dion, Lady Gaga and Ne-Yo take the stage and the winner is crowned!