Tara Oram takes to the stage again

Newfoundland native to perform at Mile One in Canadian Idol's Top 3 concert tour

St. John’s may be just one of a long list of cities to host a date of Canadian Idol’s first ever Top 3 Concert Tour, but tonight’s show at Mile One Centre may attract the biggest crowd.
The tour is taking top three Idol finalists Carly Rae Jepsen, Jaydee Bixby and winner Brian Melo across the country to showcase the newfound talent, but it was last week’s announcement that Newfoundland’s Tara Oram would join the roster for the St. John’s show which makes the event more special for the Mile One audience.
Newfoundlanders voted in such great numbers during Oram’s Idol run that Aliant experienced technical problems with phone lines, preventing many fans from being able to get through the night she was voted off the show.
Tonight, Melo fans will be among the first to hear songs from the 25-year-old Hamilton singer’s upcoming debut album “Livin’ It,” which is slated to hit record store shelves Nov. 27.
As for the others, the tour holds different meaning for each of them, but important significance at that.
Most notably, tonight’s show will mark Oram’s debut major concert performance. Hours before her flight from Toronto Wednesday, the 23-year-old Hare Bay native was beaming with enthusiasm.
“I’m so excited that I do get to make Mile One my first big show,” she said, as if the significance of the situation had just hit her.
“To me it’s a way of saying thank you. With anything I do from now on in music, I’m going to always make Newfoundland known … to let people know where I come from and how amazing it is. I’m going to make sure they see what it’s about, and how beautiful the province and the people are.”
From the other end of the country, British Columbia’s Jepsen, Oram’s former Idol roommate, will be making her first trip to Eastern Canada on the tour and last week reflected on how surreal the notion of travelling across the country is to her.
“Before Idol … my girlfriend and I often talked about doing a small B.C. tour,” Jepsen explained from her home in Mission, B.C., where she spent the past month relaxing and catching up with her friends and family. “We had hoped that we were going to rent a little car and pick a couple places.
“Now I’m going a lot further (than B.C.) and with more resources. I feel so lucky that this happened to me.”
The tour will mark the pinnacle of some of the finalists’ post-Idol CTV commitments before they go on to pursue record deals, among other things. But the 15 cities they visit along the way are an opportunity for all of them to build fan bases on the merit of their live performances.
While Melo plans to unveil some of his new material, Oram and Jepsen revealed a few other secrets about the show’s format.
“The thing about this tour — what I’m really excited about — is that they’re going to let me do two original songs,” explained Jepsen. “I wasn’t allowed to do that on the TV show. Believe me, I fought for it. But now that we’re going on tour, it’s more of a celebration and they’re quite open to it. It’s going to be something … to have the band learn songs that I’d written in my little bedroom and be doing them in thousand-seat venues.”
Oram explained she’s working with some respected songwriters to develop material for her first project, which she hopes to wrap up in the new year, but she will perform a song from her Idol run and another number, which she wouldn’t divulge.
“I’m going to leave it as a surprise,” she said with a laugh.
Aw … come on Tara. A duet perhaps? With a certain Canadian Idol?
Whatever the case, tonight’s Top 3 Canadian Idol show promises to be a variety show, with all four performers exhibiting different syles: Melo’s alt-rock influence, Bixby’s rockabilly, Jepsen’s adventurous love for lyric-driven songs and Oram’s country diva approach.
Tickets will be available at the Mile One Centre box office prior to the show, which begins at 8 p.m.

source: http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=82588&sc=84