HITTING HOME
NEARLY 10 years after graduating, “American Idol” favorite Adam Lambert went back to the San Diego high school where, he told a TV reporter, he was the “weird kid.”
On a 12-hour, stretch-limousine tour of his home town that took him from TV and radio station interviews to fan meet-and-greets and finally to perform for the troops at San Diego’s Miramar Airbase, it was the visit back to his high school that was the emotional high point.
“Not to get cheesy or get on a soap box or anything,” Lambert told a crowd of 7,000 students at a rally for him at Mt. Carmel High School’s stadium, “but this is an example of believing in yourself and knowing who you are.
“Anyone who feels different or weird, screw it!” Lambert cried to the cheering crowd.
He urged the students to “embrace each other’s differences.”
The cheerleaders — girls who might have snubbed Lambert back in the day — rooted him on while the school’s marching band played. A clearly delighted Lambert waved and smiled at his new fans from atop a bright-orange convertible as it made a victory lap around the stadium track.
The crowd shrieked as he performed a couple of favorites from his stint on “Idol,” the songs Black and White and Mad World.
One excitable female student, wearing only a mini-skirt and a turquoise bra, was whisked away by burly security when she jumped on stage — a sign that the former geek has turned into a bonafide rock star.
“I felt all the support and all the love,” he told reporters. “It was cool.”
The awkward choir boy who is now odds-on favorite to win “Idol” fled San Diego for LA, 118 miles to the north, as soon as he graduated high school. (Lambert never went to college.)
“It wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be,” Lambert told the morning crew at a local radio station when asked about how he’d gotten this far. “It was tough making ends meet.”
Every year since the show began eight years ago, the return-home segments have been a staple for the final few “Idol” performers.
Top three contestants Kris Allen and Danny Gokey also went back home– to Little Rock, Ark. and MilWaukee Wisc., respectively — for one-day whirlwinds that will be shown Wednesday night.
Allen’s performance attracted an estimated 20,000 people to a downtown park and brought the small town to a standstill, according to reports.
More than 25,000 fans, many waving eyeglasses-shaped signs, heard Gokey perform at a local fairground.
But it seems hard to believe that either of them had the same day that the formerly chubby, formerly blond Lambert had at his old high school when Mayor Jerry Sanders took to a makeshift stage in front of the whole school to declare last Friday “Adam Lambert Day” in San Diego.
M.J. Santilli writes about “Idol” for mjsbigblog.com
