The last season of American Idol was as enjoyable and gratuitous as ever, but this year’s crop of finalists seem to have disappeared before they even arrived. Melinda Doolittle hasn’t recorded any music yet, but she did go to Zambia with Laura Bush. Ersatz beat-boxer Blake Lewis just had his debut’s release date pushed back again. And for all her current (i.e. non-existent) public profile, 17-year-old winner Jordin Sparks might as well have gone back to being homeschooled. And that’s not to forget all of 2007’s other highly memorable contestants, like, you know, the singing dude, and her with the hair, and that guy who did the thing.

And of course, then there’s Kelly Clarkson. Winner of the first season of Idol back in 2002-3, Clarkson’s had a rough year too. Her latest album, My December — which was supposed to be a showcase for her newfound songwriting chops — was received nonchalantly by critics and fans alike. Concert ticket sales have been down. And then there was her very public spat with label boss Clive Davis, which culminated in Clarkson being publically dissed by Davis on the live Idol finale in May. Classy stuff. So what’s an independent miss like Kelly supposed to do in Toronto, on a drab fall Tuesday, in a scaled-down venue like Massey Hall? Well how about — for example — tear the roof off the place?

John Waters said that when he first saw Elvis Presley perform on television, he “levitated.” I didn’t see any such behaviour at last night’s packed-out concert, but there might have been some mild hovering. One tweener girl who got to hold Kelly’s hand during “Addicted,” got so bouncily excited she looked like she was going to stamp through the floor like Rumplestiltskin. And the audience, though it skewed mostly to the under-18s, was far more heterogeneous than I might have expected (i.e. it wasn’t just closeted dads and their daughters). Compared to the monochrome hallows of Sneaky Dee’s and the Horseshoe, it looked like an all-ages Benetton advert.

Punctuated by several bubbly, charismatic monologues from Clarkson, the show itself was mostly a tight, effervescently-performed greatest hits package: “Never Again,” “Behind These Hazel Eyes,” “Because of You” and an encore of “Since U Been Gone,” all done-and-dusted in less than 80 minutes so the kids could get home and tucked in before 11. If you’ve heard Breakaway, you’ll know Clarkson’s more than a one-hit performer. Though in a set of around twenty songs, she still managed to skip out on two of the best numbers from her repertoire, “Yeah” and “Irvine” — both of which, as it happens, first appeared on the unfairly maligned (even by me — sorry) My December.

But despite a backing from a predictably crack bunch of musos, the show was really all about Clarkson’s voice. Considering she hails from a TV show that’s brought us some of the millennium’s most unprecedented melisma assault artists — what Jerry Wexler calls “oversouling” — Clarkson’s is a remarkably graceful and versatile voice. Loud without being obnoxious, gloomy without being glum and soulful without in any way resembling Vonda Shepherd, it’s an astounding instrument – who knows how she’ll keep up su extravagant pace throughout the tour. As Clarkson skipped about the stage, with an entire audience yelling along to the chorus to “Hazel Eyes,” her tempestuous year seemed far away. Hopefully she can fend off the record company ghouls for a while to come.

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