The Voice SA: Teams filled

The 23 April episode of The Voice SA finally revealed which remaining talent will be going through to the grueling Knock-Out stages, commencing next week. There were two last Steals, courtesy of coaches Bobby van Jaarsveld and Lira, as six talent in total edged their way into the Knock-Outs.

It was an even more nail-biting episode of the series than usual as the last 12 singers competed for the coaches to lock down their team selections in the midst of some phenomenal Battle sing-offs.

For coach Karen Zoid’s first Battle, she pitted Marissa Petzer, 22, from Stilfontein against Celest Schoeman, 28, from Cape Town, both powerhouse vocalists who received four chair turns from the coaches in the Blind auditions. She assigned them the power ballad Ain’t No Other Man by Christina Aguilera and coach Bobby van Jaarsveld thought their performance was “flippin’ phenomenal!”. Coach Karen had a difficult choice to make, and despite having mentored Marissa’s boyfriend, Almur Marais, into the finals last year, she opted to take Celest through to the Knock-Outs.

“I wanted Celest,” Lira quietly confessed to Bobby after Karen had made her decision known, but after a few moments of thinking it over, she implemented her final Steal of the season to secure Marissa for #TeamLira!

The second and final Steal of the Battle rounds came courtesy of a high-energy #TeamLira sing-off. Bryce MacMillan, 28, from Johannesburg and Durban’s effervescent Bubbles Mnomiya, 23, were up against each other, because Lira recognised that they both enjoy Soul music. And to exploit that to the fullest she assigned them Charlie Puth’s hit Marvin Gaye. It was a titanic Battle and Lira was ecstatic. “My pride and joy!” she exclaimed. Lira admitted that neither artist was better than the other, so her choice was tough, but she eventually settled on taking Bubbles through to the next rounds. Fortunately, coach Bobby still had that one last Steal left up his sleeve, and so Bryce became the seventh member of #TeamBobby.

With all the Steals gone, the stakes were higher for the remaining performers of the night. #TeamBobby’s Alex Cavan, 23, from Port Elizabeth and Jean Citto, 24, from Cape Town performed Magic! by Rude, but unfortunately Karen was critical of Alex’s performance because he had turned his back on the audience during the Battle. “It bothered me as well, “Lira admitted. But Coach Kahn still said that Alex would have been his winner – “that’s someone I would want to watch perform,” he said. Having listened to his colleagues’ input, Bobby decided to choose Alex after all.

For his final Battle, coach Kahn pitted the unlikely duo Symphony – Charl Estherhuizen, 21, and Christopher Mabasa, 28, from Witbank – against 23-year-old Freddy Lalendlafrom Durban, because “Freddie kinda has two voices,” he pointed out. Kahn assigned his singers Alex Clare’s hit Too Close and he was very happy with their performances. “If I was the crying type there would be a tear in my eye!” he joked. But he could to choose only one act, and that act was Freddie, because his voice is “money,” said Kahn.

Coach Bobby went into his last Battle with 19-year-old John-James Janse van Rensburg from Carletonville and Chad Jubber, 19, from Durban, and because they’re both so young he chose a modern ballad for them: Bruno Mars’ When I Was Your Man. Coach Bobby pointed out to Chad that his very name, “Chadwick”, means “Battle”. “You belong on the battlefield,” he said. But in the end the final place on #TeamBobby went to John-James, whose sincere performance spoke to his coach.

The very final Battle of the season was between #TeamKaren’s most experienced talent, professional singer Veronique Lalouette, 35, from Johannesburg and Durban vocal coach Sam Landers, 30. “You’re the ‘vocal acrobats’ on the team,” Karen told them, so she assigned them the very challenging Mika hit Grace Kelly to perform. Co-coach Emo Adams helped them with some dramatic choreography, resulting in a spectacular ending to The Voice SA Season 2 Battles phase. “This is one of the most difficult songs ever!” Bobby marveled, which meant that coach Karen had a very difficult choice to make. In the end, the final singer to make it through to the Knock-Outs was Veronique.

The Knock-Outs are a brand new addition to the bigger, better Season 2 of The Voice SA, but viewers who have watched the American version of the show will be familiar with this tense round of the competition, which will ultimately determine which four singers from each team will be singing for the public’s vote in the Live shows of the series.

The talent competing in #TeamKaren’s Knock-Outs are:

Lindo Sithole

Samantha Leonard

Emma Ellis

PJ Pretorius

Celest Schoeman

Veronique Lalouette

And her two Steals: Amanda Faku and Richard “Rick” Jansen.

#TeamLira comprises:

Jacqueline Tolken

Tender Mavundla

Luke Lovemore

Andrew Snyders

Spha Mdlalose

Bubbles Mnomiya

And her Steals: Dylan Pretorius and Marissa Petzer

#TeamKahn’s Top 8 are:

Zee Gqamana

Mia Pretorius

Fatman

Kirby Jo

Craig Lucas

Freddie Lalendla

And his two Steals: Aston Wylie and Al Petersen.

And #TeamBobby’s Knock-Out singers are:

Dawie de Jager

Caroline Brussow

Josh Ansley

Marco Basson

John-James Janse van Rensburg

Alex Cavan

And his Steals: Armand Joubert and Bryce MacMillan

The winner of the second season of The Voice SA will take home the following fantastic prizes:

• A recording contract with Universal Music South Africa;
• R250 000 cash from Dialdirect;
• A Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch, a Samsung Galaxy A8 smartphone, a Samsung Gear VR, a Samsung 360 camera, a Samsung iconiX set and a 65 inch KS9500 Samsung SUHD TV;
• A Subaru Impreza 2.0 Premium CVT;
• R100 000 Truworths fashion.