Idol | Kris Allen wins American Idol Season 8 on May 20, 2009!

Our look back at 2009 has reached a big anniversary! On May 20, 2009, Kris Allen won American Idol Season 8. If you've been reading the Season 8 lookback posts (linked at the bottom of this post if you would like to), you might agree with me that this wasn't as much of an upset as Idol and the media like to portray it as being. While Adam Lambert certainly was a talented and extremely memorable contestant, Kris put together a solid and consistent run of great song choices and exceptional performances, coupled with an ability to straddle genres.

Future posts about 2009 and Kris will cover the post-Idol frenzy of media, the Season 8 Idol tour, and the making and release of KATA, but in this post, we'll fondly recall the last two Idol episodes of 2009. Onward for lots of videos, photos, mp3s and memories!

April 5-7, 2016: American Idol Finale

Thanks @ShouldI45 for the picture of your ticket!

Photo via JustJared

It is the end of an era, as American Idol draws to a close with special episodes April 5, 6 and 7. Of course, it will bring back almost all of its winners and several memorable alumni to help with the celebration, including the 2009 winner of season 8, Kris.

Updated my personal take post-finale: Personally, for many years (probably seasons 1 through 11), American Idol was my favorite TV show and I didn't miss an episode. I actually have purchased a lot of post-Idol music from various contestants - Kris of course, but many others as well. However, Season 12 of Idol (the Nicki Minaj/Mariah Carey/cut all the talented guys season) was so rough and painful that I began to lose interest. I watched Season 13 very casually but Season 14 drew me back into it since I liked the guy who won it (Nick Fradiani). I also am a big Keith Urban fan, so it helps sometimes that Keith is on there as a judge. I had high hopes that Idol would indulge in some alumni and nostalgia this season, and they have to a degree (including Kris, who helped judge the Little Rock auditions). The finale itself was overall fantastic, and although I might have had the WGWGs sing their own songs and cut Kara Dioguardi so they could have an extra two minutes, I really can't complain.

This post will serve to collect some of the Kris-centric media and stories regarding the finale. (Note, as a blog that seeks to support Kris, I will not post any stories that I deem unflattering or unhelpful in any way. If you are looking for comprehensive Idol finale coverage, I recommend MJs Big Blog. Team Kris is also gathering Kris-related media here.)

Media, Kris-related finale news and all the best finale clips and pics after the break!
Updated 4/11/2016

Throwback Thursday: August 14/15, A Day for Epic Apparently

On every (well, most) Thursdays we take a look back at Kris Allen's past performances to remember the good times! Since I've been a little remiss lately about this, thought I'd load you up with a few videos.

Usually I start this by searching the date and Kris' name in YouTube. When I did this with August 15, so many goodies came up! So - in reverse chronological order, here's August 15 in Kris Allen World (excluding 2012 and 2013 - nothing to report for these years).

First, August 15, 2011, Clarkston, MI: Kris debuts You Got a Way during a concert opening for Lifehouse! Here's Altrus01's awesome video! (Click here for the setlist and more media.)



Then, August 15, 2010, (well technically August 14 but the videos were uploaded on the 15th!), at the Indiana State Fair, we got this little piece of Kreith goodness from supox30!


This was the first time they performed Jack and Diane together. The Indiana audience did a great job of singing along! And of course at the beginning we get Kris telling Keith he's hot (:DDDDD) and at the end, a big old epic Kreith hug! (Lots more media and the full setlist for Kris here.)

And August 15, 2009? Kris was still touring with the Season 8 Idols, in Hamilton, Ontario! Here's a awesome but terrifying video (when you think about the giant cavernous hole that opens up behind him) from Lupin788 of Kris performing the Killers' All These Things That I've Done!


Enjoy!

Throwback Thursday: July 28, 2010, California Mid-State Fair, Paso Robles, CA

Well, we Kris fans are in #babywatch mode, or in my case, #vacationwatch. I'll be away next week, so there won't be any blog posts then. So I realized I needed to do a proper #ThrowbackThursday post to help fill the live concert void!

Then I saw a tweet on my personal twitter feed - a picture of Tim McGraw performing at this year's MidState Fair in Paso Robles, California. Suddenly, wonderful memories of Kris performing there in 2010 to an appreciative crowd returned. And of course, that was a Kreith show (a show where Kris opened for Keith Urban), which means we got an awesome hug at the end of an awesome duet! So it was easy to choose to go revisit the 2010 Paso Robles show for this week's Throwback post.

So without further ado, here's an awesome duet on The Boys of Summer, filmed by Kris' tour manager at the time:

While looking for this, I stumbled on a video shot from way back in the crowd - love this big crowd!

And for another bonus, I found this lovely snippet of Maybe shot by a Keith Urban fan known for her great videos! One of my all time favorite covers by Kris.

Happy trip down Kreith in Paso Robles memory lane!