You can probably count on one hand the number of people who got Simon Cowell to eat his words. Danyl Johnson is among them.
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He auditioned on The X Factor UK in 2009, and his timing couldn’t have been worse, although he had nothing to do with it. During a mini meltdown backstage, Simon was visibly exasperated with the lack of talent in other hopefuls who’d auditioned earlier, and even went so far as to call the entire day a “waste of time.â€
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But there’s one more audition he has to sit through, and you can almost see him sitting there at the panel, a puddle of drool pooling on the tabletop as the other judges try to nudge him awake. He’s still irritated when Danyl takes the stage, and if Simon were anywhere close, he probably would’ve yawned in the poor guy’s face.
But his bad attitude melts away once Danyl, a 27-year-old teacher and aspiring singer, starts his audition piece, “With A Little Help From My Friends,”by The Beatles.
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Less than a minute into his soulful performance, the entire audience is screaming and waving their arms in the air as this handsome and charismatic crooner almost starts bleeding with passion!
Seriously, how can anyone say no to someone who has the audacity to do something like this:
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And, of course, they couldn’t!
“When we see a performance like that, it’s the absolute perfect audition,” said judge Dannii Minogue, who, frankly, still looked a little flustered and star struck.
“I’ve been doing this for how many years? Eight, nine years?”Simon asked rhetorically. “Okay, Danyl, that was, single-handedly, the best first audition I have ever heard.â€
Mentored by Simon himself, Danyl made it to the semi-finals that year before being eliminated, but that hasn’t stopped him from pursuing his goals. He’s still singing and performing with all the pizzazz he showed during the audition, and maybe we’ll see him up there again soon.
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In the meantime, check out his jaw-dropping performance in the video below and share if you agree with Simon’s assessment.
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