As the blue curtains parted, Bobby Thornton Jr., an Eastern student, stood with his guitar ready in hand.

Once he began casually strumming on the instrument, a smooth-sounding voice, which seemed to surprise the crowd, filled the Martin Luther King Jr. Grand Ballroom Wednesday evening.

Thornton sang “That Should Be Me,” which won him the first place prize of $150 at Eastern’s Got Talent, the largest talent competition of the year hosted by the University Board Mainstage.

Perhaps one of the most beloved performances, which allowed these dancers to get runner-up, was Rhythm and X-tacy, which was a surprise to me and probably most of the audience members.

It’s no secret whenever these performers get on stage they blow all the other performers out of the water, but it was nice to see someone else share the spotlight for once.

The actual event seemed shorter than it really was, spanning only about an hour and a half.

Many of the student acts danced, played instruments or performed in a group.

One group of students, Strong MENtoring, performed “Lovers and Friends” by R&B singer, Usher, which seemed less like an actual well executed performance and more like satirical act.

The men were good at what they did in regards to the singing, but it was hard to take any of them serious because of the amount of fun they seemed to have falling and humping the stage.

I’d say one of the biggest issues with the event was how much self-promotion the performers gave their specific registered student organizations prior to their acts.

Each gave some information on who they were and what they did before telling everyone and their mother about how great their respective organizations were.

Now, it’s fine to self-promote a little, but I wanted to hear more about the history of their performances and how they got to where they are now as artists—not about how great their organizations are.

Paulette Horton, a senior family and consumer sciences major, performed two songs soulfully “The Definition” and John Legend’s, “Cloud Nine,” with Shaelania Reid, a senior family and consumer sciences major.

Both girls sang really well; however, Horton’s soft sounding vocals seemed to be overshadowed by the other woman’s soprano singing, which made the song seem less like a duet and more like a solo.

Much like Thornton’s performance, Matthew Wilkie, a sophomore foreign languages major, performed a song on his acoustic guitar entitled “I Accept You.”

Wilkie strummed his instrument melodically singing in a low voice, which rounded somewhat of a cross between a country singer and an alternative rock artist.

His talent was also good, which was a similar sentiment felt by the crowd as they clapped along with his song.

All performances at the talent show showed evidence of practice and hard work, but also innate skill with each instrument.

One of the crowd favorites was a performance done entirely by piano and no vocals to another John Legend song.

Roberto Hodge is a senior journalism and Africana studies major.

He can be reached at 581-2812 or rlhodge@eiu.edu.