It was the first night of live performances, and teams Adam and Usher performed. For the most part, I was underwhelmed.

In Team Usher’s live performance, the men shined and the women did not, but when it came time for their individual performances, Cathia had the third best performance of the night, and Michelle’s version of True Colors was the second best. (I did want to gag the back-up singers, though.)

The women of Team Adam were also mostly mediocre, with the exception of Judith, who closed out the show and, as expected, gave the strongest performance of the night.

Tonight there were actually a few really clear winners, something we had not had last night. And in fact, I actually agreed with every decision made, which is really rare.

Blake once again kept no one he stole, but did keep a duo, something we have not seen in the live rounds before.

I did notice that one performer whose battle round we did not see still made it through the knockouts. He (and anyone else they montaged the blind audition or battle round for) has had one less performance to build up an audience. That’s hard to make up.

The knockout rounds are quick- only two nights to cut the number of singers in half. Only four from each team will go to the live rounds.

Night one was Teams Adam and Shakira. The talent level was high. And while there are some choices I would have made differently from the coaches, I often had the same assessment of the singers as they did. They (being the experts and all) were just looking for different things from the singers than I was.

I did like all risks taken by the singers and am looking forward to the live rounds.

Last night of battles, only one steal on the table. We know it has to be used because otherwise the teams won’t be even. Usher has to use his last steal. When will he use it? Naturally, the producers leave that for the final battle of the night.

I was once again happy with all of the choices, including Shakira’s in that final battle. Mary really does have an amazing sweetness to her voice.

However, I was once again disappointed with the producers for not showing us all the battle rounds. Do these artists not make it past the knockouts?

Monday night’s battle rounds weren’t really surprising. There were a couple of times when I thought a steal might happen when it didn’t, but no one went home who I really thought needed to stay. They had hyped Usher’s steal so much with promo bits of “can he do that”, that I actually thought Adam might try and use a steal on his own person, but obviously that did not happen.

After being rejected a second time, Usher finally used his first steal, and heading into the final night of battles, he is the only one with a steal left.

I like seeing good battles, I do, but do I really need to see parts of one battle three different times and pretty much not see other battles at all? My guess is they don’t show the ones where the decision was easy for the coach, but by not showing us their battles (especially if we also didn’t see their blind audition), the show is essentially robbing them of finding a following- something that’s necessary in order to win the show.

Perhaps we could have less “how they got here” and more of the actual battles and all the contestants.

Three steals in the first night- with Shakira using both of hers. That’s going to make for some interesting conundrums as we get to the end of the battle rounds. I was very surprised by Blake’s steal, as it seemed like she was incredibly uncomfortable on stage and didn’t, to me, seem very good.

However, what the Battle Rounds always seem to teach me is that what comes across on the TV has to be very different from watching the performances live, because I am often surprised by the coaches’ decisions.

Still, good people always make it to the end.

The night started with each coach only having one spot remaining on their team, so you knew it was going to be a night of tough decisions. I remember season one where the coaches didn’t fill their teams from the first go round and invited a few people with no chair turns to come back. That hasn’t happened since, and I always wonder if there are singers that were invited to the blind auditions who never get a chance to perform.

Different this season is that coaches whose teams were filled did NOT face front. Chairs remained facing the audience.

I think if Shakira is back for another season, the challenge is going to have to stop being “steal a country singer from Blake” and become “steal a Latin artist from Shakira”. Especially with the two young girls we have seen, even the other coaches who have turned around have accepted that Shakira was going to be their choice (especially when they start crying because Shakira is talking to them).

I was reminded last night that one of the things I love about the voice is that even the people who don’t get chairs turned are talented. I like that.

I really like that contestants who don’t make it on the Voice the first time round can come back and try again.

Some of the people who made it on last night did not seem as talented as others we have seen this year, and I often have to think that perhaps there’s something that is not translating well via television. But the joy of the Voice is that everyone we see (whether a chair turns or not) is talented. There are no train wrecks.

Also- do we have more country singers this year? It kind of seems like it.