Thousands upon thousands of aspiring singers queued in cities all across South Africa early this year for just a shot at competing in the historic tenth season of Idols South Africa and this week, live at the State Theatre in Pretoria, it all comes down to just two finalists.
Nelspruit's Bongi Silinda (24), Stellenbosch student Lize Mynhardt (21), and Vincent Bones (30) from Pietermaritzburg have been working hard all week to prepare three songs each for Sunday's Top 2 Spectacular – but only two of them will get the chance to perform one final time for South Africa's votes.
One of them will have to bid the Idols dream farewell just a week before the ultimate goal.
This Sunday, 16 November, the Top 2 Idols Season 10 finalists will each perform three songs: the brand new hit that has been written especially for them; a song that the judges, Randall Abrahams, Unathi Msengana and Gareth Cliff, chose for them; and then a new and hopefully much improved interpretation of the song with which they originally auditioned.
The new track written especially for Bongi is called "If I Got You". The judges' choice for her is the Mary J. Blige song "A Night to Remember", and the audition song that she plans to improve on is the Destiny's Child hit "Stand Up For Love".
Lize's brand new track is called "All My Love". The song the judges picked for her is "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye, featuring Kimbra, and the audition song that she wants to repeat is the Bruce Springsteen classic that always inspires Randall to chime in, "Fire".
The title of Vincent's original new song is "Let Me Love". The judges picked Ringo Madlingozi's "Sondela" for him and his audition song is a mashup of Eminem's classic "Lose Yourself" and Adele's Oscar-winning Bond theme, "Skyfall".
Tickets for the show are on sale now from Computicket and the Top 2 Spectacular goes out live on M-Net and Mzansi Magic on Sunday, 16 November, at 17:00, and fans can also look forward to guest performances by The Graeme Watkins Project and Season 9 runner-up, Brendan Ledwaba.