LAST EDITED ON 07-13-11 AT 01:05 AM (EST)

Wow, great line-up to start off the live shows.

01. Miami All Stars. Dance group. Fabulous, spot on. Hope they don't suffer from having drawn the first spot, they set a very high bar.

02. Dezmond Meeks. Singer/musician. At first I thought he made a bad song choice, but he owned it and won me over.

03. Those Funny Little People. Novelty act. X by Piers. Honestly, they made the most of their gimmick, but it is gimmick, no real talent involved.

04. Fearless Flores Family. Motorcycle daredevils. Wow!

05. Squonk Opera. X by Piers. X by Sharon. Theatrical troupe. I love the avant garde stuff but tonight's set was really a bit too obscure.

06. J. Chris Newberg. Comedian. X by Piers. "That's probably a bad idea." I enjoyed it, YMMV.

07. Snap Boogie. Dancer. Double-Wow!!

08. Echo of Animal Gardens. Talking bird comedy act. Back in his comfort zone tonight, very funny and enjoyable. Handler Sarah is the real talent, all the inventiveness is from her, she trains the birds and makes it works. Now she needs to find out from that magician how to get a cat to stay perched on her shoulder, that would amp up the danger.

09. The Fiddleheads. Bluegrass band. Like these guys but "Billie Jean" was a bad song choice because the singer struggled with those upper range MJ notes.

10. Duo Aero. Aerialists. X by Piers. I didn't mind so much the retro aspect of tonight's performance, but they slowed down their performance a bit probably because of the skirt in her costume. It makes a difference a bit of wind resistance. (That said, while some acts might suffer from drawing first spot, making some acts like acrobats wait till late in the show can make the performance suffer.)

11. Anna Graceman. Singer/pianist. Love this kid and wow can she hit it big. Takes risks with her song choices but so far has made it work.

12. Sandou Trio Russian Bar. Acrobat. There's a high degree of danger in Russian bar to begin with, so the added danger elements mostly don't really add much more danger, it's just for show. That said... WOW!