Photos courtesy of Tyler Golden/NBC.
UPDATE | Long Beach native Caity Peters bested fellow teammate and competitor Abby Celso last night on The Voice to stay on Team Pharrell and advance to the live playoff rounds. During The Knockouts, Part 3, which aired on Monday, April 4, Peters chose to sing Sam Smith’s “Leave Your Lover.”
Speaking at first to Celso, Christina Aguilera compared Peters’ performance to Celso’s favorably.
“[…]I was missing a few different textures, a few different volumes from you, and Caity, you gave those dynamics, you had a lot of them in your performance,” said Aguilera. “You had so much emotion, my favorite here for this one was Caity.”
Pharrell appeared to be torn, regarding his decision.
“Caity, I felt like where you didn’t move physically; you moved spiritually and you emoted a lot,” said Pharrell. “That makes this difficult for me because it’s like, do you go with Storm or do you go with Wonder Woman? It’s like two people who do two different things. It’s tough.”
Peters was shocked and excited to be given the chance to continue working with Pharrell, and of course, Long Beach is just as excited to watch one of its own reach for the stars. Next up will be the live playoffs.
PREVIOUSLY: Long Beach Native Excels on NBC’s The Voice, Advances to Knockout Rounds
03/24/2016 at 5:31PM | Long Beach native Caity Peters, 21, tried out for NBC’s two-time Emmy Award-winning The Voice on a whim. The Long Beach City College student working to get her teaching credential never considered that her passion for singing would ever be more than a hobby, a passion pushed toward the back of her mind to make way for becoming a teacher.
Peters’ email, unbeknownst to her, was subscribed to NBC. She received an alert that The Voice’s open call auditions were taking place in Los Angeles and decided to skip a previously-planned engagement with her family and friends to take a chance on a dream she’s never dared to pursue. Arguably, she’d been selling herself short, until this opportunity arose.
“[I knew] I would regret not auditioning,” Peters told the Long Beach Post. “I’d be sad, like, ‘What would have happened?’ I’d have a bunch of questions. And so what made me audition was that curiosity, just the thought of, ‘Maybe this is possible.’”
Not only did Peters receive a call back, blowing her then-expectations out of the water, but when it was her turn to attempt to convince one of the four celebrity coaches to be her trusted coach during the blind auditions, the first of five stages of competition, something very unexpected happened. It took barely a minute of listening to her sing the song Jealous, by Labrinth, for Christina Aguilera, Pharrell Williams, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton to spin around in admiration.
“I was so honored at just the fact that I was even able to audition I was okay with not getting a chair-turn,” she said. “I was really at peace with that[…], so when all four of them turned it was overwhelming. It was something that I had never even let enter my mind.”
The first time Peters sang in front of anyone, including her family, was during an eighth grade choir concert, but it wasn’t until her junior year of high school that she discovered singing was an actual passion. It was a way for Peters to express herself and her emotions when simply speaking wouldn’t cut it.
“I think it’s just the fact that sometimes you feel something and you can’t put it to words,” she said. “Whether it’s a happy emotion or a sad emotion or any type of thing that I feel, music is the way that I can communicate those feelings to other people. It’s incredible.”
During her battle round, the second stage of competition on The Voice, where the coaches pit two of their own team members against each other to sing the same song in front of an audience, Peters told the Post that she struggled, although the amateur vocalist wowed Pharrell, who chose her to advance versus her competitor, Joe Vivona.
“Caity, it was a little bit of a struggle just because of where your tone is and where the song is naturally, but you know what, there was a moment you really dug in,” said Pharrell after the performance. “It was like a fire breathing dragon comin’ out. I applaud you for that because I know it was tough.”
Since she received the callback to appear on The Voice, enticed all four celebrity coaches with her one-of-a-kind vocal style and most recently, won the second stage of the competition to advance to the knockout rounds to air in coming weeks, it’s safe to say her life plans have pivoted, as in, she’s taking this semester off.
“My entire life it’s been like, ‘Okay, I’m going to go to high school, go to college and then become a teacher,’’ she said. “I love teaching and am still going to school to get my teaching credential and that’s still a great passion of mine, but I never knew that music could be a serious possibility in my life and now that it’s playing out like this it changes my dream.”
For more information about The Voice, visit the website here. Up next, the competitors will receive the help of Miley Cyrus in preparation for the knockouts.