Phillip Phillips Braves Kidney Stone Surgery to Sing ‘Hard to Handle’ on ‘American Idol’

‘American Idol‘ contestant Phillip Phillps fought through the pain of six-day old kidney stone surgery to perform ‘Hard to Handle’ on ‘American Idol’ tonight (March 13).

OK, so maybe considering that, we should be nice to the guy, and we do indeed wish him well health-wise. But from what we’ve seen of Phillips so far this season, he’s a bit too much of a generic Dave Matthews Band disciple for us to really support.

In fact, it’s been a bit maddening watching Steven Tyler and his fellow ‘Idol’ judges praise Phillips’ “originality” when you could see and hear the same high-slung guitars and “hee ha ho humm” vocal style performed by any one of a dozen earnest, scruffy freshmen at your nearest college campus right this second if you wanted to.

(Randy Jackson dresses like a friendless high school rich kid.)

So, while Phillips did an alright version of ‘Hard to Handle,’ which any of the Black Crowes will eagerly remind you is actually an Otis Redding song, we can’t agree with Tyler’s statement that the young singer needed to watch his melody a bit, but otherwise did a good job. But we certainly wish him a full recovery!

(Randy Jackson needs to expand his vocabulary.)