Af­ter a week of men­tor­ing from the Dig­i­cel Stars coach­es-Vanes­sa Brig­gs, Glen­da Col­lens, Dave Williams and John­ny Gon­salves-last Sat­ur­day the first group of eight fi­nal­ists per­formed at the Dig­i­cel Stars 2012 com­pe­ti­tion at the Fuzion Night Club, St Ann's.

This year the com­pe­ti­tion takes on a new for­mat with the in­tro­duc­tion of four cat­e­gories: Caribbean sound, R&B and pop, gospel and dance and a brand new stage set. Be­fore go­ing on stage all con­tes­tants vis­it­ed the Black­Ber­ry chill room, host­ed by Patrick An­tho­ny, where each gave a lit­tle overview of them­selves and what the au­di­ence could ex­pect of their per­for­mances.

The open­ing act of the show was Iziah from Las Lo­mas, who sang and played the key­board in the gospel cat­e­go­ry. He gave his ren­di­tion of Fred Ham­mond's Run­ning Back to You. Vo­cal­ist Den­ton Peschi­er gave the au­di­ence her in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Bu­ju Ban­ton's Un­told Sto­ries, while dancers Ex­treme Break­ers en­ter­tained the au­di­ence with their en­er­getic per­for­mance.

Oth­er acts in­clud­ed Can­dise Charles, Le­ston De Roche, Shazeena Ra­mu­mair, Kela Be­dassie, and Nicke­sha Mc­Dow­ell. In or­der for a com­peti­tor to ad­vance in the com­pe­ti­tion, the view­ing au­di­ence has to text or call to each of their favourite con­tes­tant's short code-avail­able by vis­it­ing the Dig­i­cel Web site: www.dig­iceltt.com.

A to­tal of ten acts will go through to the next round, five from last week­end's show and an­oth­er five from next week­end's com­pe­ti­tion. Re­peats of the Dig­i­cel Stars show will be aired on CNC3 on Mon­days at 3.55 pm, Wednes­days at 10.30 pm and on Thurs­days at 4 pm.

Vot­ing con­tin­ues un­til mid­day on Sat­ur­day.