Simon Cowell ends up a mentor to the girls, with Nicole Scherzinger in charge of the over-30 group. By Gil Kaufman Simon Cowell Photo: FOX After a relatively sane four audition episodes, “X Factor” got down to business on Thursday night (October 6), when the second evening of boot camp helped cull the herd down to the semifinal contender class. While some early favorites such as Siameze Floyd and adorable not-yet couple McKenna and Brock cracked under the pressure, others, including Chris Rene, Josh Krajcik and cutie brother act the Brewer Boys, survived the group competition and punched their ticket to the next round. The two-night boot camp episode reduced the 162 contenders to 32, with eight in each of the four categories: boys, girls, over-30s and groups. After 62 acts were lopped at the top of Wednesday night’s show, half of the remaining singers were put into groups that got help from vocal coaches, stylists and choreographers. Their challenge was to work with their peers while shining on their own on songs by U2, Radiohead, Jay-Z, Marvin Gaye, Rascal Flatts, Whitney Houston, Nina Simone, the Eagles, Five for Fighting and Snow Patrol. Simon Cowell says “X Factor” boot camp gets real. One of the show’s early standout stars, hard-luck story and recovering addict Chris Rene, singing alongside his soulful sister Gina, shone again on Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” which also put R&B crooner Marcus Canty back in the spotlight. Twangy country singer Tim Cifers delivered again on the Flatts tune, and Bieber-esque teen sibling duo the Brewer Boys were in the pocket again on Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars.” By midshow, the cuts began, with one group going home in tears, and another, which included the Renes, perpetually on-the-bubble Tiah Tolliver, the Brewers, adorable 14-year-old soul singer Crow and Prince-like wildman Floyd making it for one more day. The bad news was that the 64 remaining acts had to turn around, pick another song and do it all over again to make the final cut … in front of an audience of 3,000. Crow went somber with a piano-assisted cover of Beyonc
