Karise Eden has edged out fellow finalists Darren Percival, Sarah De Bono and Rachael Leahcar to take out the grand finale of The Voice – which is expected to be one of, if not the biggest rating event on local TV all year.
Along with the title of the first ever ‘Voice of Australia’, Karise Eden gets $100,000, a Ford Titanium car to zoom around town in and a recording contract with Universal Music.
Earlier in the night, each of the four contestants did a duet with their coaches. After butchering his father-in-law Lionel Ritchie’s hit Easy last night, Joel Madden did a ho-hum cover of a Bruno Mars track with his contestant Sarah De Bono.
Seal and Karise Eden did a soulful version of Jimmy Cliff’s Many Rivers To Cross, while Delta Goodrem and Rachael Leachar covered Andrea Bochelli’s The Prayer, with Rachael singing in Italian and Delta translating in English. Darren Percival and Keith Urban closed out the duets with a stripped back cover of Urban’s hit Without You.
And in a special surprise, legendary rocker Jimmy Barnes joined his daughter Mahalia Barnes (a contestant on the show) and Team Joel member Prinnie Stevens to sing River Deep, Mountain High.
A day after Urban announced his national tour at the start of 2013, Goodrem mentioned on the show that she’ll be doing a national tour in October – and would be bringing Leachar with her.
Karise performed her debut single You Won’t Let Me at the close of the show. It’s available to download on iTunes right now. Her debut album My Journey – which sounds like it will be filled with ‘Voice’ moments – is out June 26.
