'American Idol' Kicks Off 11th Season With Auditions in Georgia Kicking off its 11th season Wednesday night with an audition show filmed in Savannah, Ga., American Idol kept things light and hopeful, relegating most of the painful performances to montages and sketching out a few of the storylines of the standouts who made it to the next round. As always, the people who passed the audition during the two-hour show seemed to have been chosen as much for the dramatic potential they bring to the table as for their ability to sing. By the end of the show the people given tickets to advance to the next level of this season's competition, to be held in Hollywood, included a baby-faced young man with a high voice who said he once beat last year's winner, Scotty McCreery, in a singing competition; a brother and sister who will be pitted against each other even though the brother initially didn't want to audition; a young woman who is so poor she lives in a tent in the Tennessee woods; a beefy fellow with a pregnant wife who quit his job as a prison guard to take a chance on "Idol"; and an earnest woman with a sugary country voice who works with mentally handicapped adults. There was also Ashley Altise, 28, of North Carolina, a brash, funky woman who sang the Beatles "Come Together" and had invented her own dance, the "joy hop," which seemed to tickle not only the judges but also many people watching at home, judging by the messages on Twitter. For a while "joy hop" was a trending topic. The producers let viewers see only a few truly horrendous singers perform their auditions. Among them were a West African immigrant named Mawuena Kodjo, 25, who could not carry a tune but remained under the delusion he was destined to become a country star (his cluelessness was endearing and comical); and Jessica Whitely, 19, of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, whose loud and off-key performance caused the judges to wrinkle their faces in pain. Several people on Twitter compared her voice to Kermit the Frog's, which may have been an insult to the Muppet. Steven Tyler played his role as the slightly lecherous rock "n" roll god in residence. At one point the judges invited the family of a contestant, Shannon Magrane, a winsome 15-year-old girl from Florida, into the audition room because her father had been a Major League pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. Mr. Tyler told the proud father that Ms. Magrane was "hot, humid and happening." She made it to the next round after a soulful rendition of an Etta James song. The show's director also had some fun with another contestant, Erica Nowak, a 28-year-old from Buffalo, N.Y., who seemed to be a Steven Tyler stalker, calling him her "future ex-husband." Before she sang she asked for a hug from Mr. Tyler, the Aerosmith frontman, then grabbed his derriere on camera. She was not chosen. The last performer seemed to get the most response from thousands of people sending messages on Twitter about the show. He was Phillip Phillips, a good-looking 20-year-old from Leesburg, Ga., who sang a lusty version of "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder. He also got raves from the three judges. "It's like you have electricity going through your body," said Jennifer Lopez. Then he did a second song, Michael Jackson's "Thriller," accompanying himself on the guitar with funk strum, while the judges bobbed their heads. Mr. Phillips, who works in his father's pawn shop and sings in local pubs with his guitar, has a Southern drawl and seemed to fill the need for a good looking country boy on the program, and viewers on Twitter, most of them female, immediately began to sing his praises. "He's god in country form, but holding a guitar," posted one smitten young lady named Madison. Within an hour, a video of Mr. Phillips performing on a local news program in Albany, Ga., ricocheted across the social media site, being passed on by users 1,900 times.