Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert arrive at the 57th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California February 8, 2015. (Photo : REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni)
NBC's "The Voice" season 9 returned on Sept. 21 with coaches first taking the stage to set the pace for potential superstars to shine using the new format.
Season 9 kicked off with coaches Blake Shelton, Adam Levine, Pharrell Williams, and Gwen Stefani taking the stage together to sing a small snippet of each other's hit songs. The show opened with the returning to the big red chair, Stefani, performing Shelton's "Neon Lights." Stefan had initially allowed her friend and fellow star singer Christina Aguilera to take over the big red chair in season 8.
The next coach in line was Shelton, performing No Doubt's "Don't Speak," before Williams rocked the stage with Maroon 5's "Sugar." Levine was the last one to sing Daft-Punk and Williams' collaboration "Get Lucky."
While it was exciting to see celebrity judges take the grand stage, the night was all about the first round of the blind auditions. As it is tradition, the night had many superstars go to the next round and join one of the four coaching teams while others went home empty-handed. The shocker turned out to be a blind audition from Jordan Smith.
Smith sang just for a few seconds and had all the four judges turn their chairs. The judges were not only shocked that he was a great singer, but also when they realized that he was a man, the audition became a free-for-all as they competed to have him on their respective teams. Eventually, Smith joined Team Adam and gave the Maroon 5 singer an extraordinary edge over his competitors.
Season 9, episode 2 that aired on Sept. 22, Tuesday at 8 p.m. EDT had the teams as follows:
Team Adam
- Jordan Smith
- Keith Semple
Team Blake
- Barrett Baber
- Nadja Nicole
Team Gwen
- Braiden Sunshine
- Kota Wade
Team Pharrell
- Mark Hood
- Slahna Im
