Jennifer Lopez - Jennifer Lopez Makes Bright Start On American Idol

J'LO's presence affected the performance of several contestants, with one young hopeful telling the 41-year-old "I've looked up to you since I was 4". However, the singer refused to take it easy on the weaker vocalists and after one particularly poor performance she threw her hands up in the air and shouted, "This is awful. I can't do this". Tyler was less scathing, telling one contestant that they should think about pursuing a different career path after a less than impressive audition. The show featured a number of successful try-outs from the New Jersey contestants and there was the usual backstories including a woman whose father had just beaten throat cancer, a young man whose family fled the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and a New Yorker whose family lived for a brief period in a homeless shelter.

A notable absence on last night's two hour episode was the presence of Simon Cowell, who has left the judging panel to work on the US version of 'The X Factor' which is scheduled to premiere in September 2011.