Ali Milner still positive despite departure from show

After eight weeks of wowing people across the country with her performances and making it into the top three, Whistler songbird Ali Milner was voted off of CBC’s Cover Me Canada on Sunday (Nov. 6).

And while many are sure to be disappointed with the judges’ decisions, the ever-graceful Milner seems to be taking it all in stride.

“I feel amazing regarding the whole experience. The whole eight weeks were incredibly amazing and the whole experience was fantastic — I’ll cherish it all,” she told The Question two days after leaving the show. “Once we were eliminated, we heard a lot from (other competitors’) fans from all over the country, so there was a lot of support from everywhere and it was really amazing.”

For those following the show, Milner’s dismissal may have come as a bit of a shock, as just a week before she seemed poised to take the whole competition.

“You’re rising above and getting better and better, Ali,” said Cover Me Canada judge Ron Fair during the Oct. 30 episode. “Your voice, your confidence, your persona, your ability — go for it. Win this thing.”

Of course, that was before Milner was assigned her song for what would be her last episode.

Up until that point, Milner had done all she could with slow and fast, emotional and upbeat songs — much to the judges’ and audiences’ delight. However, Sunday’s song proved to be a bit of a curveball, as Milner was expected to take on the Barenaked Ladies’ One Week — an entirely different beast from what she’d done.

Though Milner did her best rendition of the tricky song, it didn’t seem to be enough to keep her on the show.

“Hanging up your uniform is a very painful thing, especially when it’s not your choice,” said Fair to Milner and the other band up for elimination. “The fact that one of you is going home tonight might be the thing to galvanize you for your future success, whether it be spite, anger, frustration, the determination of going on from this show into your future.”

With that, Fair announced Milner was headed home, which was quickly followed by boos from the crowd.

“I was also a little disappointed that the judges didn’t recognize the difficulty of the song that we were handed in week eight, but mostly I’m excited that I got to sing at least some Joni Mitchell,” said Milner, staying as positive as ever. “When I came in to the competition I knew it would be Canadian covers. Joni was always the one that I was praying for.”

When asked about her thoughts on the social media aspect of the show, a campaign that had each artist using tools like Twitter and Facebook to garner fan votes in order to gain immunity from elimination each week, Milner said the experience was definitely interesting.

“It was an ingenious idea for the duration of the show,” she said. “It was an amazing way to garner fans and get the word out about the show. Word-of-mouth promotion is really cool and I think it’s a really new-age way to run one of these shows, and on the whole was a great idea.”

However, Milner did not agree with the idea of having the social media immunity in play when there were just three competitors left, allowing New Brunswick’s Melanie Morgan to sit off to the side while the judges made their decision.

Back home, Ali’s father Ted said he’s proud of her for making it to the top three.

“Let’s put it this way, she’s been there nine weeks and she’s achieved so much by ending up in the top three,” he said. “She’s gotten publicity you can’t buy and built a fan base right across the country.

“She did extremely well and I’m proud of her.”

As for the future, Ali said she plans to get right back to working on some new material.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m gonna be working hard on new music soon,” she said.

Milner also had a word for her fans, saying, “I just want to say thanks to Whistler, thanks Vancouver and everybody else for being so incredibly supportive. I really felt the love and it’s been really lovely and I’m so lucky to have everybody.”