It wasn't a bad performance at all in my view; given the time constraints and the lack of performing chemistry between Meat and McPhee, it was a good performance from Meat. The start wasn't as he would have wanted it, but he wasn't getting anything through his cans which made it very difficult, and these shows always impose time constraints on great songs that do the songs no favours, which in turn weakens the overall impact of the performance imo.
But Evil's right in saying Katherine McPhee was pretty dismissive of Meat in a later interview, and did say she'd never heard of him, which is more an indictment of her as than it is of Meat's reputation. You'd expect young artists on canvass to have heard of Monet, Picasso, Warhol etc and have studied their work, and respect it even if their artistic take was different; time was, young musical artists would have heard of the greats in modern music and taken an interest in them even if they decided they wanted to do differently, just as Meat when he was young had heard and listened to the greats in popular music and rock. But that was back when you worked over time to get yourself known, rather than expect a talent show to propel you to success in a few short weeks. Still, I doubt McPhee will have the sustained success over decades that Meat has achieved
Caryl