Watch Noah Thompson advance to ‘American Idol’ finale. ‘You just aced that test’

Recovered from his bout with COVID-19, Noah Thompson gained a newfound sense of stage presence as he performed in front of the “American Idol” crowd again on Sunday, May 15.

The Louisa, Kentucky, native had to perform from his hotel room during the previous week’s show after his COVID-19 diagnosis. His positive tests also meant he could not meet the show’s latest guest mentor, Carrie Underwood.

But the two met virtually, and Underwood gave the Kentuckian some extra guidance before Sunday’s semifinal round. For his first of two songs on the show Sunday, he performed a song by Underwood — “So Small.”

Thompson moved around the stage the most he has all season, walking up to the catwalk as he showed off his powerful vocals.

“I don’t know what you found between those two ferns for a full week, but it was good and I have never seen you move from that stage to this stage,” judge Katy Perry said, referencing his previous week’s performance when he sang in his hotel room in between two plants.

Fellow judge Lionel Richie told Thompson what makes him so appealing is him being “a real person.”

“On top of that, you have the ability to tell stories,” Richie said. “You can tell stories, you’re believable, but more importantly, I want you to understand something. There’s a point in your life, it happens to all of us, where we sit there and say, ‘Wow, is this really happening to me?’ Noah, this is really happening to you.”

Thompson later sang “Working Man” by Larry Fleet, and he needed just a stool and guitar for the performance that helped propel him to the finals.

“All I got to say is, Noah, you just aced that test,” Perry told him.

“You on a guitar with a stool is enough to hold any room in any world that you’re in,” judge Luke Bryan added.

He will join HunterGirl and Leah Marlene in next week’s finale.

Before his final performances, Thompson will return to his Kentucky hometown for a parade and concert on Tuesday, May 17. His friend and organizer of the event, Mitch Castle, told WYMT the party could bring more than 10,000 people.

”We were talking to the ‘American Idol’ producers the other day and they were asking us about our town,” Castle told WYMT. “And we told them it’s a small town, you know we have 2,000 people. And they told us that it feels like a big town because we’re one big family and that’s truly what (Louisa) is. We’re a small town with a big feel.”

Who is Noah Thompson? Meet the ‘American Idol’ semifinalist from Kentucky