Thanks to your votes, Lyme resident Braiden Sunshine was saved and has advanced to the Top 12 in "The Voice" in Season 9 of the NBC singing competition.
Braiden, a sophomore at Lyme-Old Lyme High School, performed for Team Gwen in Monday night's live show and tallied enough ofAmerica's votes to move to the next round.
"OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I just died a bit! Haha. I can't wait for next week I love this show! #VoiceResults," Sunshine tweeted to his fans Wednesday night.
When asked via Twitter how he felt about the results, Sunshine tweeted to NBC Connecticut "I'm freaking out this is amazing thank you all so much."
His Connecticut fans also had a lot to say in the Twitterverse about the news.
"Congrats to you!!! We are all freaking out here in Ct. (sic)," Brooke Adamson tweeted from the Twitter handle @Brookealexiena.
Another fan tweeted from @debdeb0803, "We got a Connecticut American Idol maybe we will get a Connecticut Voice winner too!"
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The fan was, of course, referring to Guilford's Nick Fradiani, who was crowned American Idol this year. Connecticut also does have a strong history of producing "The Voice" winners. Connecticut's Javier Colon was the first-ever "The Voice" winner in 2011. Newtown native Sawyer Fredericks, 16, also won "The Voice" last season and peformed his debut song "Take It All" live on Wednesday night's episode.
Sunshine made it through the voice battle and knockout rounds on Team Gwen to advance to the live shows. Sunshine is only 15 years old, one of the youngest contestants on the show, and that has stood to impress the judges throughout the season.
His voice coach, Gwen Stefani, lead singer of No Doubt, chose an older song -- "Everything I Own" -- for him Monday because she thought he could give it a fresh take.
In addition to gaining vocal experience on the show, "The Voice" team has also ben developing new looks for the teenager with the baby face, so one of the judges joked about how he looks different every time he performs. Sunshine emerged on stage in a leather jacket and his naturally curly hair was slicked down and straightened. He also performed without his glasses, quipping in his talk-back with Maroon 5's Adam Levine after his song that he couldn't see him, eventually putting his glasses back on.
Levine was very apologetic Monday in delivering some criticism, telling Sunshine he thought he tried to do more than the song than was there in it. But Stefani said Monday she's grown very protective of Sunshine and praised his voice and how broke away from being still at the mic stand toward the end and added more dynamic to the song as he move around the stage and worked the crowd. She even called him "cute," which prompted a smile from Sunshine.
Braiden has been singing since he was 5 years old and performing since he was 9. He says he wouldn’t be on "The Voice" if it wasn’t for his mom, Elizabeth Sunshine. She was the one who pushed him to audition in New Jersey
His songs in the competition are available for purchase on iTunes.
