American Idol Season 8 Winner is Kris Allen

It all came down to this...a two hour grand finale filled with music, antics, and a few production mishaps.

The season 8 "American Idol" to 13 shared the stage with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry from both sides of the Atlantic. But along with the great music were the antics by "American Idol" that become a turn off to some fans.

Under the guise of the Golden Idol Awards "American Idol" reprised some of the bad and marginal auditions. Each winner also got the opportunity to perform. The first award was for Outstanding Male which went to Nick Mitchell aka Norman Gentle. The Best Attitude Award was given to bikini girl Katrina Darrell who was joined on stage by judge Kara DioGuardi. Katrina was again wearing a bikini and after a Kara opened her dress to reveal a bikini of her own. The last award the for Outstanding Female Award which went to drama queen Tatiana del Toro.

The musical entertainment began with the 13 Idols in the results night sing-a-long. The reigning "American Idol" winner David cook sang "Permanent" which is available on iTunes. The proceeds from the song will to benefit the cancer research organization ABC Squared.

Lil Rounds joined Queen Latifah for a duet of "Cue the Rain". Then Anoop and Alexis joined Jason Mraz for a song.

"American Idol" finalist Kris Allen and his guitar joined country music star Keith Urban for the country rock song "Kiss a Girl".

Then the Idol girls took the stage and was joined by hip-hop artist Fergie who was later joined by the three time Grammy winning group the Black Eyed Peas.

The youngest ever "American Idol" contestant Allison Iraheta joined Cyndi Lauper for "Time After Time".

After speaking to the Allen and Lambert families Ryan introduced the third place contestant Danny Gokey who was joined by Lionel Richie.

In his video package Adam promised to bring new and fresh renditions to over played hits and the young theatrical rocker did not disappoint. When his time to sing came Adam sang "Beth" by KISS and then was joined by the rockers for a short medley.

Only a rock icon could follow an Adam/KISS performance and one of the biggest did just that; Carlos Santana was joined by Jason Mraz for "Black Magic woman" and then the Idols joined the pair for "Smooth".

After David cook surprised Kris and Adam with a new vehicle from Ford comedic actor Steve Martin and his banjo were joined by Megan and Michael for the Steve Marin penned bluegrass song "Pretty Flowers".

The Idol boys had their turn to perform with "Do You Think I'm Sexy" by Rod Stewart. The boys were replace by the rocking footballer himself who performed his first hit single "Maggie May".

Finalists Kris and Adam have become friends over the season and took the stage to perform a duet, Queen's "We Are the Champions". The guys were joined by the band with a smiling Brian May as they rocked the stage.

Finally the moment came. After a finale vote of nearly 100 million votes and a record breaking 624 million votes over the season the man Kara called a dark horse Kris Allen was crowned the new "American Idol". Kris was presented with an award that resembled a silver microphone for being the winner. As the show ended Kris performed what will be his first single as the new "American Idol" "No Boundaries".