The winning artist and coach of The Voice’s ninth season were crowned tonight after Monday night’s round of excellent performances from the top four artists: Emily Ann Roberts, Barrett Baber, Jeffery Austin and Jordan Smith. The top four each had the chance to bring back an artist from earlier in the competition to perform with one last time.

But in usual The Voice fashion, two hours of performances preceded the actual results. To kick the night off, the top 24 returned to do a group performance of “Lean On.”

Baber brought back fellow Team Blake member Zach Seabaugh for a duet of “Forever and Ever, Amen.” Austin brought back Team Pharrell’s Madi Davis for a performance of Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry On Their Own,” and it was a stark reminder of how strong of an artist Davis was and how she really deserved a spot in this finale. For his bring back performance, Smith brought back a whole crew of his favorites from the season: Evan McKeel, Amy Vachal, Korin Bukowski, Regina Love and Mark Hood. They sang “Any Way You Want It,” and it was appropriately high energy for the finale event. Roberts also brought back several artists: Nadjah Nicole, Riley Biederer, Yvonne Acero, Morgan Frazier and Shelby Brown. They sang “Summer Nights” by The Rascal Flatts.

Coldplay performed their new single “Adventure of a Lifetime” and inexplicably had people in monkey suits on stage and did a balloon drop, presumably to make people forget that there was still more than an hour and a half until the winner would be announced.

Season nine contestants Nadjah Nicole, Regina Love, Mark Hood, Celeste Betton and Darius Scott teamed up to perform “Love Train.”

Roberts took the stage with Ricky Skaggs for a performance of “Country Boy,” and she easily kept up with the country legend. It was actually a better performance than her duet with Shelton last night. Smith performed “Without You” with Usher in another great duet of the night. Austin and Tori Kelly did a duet of Kelly’s single “Hollow,” and Baber performed “No One Else On Earth” with Wynonna.

Pharrell, who did not have an artist in the finale this season, took the stage with Missy Elliott for a performance of her new single “WTF (Where They From).” Sam Hunt also performed “Break Up in a Small Town” for the first time on national television. The Weeknd, who also performed last week at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, sang a medley of The Hills,” “Earned It” and “Can’t Feel My Face.”

Justin Bieber closed out the night with a performance of his new single “Sorry,” and then it was finally time for the winner to be announced.

Carson Daly brought Baber, Roberts, Austin and Smith out to the stage one last time and started by announcing the season’s fourth place artist: Team Gwen’s only top four artist, Austin. Team Blake’s Baber came in third place. 

Daly then announced the season nine winner: Team Adam’s Jordan Smith. Smith has been a frontrunner since he first appeared on The Voice, and his performance of “Chandelier” in the Blind Auditions remains one of the highlights of the season. After becoming season nine’s champion, he fittingly sang “Climb Every Mountain,” which perfectly encapsulated his journey this season. This is Levine’s third season as the winning coach.

What did you think of tonight’s finale? Sound off in the comments, below. The Voice will return in February 2016 for a 10th season.

Original Article Source: The Hollywood Reporter