Eurovision Song Contest 2022 Turin, Italy

The annual, irreverent, review of the European Song Contest. The notes for each song were my instant reaction to them having seen them for the first time on the night of the grand final’s performance.

As usual Graham Norton is doing the voice over commentary for the BBC coverage. I have included his salty comments for most portions of the event.

It opened with a cover of ‘Give Peace A Chance‘.

So that was definitely a political statement in a contest that has, in the past, declared itself to be apolitical when previous entrants had clear messages (e.g. We Don’t Wanna Put In) which forced the countries to find alternative representatives. A yellow court yard followed by a blue lit audience inside is all but screaming their position on current events no matter if it was officially sanctioned or not without the organisers saying anything explicitly. Also that the sponsor MoroccanOil is so largely featured on the idents between songs feels questionable even though it’s argan oil for hair care not crude oil they trade in.

One of the hosts, Laura Pausini, did a medley of her songs. The were accompanied on stage by costume changes (coats and robes mostly) for each of the songs in the medley.

Norton mocked that it was a whole album after the fourth or fifth section of it.

Then there was the parade of flags by the entrants in the order they would be performing.

It consisted of the finalists who were from 25 out of 40 of the countries that took part in the contest. During this Norton recounted the voting details e.g. the judges of the national panels represent 50% of the total votes. He thought the UK had a chance this year. We haven’t won it in 25 years but used to be amongst the top voted countries. Ukraine got a shout but nothing more than others got during their moment in the parade. There were a few metal bands in the semi-finals but power ballads seemed to be preferred by the semi-final voters this year.

The presenters entered to much fan fare. I don’t know them (I recognised one of them later but you’ll have to scroll down to see when that happened). I’m sure they’re very famous in Italy but, as is the case with those we have involved in this, they’re part of ‘the TV furniture’ as they seem to be in the media constantly or in some way are notable but not to a ‘national treasure’ level.

A warning about all the flashing lights and a named cartoon drone mascot making videos of some iconic locations around Turin and possibly elsewhere in Italy.

1 Czech Republic: We Are Domi – Lights Off

Synthesizers with lots of wires. It feels more for show than practicality in this day and age but has that retro appeal that seems popular. A club dance anthem feel to the song. Overall it feels understated for a Eurovision entry. The singer looks like she has just come away from painting a wall in overalls covered with some paint splashes. The lights are so manic it’ll have eliminated anyone with epilepsy straight at the start of the contest… ‘where are you now?’ / ‘on the way to the hospital’. Apparently they all lived in Leeds according to Norton.

2 Romania: WRS – Llámame

Bears according to Norton and it’s an example of the ‘great Italian shirt shortage of 2022’. A dancer. Vinyl trousers. Men in belly shirts and women in cat suits. It’s got a very Mexican/Latin American feel to it. Everyone looks sweaty. It’s okay for a Euro entry but I don’t feel it will stand out enough to do particularly well. The choreography is well gone. Oh, and a surprise sparkly under shirt reveal.

3 Portugal: MARO – Saudade, Saudade

A gentle ballad. They perform it in baggy shirts facing each other like it’s some sort of ‘women’s retreat to build confidence’. It’s all a bit ‘performance art’ on a shoestring budget. It reminds me of Enya. They harmonise well but… it feels very low energy. It could do well but at the point of seeing it for the first time it feels like the ‘cool down’ between more energetic pieces.

4 Finland: The Rasmus – Jezebel

I remember them! I tend to like Finland’s entries. They’ve been together for a bout 30 years. Norton warns if you’ve seen Stephen King’s It the start will remind you of it. It’s a yellow balloon instead of a red one. It sounds like a good song but the venue makes it feel smaller – like a small dog barking in a vast hall instead of an intense piece. The yellow ‘rain slicker’ waterproof coat doesn’t feel like a good choice of costume. A shirtless man in leather pants. You’ve seen it before and you’ll see it again a few times in this contest before the show is over no doubt. A good radio song but I can already feel it’ll lose out to other ones. Fun. Apparently the only rock song tonight (after Italy won with their one last year – but Finland tend to do rock songs usually anyway so it wasn’t copying last year’s winning formula).

5 Switzerland: Marius Bear – Boys Do Cry

I am sure I’ve seen him before. Interesting earring. A modern crooning ballad. An oversized baggy leather jacket. It’s a nice romantic song. You can imagine this in an emotional film scene or over the end credits. I like it and the fact the staging is minimal to have focus on it but not losing any showmanship for it as they use the lighting effectively. Apparently James Newman (the UK entry last year) wore a similar jacket.

Then some bad jokes by the presenters. Lots of gardening jokes as they’re in the ‘green room’.

6 France: Alvan & Ahez – Fulenn

Sung entirely in the Breton language I think Norton said. A middle eastern tone to the entry with thumping base as if it’s a ‘going into battle song’. Pyrotechnics and… I would expect this to be the entry by Azerbaijan or a country in that region. It’s very enjoyable but does feel like it’s a composite of various ideas. The camera is jumping all over the place suggesting they consider it over-staged as too much is going on to hold your focus in one location. Norton jokes ‘there now follows a human sacrifice’. It felt rushed.

7 Norway: Subwoolfer – Give That Wolf A Banana

Performed in masks and anonymous. Norton says it may be too novelty. Immediately it feels like something inspired by DeadMau5, Daft Punk and others in terms of aesthetics. It’s just a relatively standard dance track but definitely feels like they’re trying to give the song a bit of a boost with the aesthetics and the silly lyrics. If anything it’s not novelty enough for me. A sign of the times as I mentioned last year where everything feels far tamer than in the past. Ben Adams of A1 (an Anglo-Norwegian boy band) is speculated by Norton to be the shorter wolf.

8 Armenia: Rosa Linn – Snap

Considered an unassuming singer so the staging distracts from her according to Norton. So much toilet paper for the staging… In 2020 that would have got criticised… As for the song it’s quite nice. I am reminded of Nelly Furtado. The ‘snapping one, two, where are you?’ lines are very good. It’s a pleasant song. Enjoyable. Instantly forgettable. The twist – she was performing to a camera so the live audience only see her at the end. That is awkward staging and probably will stand against her.

Some more host jokes. Laura‘s hair doesn’t move. The male presenter reminds me of Nick Grimshaw the BBC1 radio DJ or someone who looks like him from a few years ago. They joke about Italians gesturing so there is the written, oral and gestural tests. Amusing. Norton jokes he is making a gesture too.

Norton wants to raise a toast to Terry Wogan who did it for the BBC before him (and was amazing but then he had more freedom to be acerbic in his mockery of events – even going as far one year as calling one host ‘Mr Death’).

9 Italy: Mahmood & BLANCO – Brividi

The host nation. Do they phone it in? No, I really like it. A duet between two men. A grand piano (which is stood on at one point which feels blasphemous). A feel good piece. Not intending to win but just show the host nation’s ability. The audience join in at the end. Great, but it won’t win – but who knows? It’ll do well I’m sure.

10 Spain: Chanel – SloMo

One of the bookie’s favourites. The singer is named after Coco Chanel. Norton notes she starts off looking like she couldn’t be wearing less but will. A bullfighter’s jacket. A driving beat and some very intense choreography for the dancers. Due to the shoulder pads of the jackets I keep imagining panels from the later parts of the manga Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. It’s a pretty standard Eurovision entry really for the woof ‘sexy’ entry. The jacker gets removed. Lots of choreography with is done flawlessly. The fan comes out. A solid entry. Norton jokes ‘grandpa shouldn’t pick the phone up yet’ – joking it’s one to get the male vote.

11 Netherlands: S10 – De Diepte

The depth. Quiet, sincere, likely to get forgotten by the time the vote comes around. Very understated. Woof. It’s minimalist really. There’s not much to say considering the chorus is vocalisations i.e. ooh, ahh… I like it in the sense it would probably be used as the backing music to a really powerful dramatic scene in a TV series. Norton notes she is 21 years old so we might see her again like some entrants from the past.

12 Ukraine: Kalush Orchestra – Stefania

Due to current events this will win. Bookie’s favourite. Norton notes ‘possibly due to an emotional response’ but notes it’s a good song. OH COSSACK SINGING… I joke but this is very much traditional Ukrainian folk music at the start then breaks into rap for parts of it. MY FAVOURITE OF THE NIGHT. Yes, I am biased but… you’re reading a blog that specialises in Welsh and Russian (language) poetry so are you that surprised? I have CDs of traditional Ukrainian folk music I play often so I am completely biased even with the current events guiding people’s appreciation. The ‘fur monster’ rapper is a bit random but whatever. Of course at the end the guy says some political things. The usual Ukrainian commentator is actually in a bomb shelter this year Norton notes.

More host jokes. They can’t show favouritism. Poker face.

13 Germany: Malik Harris – Rockstars

Fourth of the big five. The guy was on Germany’s ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here’. The song feels generic pop song tonally. A guy in jeans, a baggy t-shirt with a gold chain – he could be a young man now or from the 90s. Seriously the only thing stopping me thinking this was a 90s entry is it’s filmed in high definition. The spoken word bit has a very ‘I’m a teenager and I’ve had some deep thoughts’ aspect to it before it begins to come across like an Eminem tribute mid song as he appears to run out of air. ‘We used to be the rock star’… meh, it’s okay. So okay it’s just okay. I’ve already forgotten about it.

14 Lithuania: Monika Liu – Sentimentai

Norton says it’s retro circa 1974. The performer considers it ‘spooky disco’. Apparently certain styles of 60-70s style ballads are ‘spooky’ now. The bowl hair cut is very distracting. Woof. ‘ooh, say ohh, say ooh’. I guess she is meant to have a Liza Minnelli inspired look. The song is okay. It does definitely feel like a song from a past contest. It’s nice but it’ll be an ‘also ran’. It feels like it should be performed to a faster beat to be honest.

15 Azerbaijan: Nadir Rustamli – Fade To Black

This has ‘serious contender’ written all over it instantly – he just has to make sure to not mess up this performance of it. The ‘guy sat on the bleachers’ staging is a bit odd but okay… I like the song and it’s rising energy only to cut back for the chorus. The dancer coming on to mirror him is a nice touch. If not for Ukraine appealing to my interests with the folk music this would be my favourite so far. Maybe the crescendo could have hit harder but it’s a serious contender.

16 Belgium: Jérémie Makiese – Miss You

His clothing is very ‘late 90s to early 2000s’ boy band with the silver jacket and blue jeans combo. It’s subdued but rhythmic which is really good. Another contender for winning potentially. The jerky head movements of the dancers remind me of certain scenes from Jacob’s Ladder and Silent Hill. Ends with trying to hit a note and… eh, maybe should have finished it a different way.

More host jokes. The female host pushes the official CD and DVD merchandise. He jokes he collected them since he was born. He is 32? No he is 38…

17 Greece: Amanda Georgiadi Tenfjord – Die Together

A ballad and Norton likes the staging but we are seeing it in a batch of ballads so he fears it will be forgotten. Intense close up… She reminds me of Daisy Ridley in the Star Wars films due to the hair style. Woof. It’s a very nice song and the simple backlit staging assists it. I like the silhouetted dancers/video in the background. I really like it the longer it goes on but I can see it getting buried unfortunately though in any other context this would be a wildly beloved song people would be humming as they went about their daily lives.

18 Iceland: Systur – Með Hækkandi Sól

They’re sisters. The man is their brother. Norton compared them to The Corrs. He also says one of the sisters looks like Princess Beatrice. Woof. An American country/folk music style entry. It has that 1970s feel more than the one Norton considered retro. I enjoyed it but, while it stands out, I don’t think it’ll get much votes wise though this is the sort of song you think of when someone mentions classic Eurovision type songs. The brother is set off to one side so… you know they had the dad vote in mind. He really is like the brother in The Corrs…

The ballads are now done according to Norton.

19 Moldova: Zdob şi Zdub & Advahov Brothers – Trenulețul

Norton deems it a party starter. You think it’ll be like the Beastie Boys and then they break out a polka. This, musically, is very much a Eurovision novelty entry. It’s fun. You’ll either love it or hate it. I’m not sure what more I could really say. It’s like if you got members from multiple popular groups of the 80s and 90s and had them all perform together trying to make something to appeal to a young audience… this should have been the opening act to set the energy levels for the night.

20 Sweden: Cornelia Jakobs – Hold Me Closer

Sparkly strings over a sports bra top, short hair cut, heavy mascara with smokey eye shadow. Very 90s pop act costume but usually one you see in an ensemble girl group or dance troupe. Woof. It’s a relatively standard song. Very good but I am not sure will make it have that little something to get votes above other entries. It builds and I enjoy it but this could have been entered in any year and done about the same I feel. The costume and staging feel like they could have had more effort put into them. Norton thinks it’ll be at the top of the leader boards.

More host humour? What did you do for Eurovision in the past to enjoy it? Salty snacks, gathering with family? Considers it magical. He thanks the Eurovision and the artists.

21 Australia: Sheldon Riley – Not The Same

Did various ‘_____’s got talent’ talent contests around the world. The mask is interesting. It’s very ‘The Cell‘ (specifically the iconic costume designs of Eiko Ishioka). The song is interesting. The staging is impressive. I’m trying not to say ‘he reminds me of the comic book’s version of Hellraiser’s Pinhead…’ but the costume does share elements of the designs. It’s a good song. I can see it do well but… maybe not quite in the top five. Then the mask comes off and you see every hair of his eye brows has been fixed in place. It ends suddenly and he thanks the crowd. Nice.

A sing along by the hosts of a song from the past. I missed which one but you would recognise it instantly and the crowd sang along with it.

22 United Kingdom: Sam Ryder – SPACE MAN

It got a cheer when announced. Norton says it’s a good sign. The singer has many followers on TikTok. Norton believes it’s special. A high pitched singing voice, retro futurism frames for staging. An interesting detailed/embroidered jumpsuit of beads and pearls. Very anthemic. If this doesn’t do well it’s going to be bizarre. You can hear the crowd singing along too it seems. It’s not my sort of song usually but there are some nice elements to it. It’s both classic Eurovision but also very modern. A powerhouse performance as Norton described it.

The green room with the hosts. It’s in the centre with the hosts. They wander around a few of the competitors. They approach Ukraine but deny the singer the microphone as they’re moving onto the next act.

23 Poland: Ochman – River

Norton compares him to Gary Barlow and thinks he didn’t choose the dancers who accompany him. A nice rain effect. A man in a suit. A falsetto voice. Dancers who seem to be flailing about. I like the song. The dancers seem an odd addition due to their costumes more than anything. It’s quite good so will do well but I’m not sure it will do too well. Thanks the audience. As in previous years Poland tends to be a bit more experimental/risk taking in their entries in some ways.

24 Serbia: Konstrakta – In Corpore Sano

Performance art with a Eurovision song attached – apparently about private health insurance/case in Serbia according to Norton. A political entry. The main singer woof in a weirdly ‘how American comedy films depict middle aged European women as S&M mistresses with severe fringe haircuts’. I assume it is meant to symbolise the health care industry washing their hands clean of responsibility. As for the song… it’s what it is… Interesting but not something I feel Eurovision will like. It seemed to confuse people in the crowd according to Norton. It probably should have been put between some of the ballads to break them up a bit. I like it – but not as a song in a song contest.

25 Estonia: Stefan – Hope

With a title like that it was inevitably going to be either at the start or end. A man with a guitar in double denim or leather. It’s an uplifting anthemic piece. Very enjoyable. It has guitar chords like a wild west movie but used for a Eurovision song. He has the audience sing along with him. Very good. It’ll do okay but there are more serious contenders.

A reminder of all the performers.

Then last year’s winners ‘Måneskin‘ performed. They have worked in America and are on the recent Elvis biopic soundtrack too apparently. They remind me of the Stone Temple Pilots. Then one of the hosts talked with them saying he felt old but also proud as he saw them when they were starting. The lead singer jokes that his advice is ‘don’t get too close to the table’ to the people in the green room. Norton suggests googling it. Here is the moment to save you time.

He got too close to the table so people accused him of taking drugs there.

They then performed a short piece of their cover of Elvis’ song ‘If I Can Dream’.

Another reminder of the competitors for those who are voting at home.

One host did a floating head discussion about phones and social media and saying he has a puffy nose. Then it’s revealed he is in a green body suit in the green room. Norton notes that whatever they’re paying him it’s not enough.

1964’s Italian winner who in 1974 came second only to ABBA, Gigliola Cinquetti, performed.

The entire room sang with her as she stood alone on the stage. Clearly a living legend whose still got it as far as the home crowd are concerned.

Then a VT about fashion at Eurovision discussing the costumes over the years. It really does show how tame it’s become in recent years though they showed a few from last year right at the very end.

More green room quasi-interviews before the next VT. About how people react to winning or sitting during the votes counting. Norton mentions it will be for the UK as we stand a chance of not coming at the absolute bottom of the scoreboard.

‘Magical Mika‘, as Norton called him, does another medley.

This time with lots of dancers. NOW I KNOW WHO HE IS! Well… that’s awkward… I did recognise him but couldn’t name who he was as I’ve not seen him in years. He’s good in a ‘pop music I forgot existed’ way. It’s a fun medley and you can tell a lot of work went into it to get everything perfectly timed and choreographed. I haven’t known the hosts in other years so it’s interesting to finally ‘get’ one of these ‘waiting for the votes’ medleys rather than being out of the loop of what it is I’m watching at this point in the show.

Another run through of all the competitors then the voting ended.

A female astronaut on the space station sends a message. Norton mocks her hair.

The head honcho of the Eurovision panel confirms they have the jury points. He almost said invalidated the results but corrected himself. Norton mocks it’s his catchphrase to confirm they’ve got the count.

The hosts explain about 12 points, the entry that gets the most points wins (surprising I know) and it’s a sum total of the juries and public votes with the juries representing 50% of each nations vote.

Points given to the United Kingdom by the jury votes

4 points for the UK form the Netherlands – Norton declares we are winning already (compared to other years)! Weird duvet coat as Norton notes. San Marino gave us 8 points. North Macedonia gave us 8 points – woof. Malta gave us 8 points. Ukraine woof gave us 12 points! Albania gave us 10 points. Estonia gave us 4 points. (At the moment we were in the lead).

Azerbaijan gave us 12 points! Portugal gave us 10 points. Germany gave us 12 points! Belgium gave us 12 points! Norway gave us 6 points. Israel gave us 10 points. Poland woof gave us 8 points (12 points to Ukraine and Norton notes he thought more would go that way but it is a song contest). Greece woof gave us nothing! Moldova woof gave us 10 points – 12 to Ukraine. Bulgaria gave us 10 points. Serbia woof gave us 1 point. Iceland gave us 7 points. Cyprus gave us 3 points (Norton jokes other years we would be pleased with three but this year how quickly we forget). Latvia woof over the top headdress gave us 8 points – 12 to Ukraine. Spain woof gave us 3 points. Switzerland woof but little girl dress though gave us 6 points. Denmark gave us 6 points.

The United Kingdom is still in the lead at this point.
They interview our representative and Norton notes we never get interviewed in the green room. As always a positive message by our representative saying how everyone competing is a credit to the sense of unity.

France woof gave us 12 points. Armenia gave us nothing (which this year is the outlier result compared to the past few years where it was the norm). Montenegro gave us 5 points – they gave Serbia 12 points. Romania gave us 8 points. Ireland gave us 8 points. Slovenia gave us 2 points. Georgia gave us 12 points. Croatia gave us nothing – 12 points to Serbia. Lithuania gave us 10 points – 12 to Ukraine. Austria gave us 12 points.

The United Kingdom is still in the lead!

Finland gave us 10 points. The UK, represented by AJ in Greater Manchester, gave our 12 points to Sweden. Sweden woof pregnant with a flat stomach gave us 8 points. Australia gave us nothing – 12 points to Spain. The Czech Republic woof gave us 12 points. Italy woof gothic gave us 6 points – 12 to the Netherlands.

After the jury votes the UK are leading the score board!
Germany has 0 points at this stage and France has 9 points.

Again with the UK representative and Norton jokes some of the team wish they had dressed up more having assumed we wouldn’t do this well. Again the rep is very positive.

Head honcho confirms the tele-votes are in but we will only know our votes last as we are at the top of the rankings.

The hosts explain how the votes work once more.

Now for the tele-vote… which could overturn everything…

Points given to the United Kingdom by the public vote

I’ll cherry pick the tele-vote for big shifts in position.

Germany got 6 points in the end so no one is going home with the dreaded ‘nil point’. France ends with 17 points.

The Rasmus were happy with 26 points for Finland – in fairness it wasn’t a year for rock music it seems. Moldova got 253 points rocketing up near the top suddenly!

Norway got 182 points in the end. Estonia 141 points in the end. Poland 151 points. Switzerland got 0 public vote points – brutal but they got a cheer as we got previously thankfully.

Serbia was given a collective 312 points which shifted them into the lead! Norton notes it’s a big upset so they’ll be top 5 but not the winners. Azerbaijan got 3 public votes so quite different from some of the jury votes where they scored well. The delegations show support to each other. Italy got 268 in the end so the possible agenda of ‘do well but don’t win’ was achieved if intended as Norton speculated.

Ukraine got 192 from the juries and combined with the public vote got 439 points so they’ve got 631 points in total! It’s been 10 years we are on the left side of the score board so there’s no shame as Norton noted.

Spain had a total of 459 so the 50 years since winning continues.
Sweden had a total of 438 points.

UK needed over 300 votes and Norton felt it was unlikely. We got 183 points WE GOT SECOND PLACE! IT’S STILL A MASSIVE VICTORY FOR US!

Ukraine won. Our tele-vote gave awarded the United Kingdom’s 12 points to them.

The lead vocalist shouted Slava Ukraini (Ukainian victory/glory to Ukraine – but in the same way in Welsh we say Cymru am Byth – ‘Wales forever’ – it’s not a strictly political statement… but… well… it kind of is. Even if the hosts were talking of peace and such immediately after.

Conclusion:

Is it a political vote that won it for Ukraine? Well not by official bodies but ‘the public have spoken’ it appears. My concern is how are Ukrainian citizens going to feel about hosting it when the nation may still be in the middle of a conflict this time next year? (I hope they’re not but, this time last year, could anyone have seriously predicted this conflict would even exist let alone at the stage it is at?) It would be a drain on an economy which can’t afford it just to make other European nations feel like they’re showing support.

Will the Eurovision officials try to have it hosted in another nation as a proxy? Presumably they’ll host it right on the western edge of Ukraine in one of the western most cities – most likely Lviv which is a tourism hot spot and deemed “More quintessentially Ukrainian than the rest of the country, and distinctly more European” than other western Ukrainian cities by Lonely Planet.

Was it a given they would win? As I said I am biased as I have listened to Ukrainian folk music for years so cannot say. From what I recall, the votes have not looked too well on overtly region specific folk music entries in the past and especially not on rap so this is either a massive shift in pan-European tastes or something else shifted people’s voting views and there’s an obvious ‘show of support’ variable clear and present. Remove the rap and this is just like a song off one of the CDs I have.

Of course you could also make the same sort of assessment asking why the United Kingdom did so well this year compared to the past ten years. That is relatively obvious from a political point of view regarding being involved in a war and then later, in frustration, entering representatives who were gradually less polished than previous. I think last year was a turning point where we put forward an entry who clearly had made a recognisable effort without it feeling jaded. This year was an all out charm offensive with someone who clearly had an international following via social media so he was well known abroad while we put forward ‘famous in the UK’ entries prior or novelty acts during the lowest point just to show our faces since we were one of the ‘big 5’ contributors and so ‘obligated’ to appear whether the acts deserved it or not.

So the United Kingdom is taking this as the best case scenario for us as it’s not overshadowed Ukraine but we’ve proven we are capable of competing successfully.

Overall I felt it was dull. Not subdued, not that entries didn’t make an effort, just that it seemed like everything had a clinical gloss to it. You expect some level of artifice to the Eurovision as everything is embellished but, if anything, there felt less of a festive sense of wonder to the entire thing and more of a corporate sensibility on how things were presented. Could you honestly say any acts really represented the culture of their nation? A bull fighter’s jacket here, a fabric pattern there but only Ukraine seemed to really seem, on sight, unmistakably representative of their nation’s traditional aspects while others were very modern and therefore homogenous. But perhaps that is just me trying to recall the entries a few hours later and feeling it was more of a youth entertainment assembly than nations showing the best of their cultures.

I’ll check in the next day or two for anything that needs tidying up in the post.

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Eurovision 2021 : Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Once more we return to the battle of the ballads in this international song contest consisting of European nations and a few non-EU nations they allow to compete – including the United Kingdom now we are no longer in the European Union. Although if there was ever any talk of kicking out one of the five biggest financial contributors to the contest at any point I never heard it. Of course it is arranged by the European Broadcast Union and has nothing to do with the political EU but I’m sure some people conflate the two for the sake of national pride and competitiveness.

The entire live stream of the 2021 contest

The sixty-fifth competition’s finale was at last held after a year’s hiatus due to the global pandemic events. You know what it was so no need to dwell. There was a 3500 audience limit on site dur to restrictions and apparently everyone has been tested and precautions taken. There were 39 countries who took part in the previous round but 19 were eliminated. The finale took place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. When the Russian entry came out during the initial ‘contestant parade’ introduction it sounded like she was booed slightly though the cheering covered most of it but it was noticeably lower in tone than the cheers for others.

A recap of the songs for those who don’t want to go through all the videos below.

After everyone had entered the hosts sang with Eurovision dancers behind them. Nikkie Tutorials, I forgot she existed but she was one of the presenters and I think was involved in last year’s replacement events so it sort of feels like she has become a permanent fixture of the event. Video postcards were shown before each act depicting interesting art installation, open walled, rooms around the country.

Beneath are my initial reactions to each act along with those of Graham Norton who is the commentator for the UK. He seemed to finally getting very comfortable in the role and making quips in the style everyone fondly remembers Terry Wogan coming out with back when he covered it. Of course the irreverent tone of commentary rubs up certain quarters of the contest the wrong way for not taking it as seriously as they do themselves. That’s the awkward thing about the contest – it has this façade of ‘a bit of fun’ but it’s a very serious business to some. Thus everyone can be enjoying themselves then someone comes along and po-faced says ‘right, stop that right now’ like a John Cleese or Graham Chapman character interrupting a Monty Python sketch. Except it’s not surreal or done for comic effect.

Cyprus / Elena Tsagrinou – El Diablo

Diamonds over a skin tone body suit to get the dad vote. The song is one of those summer time anthems that all end up sounding too similar if it’s not music you take and interest in. Part of me keeps hearing Lady Gaga’s Alejandro in the chorus parts.

Good energy and presentation so might do fairly well despite being the opening act. The dancers with the red line down the centre of their face look like they’re from a cult in a fantasy series – with the red catsuits it reminds me of the TV adaption of The Sword of Truth series. The hip isolation part of the dance is very impressive on a technically level but the costumes of the dancers mean they disappear due to the read and often low lighting given to them.

It’s a good pop song… because it sounds like a remix of the Lady Gaga song Alejandro with different lyrics. I would be surprised if there hasn’t been a claim of plagiarism.

Albania / Anxhela Peristeri – Karma

A ‘silver Vegas leotard look’ as Graham Norton puts it. The performance has a good opening. The song reminds me of the soundtrack from the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Good staging and lighting effects but is it really effective for the song? A costume of diamond strings and… that’s it besides some red smoke. Usually you’d expect an evening dress like look if doing this if stood alone on stage or to have backing dancers if wearing a costume like that. Another ‘trying to get the dad vote’ costume decision then.

She is playing to the people sat voting at home rather than to the audience due to the looks to the camera that were planned. Woof. Then comes the unannounced epilepsy seizure moment (which seems common this year unless you notice the small text on the screen during the postcards). Norton said she looked like Carol Voderman.

One thing I notice in hindsight is the official music video for the entries are usually far tamer costume wise than the stage costumes in the finale. It’s not critical to the songs but it probably does affect the presumed acceptability of some acts only for the finale to have the more provocative wardrobe choices.

Israel / Eden Alene – Set Me Free

She trained as a ballerina and is attempting the B6 note which is apparently the highest ever attempted at this competition. It’s hardly a Mariah Carey like vocal performance so, honestly, it’s not something anyone would realise unless you were informed before hand though she does randomly hit the note just before the end.

I suppose it will give her some achievement as the song itself doesn’t feel like it will stand out. Interesting crown/traditional Slavic headdress inspired hairstyle. The silver and white costumes look like sportswear. The ribbons on the dancers seem like a desperate last moment effort to avoid that comparison.

The song is an also ran sort. It’s not really got any good hook though it’s competently performed. Then a last moment on stage wardrobe change which doesn’t change much.

Belgium / Hooverphonic – The Wrong Place

Dark and moody. It reminds me of late 90s songs. They’ve a Portishead vibe but the song is more alternative pop. Much more toned down presentation with the singer and band wearing black on stage, although the singer having some sparkles on her dress, so the focus is on the song.

As spectacle is part of this contest so they probably won’t do amazing but this is more about getting their name out to potential future foreign fans it seems. It’s a nice subdued song – the sort of thing you imagine being the music of a intro to a TV drama.

I have come across it before but I don’t known if that was by chance or it was on an advert. I’m sure I’ve heard their name before.

Russia / Manizha – Russian Woman

Wearing what looks like a jumpsuit which is in stark contrast to the wardrobe of other entries. She has a message of tolerance and acceptance which apparently caused some issues in Russia.

Initially she seems a novelty act due to the massive puffed out layers and golden hair ribbon headdress. (Later San Marino does a similar idea of shedding an ornate dress which seems a coincidence). Chanting. It’ll either do well or fall flat… and since it’s the Russian entry and she seemed to get booed when entering earlier it might be like the UK entries from a few years ago where no matter how positive the message it’s still going to get a bad reception (fortunately it did end up doing quite well though not near the top contenders). More epilepsy flashing imagery.

It’s nice enough and evokes moments of Russian traditional music to represent the nation’s culture which many entries often don’t choose to do.

Malta / Destiny – Je Me Casse

She won Junior Eurovision at 13 years old and is now 18. Sparkly dress with tassels. The song is effective. Wow, if you’ve not had an epileptic seizure by now it’s some miracle or you’ve avoided looking at the screen.

It’s a good song but it will probably be mid tier. The bright neon pink of the dancers with the ballet bar kind of draws attention to how little the singer is doing physically in the performance. She will get a ‘body positivity’ vote but Eurovision seems very traditional in its values so that might not get her far (it didn’t).

‘Large and in charge’ she reminds me of American gospel singers from the late 80s or early 90s. The lyrics are very repetitive. It’ll get a nightclub remix and do well on the dance floor. Technically good but not that engaging.

Portugal / The Black Mamba – Love Is On My Side

Norton said it’s very Paul McCartney/Wings in tone. Retro suits and showing them in black and white on TV initially which seems a bit of a cheat visually. It’s a very nice performance.

A slow ballad. Portugal seem to do well with slow ballads. The dark horse entry but it could win as other dark horses in the contest have previously (including Portugal themselves in 2017).

The first song, so far, where I actually would like to hear it again a few times. Simple but bold graphics on the screens behind them. I would be shocked if this isn’t a contender for winning. One of my favourites of the night. (They came twelfth in the end).

Serbia / Hurricane – Loco Loco

Oh, I notice they do put a text warning for epilepsy on screen in the postcard section. I sort of wish Norton had said it earlier too and he might have.

Intricate costumes. They remind me of some costumes I’ve seen Little Mix wear for concerts. Sex sells. Woof. The song is bold but I can imagine we are going to hear a few which have this sort of presentation and tone during the contest so I can’t see it doing amazing though they performed very well and were far more dynamic than many other acts.

I’m biting my tongue not to say ‘generic modern Eurovision dance song’ but it feels like one. They all look like they’ve had plastic surgery or are wearing heavy layers of make up as seems the trend recently.

It was a good effort but this would have done better about ten years ago before things began becoming a bit more conservative culturally across global society.

. . .

Then a break with Nikki Tutorials. I’m sure she is very popular but she just feels tacked on appearing as a contest presenter. I think it’s her make up. It always looks severe to me in how much bronzer she uses. I was surprised to hear her age as she looks 15 to 20 years older.

…

United Kingdom / James Newman – Embers

First of the big five (the major financial contributors to the contest).

Wearing a leather coat or jacket with a gold stripe design which is a bit ‘try hard’ while very understated. It reminds me of clothing I see in some ‘you wouldn’t expect it to cost that much’ high street clothing stores. Also some rings and a golden chain which is a very ‘1980s comedy sketch show caricature of a Greek business man with a market stall selling items of questionable origin’ look.

The song is very ‘modern British’ tonally which is nice as a representation of our current music culture but also fits into Eurovision quite well. It’s a fun, inoffensive number and the dancers get to have some fun. It won’t do amazing but we should do okay. Maybe it’s just my TV but it did sound like the sound was peaking and tinny a few times midway through.

A fun entry. It’ll be interesting to see if his weight is held against him as society seems to accept women as ‘beautiful at any weight’ but not men. (spoiler: zero points from the professional juries and zero points from the public vote too. The audience in the venue were audibly shocked and cheered him when he put on a good face which is a positive to take away from it at least).

Greece / Stefania – Last Dance

According to Norton she just apparently just turned 18 and is ‘dancing with laundry’ according to Norton. She looks like Holly Valance.

Sparkly, form fitting, body suit with ‘flesh windows’ as if it’s a comic accurate superhero costume at a comic book convention. It’s a unique look for Eurovision. She looks like a dominatrix who spilled glitter on herself. The dancer being green screened is amusing but random and you can only imagine how confusing it would be for the live audience. It feels like it is trying make the entry memorable.

The entire performance is very… if you asked someone to do a parody of a Eurovision entry they might make something like this I suppose. It does feel like an early 80s music video but with modern production values. The song is energetic if, again, a bit ‘been there and seen it before’ safe.

Switzerland / Gjon’s Tears – Tout l’Univers

More down to earth than many others. The puffy shirt is an interesting choice but doesn’t suit him. In fact the overall look is of a 5 year old dressed by his mother at the heights of the 1980s.

The song is good and reminds me of serious contenders from previous years. Minimalist staging (but with the flashing lights once more sporadically). I like the song but people tend to either vote for unique entries, saccharine ones or those with the strongest visuals.

It might do exceptionally well or it might do okay. It’s hard to tell with how the votes go often. I would hope it does well. It’s very anthemic. Again an ‘intro music to a detective drama’ type song. (It was one of the leaders during the jury vote alongside France until the public vote gave it to Italy).

Iceland / Da∂i Freyr og Gagnamagni∂ – 10 Years

One of the band members proved positive for Covid so they’re isolating and doing it remotely. Their song last year got a lot of good feedback. This song is about his wife and being married for ten years. She is the one in the back with the keyboard/ curved key-tar.

This will surely blow everything else out of the water. The ‘pixel art’ sweaters of the band members faces, the differing sections of the song to appeal to everyone… this is surely a Eurovision classic already? People said they felt the group was robbed by last year’s contest being cancelled (and it’s a rule everyone returning to compete had to perform a new song) so it’s highly likely they’re going to steam roll to victory.

This is one of those songs you can tell people will be listening to decades down the road as we do some songs that were in the contest in the 70s and onwards. A modern classic of a Eurovision entry so it’ll be shocking if it doesn’t win really but there’s some strong competition. (I got it wrong. They came in fourth place after Italy, France and Switzerland).

Spain / Blas Cantó – Voy A Querdarme

Second of the big five who get automatic entry due to financial contribution.

The moon is apparently the biggest prop ever used for the contest. I guess the screens used in recent years don’t count. Black shirt open enough to show some chest and a 5 o clock shadow – that’ll get some votes no doubt.

It’s a classic sounding piece so will do well though I would challenge you to single it out if similar songs were put with it. It’s an end credits song to an anime. It just kind of stops suddenly. (It came twenty-fourth! I thought it was a solid entry personally but apparently it was a strong year for entries overall so it fell by the way side apparently.)

Moldova / Natalia Gordienko – SUGAR

One of the backing dancers looks like the British comedian Michael McIntyre according to Norton.

A blonde with big hair and a sparkly short dress to show off her legs so she could be from the current year or any time since the contest began arguably. In fact it’s like the costume used in Cyprus’ entry but with sleeves. Woof. The dancers are bare chested so look like ‘sexy’ cosplay versions of PSY, Matrix agents or Dr Octopus.

The song is enjoyable if generic. Another ‘it’ll fall somewhere in the middle’ song. It was okay. Nothing wrong with it but nothing stood out either. (It came thirteenth – right in the middle!)

Germany / Jendrik – I Don’t Feel Hate

Third of the big five financial contributors.

The ‘marmite one’ according to Norton so you’ll love it or hate it. He thinks it sounds educational like ‘don’t play with matches’.

The bold colours and designs definitely evoke children’s television programming. The ‘peace sign’ hand is another ‘trying to be memorable’ effort that feels too blatantly quirky. It’s a fun song so might get some votes but also makes you want to punch them in the face a little bit. Try hard quirkiness. From experience such people are miserable off stage.

It’s entire tone is clearly meant to be jokingly passive aggressive like ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’. That’s the tone coming across really. It’s Eurovision’s version of Mean Girls. A bit of German humour which fell flat as they came last but one with three points: two from Austria (block voting?) and one from Romania.

It was fun but it seems like Eurovision is actively drifting away from encouraging kitsch recently.

Finland / Blind Channel – Dark Side

Lordi’s homeland. Also the homeland of the Moomins. Also the homeland of Simo Häyhä ‘the white death’ sniper who terrified the Soviet Army during WW2. It’s a nice chilled country in more than one sense.

ROCK! YES! One of my favourites by default. The baggy parachute trousers don’t look good on anyone but whatever. PYROTECHNICS! YEAH! THE DARK SIDE! HOO HOO HOO!

But, to be serious, it’s a standout compared to other entries. I hope it does well but people are more prudish these days even though this is nothing challenging and you can tell they’ve cleaned it up a bit to fit into the contest. (They got sixth place which isn’t bad considering how different the song is to everything else though Norton seems to think all rock music is the same as he kept comparing it to Italy’s entry.)

. . .

then we have a look at some commentator booths. Denmark – It looks cramped. Apparently they had been wearing their silver suits for the past 2 days according to Norton. Then the Russian one – the ladies jacket seems to be missing the shoulder sections. They give the host woman a bouquet of flowers which was nice.

. . .

Bulgaria / Victoria – Growing Up is Getting Old

Her father has motor-neuron disease so the staging reflects the sands of time running out. Stuck on a derelict ship/island surrounded by rippling water. A simple little ballad. Sat on the floor wearing a blue linen body suit covering her tattoos in case some people don’t like them. Woof. It will hopefully do well as another stand out in the contest.

It’s another anthemic piece which is very reflective yet uplifting if a little twee. The end credit music entry in contrast to those that are the intro music. Hopefully it does well. One more ‘want to hear it again’ entry.

One of my favourites of the year – actually Bulgaria, if I recall correctly, always seem to put in entries I like.

Lithuania / The Roop – Discoteque

‘People from IT dressed up as Steps’ according to Norton. Hand gestures and a very 90s aesthetic achieved with modern techniques.

It’s a good song. Slightly darker in tone due to the electronica aspect. Again I’m getting ‘TV thriller intro music’ vibes. It won’t win but I enjoy it and it’s another ‘wouldn’t expect to want to hear it again but I will happily’ entry

The hand gestures are proof again that entries are trying to insert memorable aspects for when the vote comes around. (The United Kingdom gave our 12 points to them).

Ukraine / Go_A – Shum

They grew in popularity and gained traction days before the contest apparently. A dance track with a folk song backing. The singer’s style reminds me of the Polish quartet TULIA in the 2019 contest but with flamenco dancer boa sleeves. She has a striking look. Woof. It’s one of the few really reflecting the culture of the nation.

The light circles with the dancers are an interesting addition. The rising tempo suggests it should do well. It definitely stands out and should do well. It makes you want to get up and dance. The disco ball men in the screens are a bit nightmare fuel though.

It reminds me, in hindsight, of the band Percival whose folk song adaptions were used for the computer game Witcher 3. Rewatching clips during the voting period I’m going to say this edges it as my favourite of the year though there were some good entries. (They came in fifth place ultimately).

France / Barbara Pravi – Voilà

The fourth of the big five financial contributors to the competition.

They haven’t won since 1977 apparently but they’re a bookies favourite this year. A rousing French ballad. Very French in style. The bustier and being alone on stage is meant to represent her being raw and exposed – her emotional vulnerability exposed to the audience. Woof. It seems this year it’s a mix of standard fare, striking visuals or earnest pleas to the heart. The bustier reminds me of Besson’s The Fifth Element unintentionally. It is another dark horse potential contender. Even if it doesn’t win it’ll be remembered in years to come and again is one of the entries to reflect the nation it represents. Very striped back staging and everything but it works in it’s favour hopefully. Norton says it’ll win or be top five. (It came in second place after both counts concluded).

Azerbaijan / Efendi – Mata Hari

Sparkly. Chanting. The high pony tails. It’s clear what vote they’re going for – the girl group vote or the dad vote. It’s okay but too similar to other entries as a song.

The patterns in the background are nice and the instrumental both allude to the nation’s cultural heritage. Woof. The choreography is much more elaborate than many entries which is to their credit.

It picks up towards the end but I don’t see it being one of the big contenders though it was well performed.

Norway / TIX – Fallen Angel

This entry was talked about a lot. He has Tourette’s and facial tics hence the glasses and his name.

The angels and demons imagery with him chained by his demons is a bit on the nose symbolism wise but it stands out and will be featured in future ‘remember the 2021 contest’ clips no doubt.

It’s a nice ballad but doesn’t quite have the power of some other entries. If he swore or said something out of the blue I think it might have gone down better – either for the car crash potential or sympathy vote.

It really reminds me of a music video for a 90s boyband – East17 of Boy Zone in particular.

The Netherlands (Hosts) / Jeangu Macrooy – Birth of a New Age

An M.C. Hammer jacket or is it more like those of Milli Vanilli? The person in red is very emphatic and I like the body isolation dance/gestures they do about a minute in.

It’s a pleasant song. It really is invoking the 90s to me. The sort of thing you hear on the radio and enjoy then forget to look up later until you chance upon it years down the line. Good choreography.

It won’t go far but it was a feel good performance in a year of entries vying for the top spot (probably to recoup costs incurred by the delay of last year by everyone).

Italy / Måneskin – Zitti E Buoni

Fifth and final of the big five financial contibutors to the contest who get automatically entered into the finale.

Norton finally mentioned the strobing effects for the last three. Another heavy metal song! Norton hopes it might grown on him ‘like mould on a bathroom ceiling’.

The costumes remind me of Jo Jo’s Bizarre Adventure part 5, Vento Aureo, which is set in Italy and yet are also very 1970s rock inspired. Someone mentioned they are like the British band The Darkness in evoking that era but being modern.

The song is good if vocally a bit too fast paced and more a modern skater punk induced rock rap than classic rock. The guitarist woman woof. It’s not a patch on the Finnish entry though and Norton lumped them in together as heavy metal rock when this is more glam in tone.

Norton says they’re more ‘angry as if they asked for no ice in their drink’ compared to the energy of Finland’s entry. (Italy won the competition ultimately).

Sweden / Tusse – Voices

Apparently there was a mild controversy that Tusse was representing Sweden this year. Last year the Mamas were selected to represent the nation but the Swedish 2021 representative selection contest proceeded and the Mamas didn’t win it. Other nations automatically re-entered their 2020 entrants to be fair to them. Not in Sweden though sadly.

His costume is very… live action adaption or embellished cosplay of a fighting game. Specifically the live action film adaption of Street Fighter comes to mind. The choreography is very well done synchronisation wise.

The song is pretty good but will be lost in the selection this year though it would do well in other years. The flashing lights add nothing to it but I feel those effects don’t add to most acts anyway. Everyone kept saying this was a strong year of contenders according to Norton.

San Marino / Senhit – Adrenalina

Senhit represented the country ten years ago. This time she is accompanied by Flo Ride surprisingly. Impressive costume at the start. It’s very esoteric.

But then she removes it and it’s a more bland trouser suit with large shoulder pads. Well it’s bland for Eurovision. Fur collar and sleeves. It reminds me of Black Cat’s costume from the Spider-Man comics. The costumes on the dancers are… interesting. I’m not sure what aesthetic they’re going for here. Maybe ‘sexy steam punk yetis’?

Then Flo Rider turns up and it’s like a remix of the first half of the song. I wonder how they got him involved.

It’s a fun song and nice way to close out the running order. Hopefully it does quite well as it’s a strong performance. It took ten people to write the song apparently.

Norton jokes there are so few people in the country that everyone has a turn eventually if they want to.

Voting Time Events

The presenters dresses look like packaging bows on overpriced boxes of chocolates. It’s an interesting look. Garish enough for those who consider Eurovision cheesy but stylish enough they probably are couture.

Afrojack – Music Binds Us

A nice uplifting song with a cute video. Bit weird to have the string quartet on the tram with face masks on but no one else. Imagine if that’s your big moment for international recognition and your face is covered. Then a guy with a goatee beard appears. Who is he? The guy who can’t perform due to Covid I assume who won last year. Sad for him as this was a moment in the limelight to pass the torch to this year’s winner. No, it’s a DJ. Then the strings with the dancers don’t have face coverings. The video feeds into the live performance of ‘Bulletproof’ song with the DJ ‘shouting it out’. Nice transition!

Nikki Tutorials does a skit about ‘how to rock the vote’

I think it’s the faux-American mannerisms and such that make her hard to like. The American makeup tutorial YouTubers are all a controversial bunch but she may be nothing like them but the presentation is similar to theirs. As mentioned I don’t see why she is connected to the contest but it might be due to being the Netherlands point announcer, featuring last year and again this year and she doesn’t feel as if she is a part of it but is there nonetheless.

Some behind the scenes B-roll while the votes are collated.

Then there is some Carpool Karaoke with former winners. Some joking about hard rock hallelujah Lordi’s costumes with an older winner who liked them but not their monstrous look.

Then there is a tribute to the previous events where people wore evening dress and it gradually grew more and more like a party than a formal event. They also thank the audience for the support throughout the years.

They keep mentioning inviting everyone to the rooftop party.

2015’s Swedish winner is shown performing. He seems a bit more demure compared to the clip when he was competing. I get a sense he is sick of his song which is common for performers if they have one or two ‘big’ songs everyone knows.

Then Teach-In with Ding-A-Dong. Norton asks if it’s the original line up. It’s a office outing karaoke of people who should have retired long ago…

Sandra Kim – 1986’s winner. A ‘mum’s had too much wine’ look on the girls’ night out.

Lenny Kuhr -1969’s winner. So different tonally to the more recent ones. Folk music sounding but then it is from the late 60s and such music was popular then. I like it.

Helena Paparizou – Full figured. Woof. 2005 Greece winner.

Lordi – 2006 Finnish winner in full costume. Norton mocks the costumes must stink and it’s the reason the rooftop concerts were outside. Still got it. Just the right amount of rock to not scare off normies.

2019’s winner Duncan Lawrence is isolating due to testing positive for Corona. They’ve mentioned it a few times throughout the night to the point you wonder if there is some bad feeling’s from the organisers that he was obligated to not attend. They show him performing his new song ‘Stars’. It’s nice.

Before the announcement the blonde announcer Chantelle changed her golden bow dress for a silver one. For the count down dancer create numbers and Norton jokes it’s bitter sweet because once they hit zero they’re all out of a job. And there are inside fireworks.

Jury Votes Announcement

The head of the Eurovision executive board has been replaced by Martin Osterdahl who writes thrillers apparently. I wonder what happened as the previous guy was there for a long time.

Graham Norton’s comments on the vote announcers

The voter jury announcements appear in order of their representative’s performance. Israel has ‘a nice dress’. Poland is ‘wearing a zebra print dress with full length arm gloves’ as Norton notes and wonders ‘if it has a head’ to the costume. He jokes ‘there are so few people in San Marino the announcer will likely represent them eventually’. Malta: ‘someone’s made an effort’. Estonia – ‘the daughter of Estonia’s only ever winner’. Azerbaijan sings and he says ‘there’s always one…’ Norway: ‘wow, she really enjoyed it. She likes music’ (sarcastic). UK: Amada Holden ‘a familiar face’ – she says hello in French but admits she doesn’t know what she is saying. Admits she has on an over the top dress (it looks like ostrich feathers). Greece has a ten year old as their vote announcer. The youngest in Eurovision history. He is an actor. Graham says he did better than many giving the votes. Ireland: no points for the UK. Moldova played a saxophone. He entered multiple times and only did well when not performing live apparently. Serbia: WOOF! Bulgaria: ‘Joanna’s going out later – she’s in a bubble’ WOOF! Cyprus: ‘could Greece get the 12 points? – ‘of course they do’.

Those were the National Jury Votes so far. We have then had a break before continuing. The UK has 0 points so far. It’s between France and Switzerland with Malta, Iceland and Italy following but with growing distance between each step. France was the bookies favourite. France vs Switzerland so far. All the bookies’ favourites are at the top. Three of the big financial contributors are at the bottom.

Germany: ‘trying to get lipstick off her teeth’ – puffy sleeves dress and weird ribbon medals. Finland: ‘oh, hello, I wear this every time I go to the smelting plant- just casual (glittery pink dress/jacket). Portugal Woof. Taianna – woof. Iceland: Netflix Eurovision song – ya ya ding dong so jokey entry. Says 12 for ya ya ding dong. But really for Switzerland. Romania – former Olympic gymnast woof. Croatia ‘oh, little bit of product in the hair’. Czech Republic (not Czechia despite the government trying to get people to use that name) Woof. Georgia ‘someone dressed up’ (the man was wearing a t-shirt with a map of Georgia on it). Denmark ‘you’re out late’ Russia Polina Gagarina: WOOF! Graham apologises if you hear foul language despite the late hour from the green room. France: woof. Sweden ‘did she know that man’ – an audio engineer had to adjust her mic/coat/dress collar as she appeared. ‘more wine for Barbara – corolla’ when she stumbled over her words. ‘what, what who are you I can hear voices’ – ‘we got there in the end’.

At the end of the Jury Vote the UK had got 0 points.

Viewers’ Votes Announcement

Then the viewer votes. The UK got theirs first because of the placement so far. The votes are collated so we don’t know which countries gave us the most backing unlike with the professional jury votes. The UK also got zero points from the public! People in the audience were audibly shocked. But James put on a positive face and people cheered him (as he spilt a bottle of beer on the floor when waving his arms). Germany got zero points too. As did Spain. No one else received zero public votes, Everyone else got points. Graham believes people all voted for certain countries so there would be some high scoring for certain entries. Usually ‘the public spread their love around’ so it’s unusual. Norway got 60 points out of the lowest jury vote scorers. Graham believes it to be ‘a year like no other’ due to the way the votes are spread.
Lithuania got 165 public votes. Finland got 218 points! They won’t win but it’s a lot of votes. Ukraine got 267 points! Russia got 100 points. Iceland got 180 points! Italy got 318 points! France got 251 points! It’s now either Italy or Switzerland… Switzerland got 161 points.

Italy won with 524 points. France had 499 points despite being the bookies favorite. They did well with the jury vote and public vote in fairness. Not one I ranked as a potential winner but good for them. Also nice he said ‘rock never dies’. It’s very 70s style which was the ‘golden era’ for Eurovision so calls back to that costumes wise and so… it shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s soft rock so doesn’t scare off those who don’t enjoy rock music.

Conclusion

Here are how all the scores were spread if you wish to check. The UK gave Lithuania our televote’s 12 points and the jury vote gave 12 points to the French entry. Looking at the numbers it definitely seems like there was a division between the jury votes and public vote on which performances should get points. That seems a common universal theme – what is valued by experts and what is valued by the common folk can vastly differ.

Graham notes there are a lot of disappointed people in the arena on the night but everyone is glad to be back in the contest.

First it was the Iraq War and now Brexit I guess. That or our entries really are that bad and we can’t rely on block voting to even give us a few ‘friendly’ points. Then again if you’re reading this you probably already consider the UK to be outside the EU anyway due to Brexit. Perhaps you feel that should extend to participation in the contest although there are non-EU countries who participate and we are one of the bigger financial contributors to the competition so it would only serve to damage the event for the sake of tolerating our annual entry.

As a little extra for those who got this far here is a behind the scenes documentary BBC Radio 1 did with James Newman and a few others are also mentioned.

Eurovision 2019 : Tel Aviv, Israel

Knee jerk, irreverent, reactions to watching the live final… a fortnight late because no one looks at these posts but it’s a useful reference.

This year themes and notable moments : Bland performances by singers with songs that don’t suit their voices, lots of 1990s feeling costumes and songs, conservative boybands, performers dressed like fighting game characters and zettai ryouiki.The sentences will be legible but I won’t tidy the grammar up so it retains that ‘instant reaction’ tone. Ukraine again makes a political statement regarding Russia but this time end up withdrawing an none of their chosen acts will perform for them due to the terms of the contract they proposed but Maruv is allowed to perform her song especially for the interval as a gesture of goodwill to her by the contest. Madonna is showing her age and gets a very muted response from the audience when she performs during the interval.

I’ll put the key sentences of each country’s commentary in bold for the lazy Tl;Dr casual scanning readers looking for specific content.

[edit: on a side note it’s the same ‘flame columns’ pyrotechnics very act seemed to have so I guess it was that or nothing which was allowed… which is very restrictive. In fact the ‘screen’ visual effects were also very limited this year. On the whole this year felt like a downgrade from previous years and really makes you appreciate how much effort other countries put into the experience while Israel puts out a ‘budget’ version and yet has the cheek during one of the intervals to hire Gal Gadot to promote the country to people for tourism].

* * *

Malta : Chameleon – Michela Pace

Nice song but completely the wrong tone of voice for it. Staging isn’t much. One year someone will dress as the european comic character Corto Maltese and boom… there’ll be a mass flood of fan votes. Very 90s style of costume. The sacrificial lamb first act of this year. A generic pop song. I am certain I’ve heard songs exactly like this on the radio. Knee socks and a jacket with see through vinyl sleeves, ending with denim cuffs, on a denim jacket. Odd look once you pay attention and one not seen since 1990s British girl bands.

Albania : Ktheju Tokës – Jonida Maliqi

The song title means ‘return to your land’ – so there’s a mild unintentional xenophobic tone to the title until you hear the song. I like it as it represents the heritage of Albania’s music with a modern twist. Then again I’ve been playing Koudelka and the Shadow Hearts series of games and the soundtrack has echoes of similar ‘epic ballad’ aspects so it’s a mild unintentional bias by me there. Pretty standard staging of a singer in operatic looking dress with backing singers. I liked it in context. [edit: after hearing all the songs I favour it a bit more for at least taking a risk compared to the more pop song like entries].

Czech Republic : Friend of a Friend – Lake Malawi

Catchy song. For a moment the guy sounds like he has an Essex accent when saying the girl moved back in which caught me completely off guard… that was random. Yes, nice beat. The lyrics, just like many from the boy band One Direction’s, have a slightly sinister entilted misogynistic tone to them yet you never hear it commented on openly ‘he’s cute and misunderstood and I can fix him so it’s okay if he doesn’t treat me well and always gives be backhanded compliments implying I’m nothing without his love as he can see past how ugly I am to my true beauty in supporting him’. Boy bands and romance novels is where all those life long insecurities begin. Nothing new when you look back to Wuthering Heights and other classics. Three handsome guys in trainers, skinny jeans, baggy jumpers playing instruments playing repetitive inoffensive music… Every teenager girls wet dream… to be honest you can imagine them being drowned out by the screams of teenage girls at a concert. Inoffensive stuff but the longer it goes on the more low energy it feels.

Germany : Sister – S!sters

A blonde and brunette duet. Call each other sister.. but, plot twist, they are not sisters. It’s nice. A good solid entry with a good rhythm and perfomance with stripped back staging. Instantly forgettable though but you can imagine it being used in a pivitol scene in a feel good drama’s climax when two friends reunite after some disagreement or something. It’s a nice song but maybe didn’t capture people’s hearts. [edit: public vote = 0 points… so indeed it didn’t].

Russia : Scream – Sergey Lazarev

You already realise this blog will be biased towards this entry but in fairness they tend to have quite solid entries in fairness year on year usually. It’s a solid entry and a strong contender. Building chorus and everything. Again throwing everything at it instrumentally and staging wise though the vocals might feel a bit softer than you’d hope when listening to it. Actually the staging with the multiple screens gets a little ridiculous and I wonder if there should be some rule against some aspects used as it felt a bit like it ended on an echo effect/recording. Very good though… I’ll forget it it soon enough. He took part in 2008? or 2018?

Denmark : Love Is Forever – Leonora

A very 2000s song. It reminds me of someone like Kate Nash. It looks nice when you watch the video but bear in mind she starts off with her back to the audience so it’s not as good an experience when there in person. A giant chair… it reminds me of those American photos of workmen eating their lunch on skyscraper worksites miles bove the city skyline. It’s a nice simple song. I mean once everyone’s sat up on there you spend more time in anticipation of someone falling off more than anything…

San Marino : Say Na Na Na – Serhat

Serhat is a dentist and claimed this took 5 minutes to write. Well yeah with lyrics like ‘na na’ I’m not expecting it to have been a struggle. It’s… very karaoke friendly. Another ‘I swear I saw this in the late 90s’ entry. Staging wise they have that effect that looks like the video files got corrupted for the background imagery and just went with it. It’ll get in the highlight reel for the year no doubt. It’s enjoyable. You won’t forget the chorus. Then he begins getting ‘yeah going crazy’… yes. Na na na. Say na na na. Say na na na… sayonara San Marino. Everyone, costume wise, looks like they’re going to the tennis court immediately after performance.

North Macedonia : Proud – Tamara Todevska

Sincerity. Well this is hitting all the buttons for me. Opera length dress and husky voice. Motivational lyrics. Maudline tone. I’ll be honest it does look like her dress slipped down due to the ‘exposed bra cups’ design. That’s as sexy as it gets this conservative year. It’s enjoyable. Another ‘you’ll hear it on an advert or during a moment in a drama’ song. Never really hits the pinacle I was hoping might arrive before the end so it feels incomplete.

Sweden : Too Late for Love – John Lundvik

Striped back staging with the one ‘caught escaping’ light behind him. Strong lyrics. Nice lead into the beat and then cuts back to vocal priority. Yes strong entry. Enjoyable. It’ll do well I assume. I can see them twisting this for Brexit/other conflicts use in future. No doubt we will hear this again over the next few years.

Slovenia : Serbi – Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl

They met on Instagram apparently. The intro reminds me of a lot of Sting’s songs. She looks like she has Down’s Syndrome. If she actually has it’s very progressive to feature her. I would like more, staging wise, if they didn’t have her stood singing right into his face as he plays the guitar. I like the song for that sort of lamenting tone it has but… it probably isn’t going to do good if people want an upbeat song this year. Both wear white and hold hands later on but it’s very… teenagers at a school assembly talent show due to how they’re dressed. Bit of a mantra quality to it. It’ll be big with the normie ‘I like feeling creeped out’ audience and those who think that the couple look a bit incestuous. I like the song and her voice – it’s just they don’t look like they gel together visually and are a bit too awkward on stage which in turn makes the audience feel a bit awkward watching. The song is good though. I want to hear it again [edit: …and this is one of, if the only, song of the finalists I honest can say that about this year].

Cyprus : Replay – Tamta

Vinyl zettai ryouiki. [Other acts also feature it so maybe this was the only way to be ‘sexy’ this year due to the more conservative nature of performers’ costumes due some behind the scenes mandate the public never heard of]. She is dressed the way early 3D fighting game characters dressed due to low polygon counts. Then the pull the top off and it’s even more like a costume of that era of gaming! It’s a generic sounding dance track… nothing else to add really. I forgot it instantly in indeed I was even able to remember it as I was listening to it.

Netherlands : Arcade – Duncan Laurence

One of, if not the, favourites this year going into the finals according to bookies etc. Yeah this has ‘Eurovision winner’ written over it the way ‘a Hollywood film where an attractive actor ‘goes ugly’ for a role by putting weight on [Chris Hemsworth as ‘fat Thor’ is in the running no doubt this year by that logic] or portrays disability or depicting ficitionalised real life events of someone’s experiences during World War’ 2 has ‘Oscar winner’ written all over it. Anthemic. Sad. Warbbling. He mimes playing the piano. Yeah this will be top 2 if it doesn’t win. [Spoiler: It wins.]

Greece : Better Love – Katerine Duska

Distinctive voice… it’s the vocal equivilant of Marmite. Balletic sword fighters duel weilding. Dancers fluttering wings. A arched churchdoorway mini-stage. I like it but that voice is going to throw a lot of people off. ARGH when she goes for high notes! She’s one of those women who is single and you wonder why then you hear her voice… I joke. It’s a nice song and the staging is very nice. Nonetheless that voice is going to lose votes probably. Very ‘Florence + the Machine’ in style.

Israel : Home – Kobi Marimi

”Hometown Hero” – no one was allowed to see them rehearse so… could be amazing could be a shitshow. Those rhymes… I… he is losing me with every line. The chorus aiding him improves it… but indeed it’s very much f a ‘this is me’ generic rising chorus ‘confidence gaining’ song from a musical. I like the ‘beams of lighting’ staging watching it but having been at events using it it’s a death ray if you’re sat in the wrong seats and get blasted by it for minutes straight. It’s a nice song… the warbling highnote at the end kind of mutes it. Good response as he’s the home hero but… eh it’ll do okay but it’s not the best.

Norway : Spirit in the Sky – KeiiNO

George Harrison. Admit it you too were wondering if it was going to be a cover though those are not allowed at Eurovision. Primark military style jacket. Essex face lift pony tail for the lady and… IT’S THE YODELLING BALD MAN! INSTANT WINNER! Nice dance track but that yodelling man… damn that’s a winner addition! He even gets a solo!!! and Yggdrasil, the tree of life from Norse legend, makes an appearance! Eurovision gold!

United Kingdom : Bigger Than Us – Michael Rice

From Hartlypool. The British entry so maybe I’ll be mildly bias. It’s a nice ballad. I don’t think he starts on the right note… Anthemic but subdued. It could go any way to be honest. Who are we kidding he’s the British entry… as soon as he gets in the greenroom they’ll get him as drunk as possible to numb the inevitable pain of the low votes. If we get on the left side of the score board it’ll be a small miracle. It’s a nice pop song. I honestly feel a bit more impact was needed though. I mean the backing vocalists almost drown him out on at least one occasion. He thanks Europe and says he is living his dream performing there Cool, good manners. Good boy.

* * * * *

Midpoint: The male presenter behind stage, in he green room, asks the San Marino entrant Serhat the dentist a question then cuts him off before he can answer properly. ‘Presenters being presenters’ as ever… can’t cut into that running time even to be polite.

Here are some comments by the British Eurovision commentator Graham Norton about the entries:

* * * * *

Iceland : Hatrið mun sigra – Hatari

‘Hatred will Prevail’ is the meaning of the title. Thus very ‘anti-Eurovision’. Very anti-capitalist too aparently. Weirdly electro-punk with industrial style accoustics. I like. Eurovision needs more rock music like this and Lordi. Flame spikes. Edward Scissorhands outfit and mohawks. Well this is my favourite but it won’t win. No doubt people are claiming it scares them, for some reason or other just because it’s not mainstream, as if they’re going to wake up suspended from the ceiling in a gimp costume as part of someone’s sex dungeon… such people shouldn’t have been allowed to read 50 Shades of Grey as it’s given them ideas. Saying that it should have been about 30 seconds shorter as I got bored by the end.

Estonia : Storm – Victor Crone

Pretty guy in a leather jacket with an acoustic guitar. Mr generic cool guy to every generation… He will have a better than he would otherwise as a contrast to Iceland’s entry no question. Even got some clapping along early on by the audience wanting to spirit away the dark energy Iceland left them with. Nice breezy song. I enjoy it. Might be a bit too ‘seen it already’ due to others having similar songs though. Really the longer it goes on the more I think ‘I’ve heard that bit elsewhere…’ Enjoyable though. Apparently augmented effects were used. That’s becoming more common for the staging on the night of course.

Belarus : Like It – Zena

She reminds me of the blogger Angelika Oles. Then she has one of those hot pink and white with black accent outfits that looks like a cross between an F1 pit girl and a gogo dancer. She has B-boy backing dancers. Nothing really stands out. Zettai ryouiki again and a bared midrift. The only two areas acceptable in clean family entertainment to indicate sex appeal. [edit: when I typed that I was thinking of Princess Jasmine from Disney’s Aladdin only to find out in the live action film version they give her a most conservative costume with a corset like covering for her midriff]. The song is an ‘also ran’. Even when listening to it it wasn’t sticking with me. ‘Impossible’ you say? You’d be surprised.

Azerbaijan : Truth – Chingiz

Thumping beat. Robot arms. A laser on his chest like the Predator is about to kill him. Husky male voice singing. Good good. Goes into a higher register but fine. ‘shut up about it’ he chants.. in a song called Truth… interesting. Yeah nice song but not going to get too high. More about the staging with the electro girl head than anything really. He is dressed like a character from a 1980-90s SNK beat-em up. No really. Look up ‘King of Fighters’ and you’ll find his outfit on a guy with a ponytail. It’s the year of ‘beat-em up costumes!

France : Roi – Bilal Hassani

A feminine looking man. He is like the lead male character from the most recent trilogy of SNK’s King of Fighters games! Or Remy from Street Fighter III! He’s also deaf and doesn’t conform to gender stereotypes apparently. The ‘progressive’ vote then but also he would get the Japanese boyband vote too if there was one. ABBA outfit. On fleek eyebrows. Guy will launch his own makeup Youtube channel and brand if he hasn’t got one already. Obese dancer… she actually moves quite well. However they replace her with a tiny Asian lady soon enough. He reminds me of an anime Bishonen (pretty boy) or androgenous villain with his look. No seriously go look up anime and scroll down the images and I am certain you’ll find someone with his look. As for the song… it’s a standard Eurovision entry. Good but you’ll forget about it.

Italy : Soldi – Mahmood

The ‘I like rap’ option for what it’s worth. Badass in a hawaiian shirt and earring with one of those wallet chains you’ve not seen since the 2000s with American skater punk bands like Limp Biskit or Sum41. Clap clap. You’ll hear this in the clubs. It’ll get a really good dance remix. It feels a little lifeless on the night unfortunately compared to others. It really needed the audience participation to go wild for it and they didn’t. The backing dancers I swear pulled off a few American line dancing moves a few times by boot scooting… It’s a good song by itself but not one that will ultimately win Eurovision.

Serbia : Kruna – Nevena Božović

The title means ‘crown’. Slow ballad. Has the look of a rocksinger in the 1980s… like Bonnie Tyler. She reminds me of the film ‘White Chicks’. The design of her dress to show the leg with an intentional arch of fabric instead of a split is a bit forced as if they put the top of a jukebox on her. I like it. Of the ballads I probably like it best. I kind of wish she didn’t alternate language as it probably would sound better in just the one. Also thanks the crowd. Good good. Enjoyed it.

Switzerland : She Got Me – Luca Hänni

They last won in 1988 with Celine Dion apparently. The boy band entry… well ‘one man boy band’ entry. Flashing lights and all the tricks. Well choreographed. The backing dancers being dressed in red, in red light, with a red background makes them barely viewable if you’re there in the crowd and not by the front. It’s a nice upbeat entry. All the boys go… All the girls go… Everyone goes… eh, it’s alright and I can dance to it so it’s got that going for it. He’s got that leather vest under a sleeveless jacket look which no one can pull off… and again I’ve seen that costume on a fighting game character I swear. [edit: e.g. Robert Garcia in both SNK’s ‘Art of Fighting’ and ‘King of Fighters’ series]

Australia : Zero Gravity – Miller – Hedke

Australia is in Europe everyone jokes… and yet still they compete. At least others are geographically close if not in Europe. Ice queen outfight with tiara crown. It’s a flying Statue of Liberty. Yodelling woman… cunning. I like it. Then it goes all ‘electro-dance beat… well this is going to compete hard then. Are they all on stilts? Oh no they’re on… sticks. I’m sure the staging is amazing if you’re there but it looks comical at home. I’m getting ‘Christ at the Crucifixion’ vibes due to the crown and there being three of them. The ‘death of Liberty’ undertext. It’s pick up votes from oldschool Eurovision lovers no question.

Spain : La Venda – Miki

Comic panel staging. It’s meant to be a house but nope. Full on 6 panel newspaper comic look. Very upbeat and fun. This will get votes for it and by people who’ve forgotten all the others. Weird light giant thing on stage too. Fun. The backing dancers look like they are meant to be doing an exercise at home doe a ‘exercise at home with [insert name of a reality TV celebrity]’ moneygrabbing name recognition exercise video. This should get quite a few votes. Good one to end on. It’s been a bit of a dour year to be honest with far too many ‘safe’ entries.

* * *

Apparently if you vote you get a thank you video from the artist you voted for. They did that for the Olympics too for some reason.

While you vote they showed previous years’ winners singing other winners’ songs and some favourites of the past. Quite interesting really. They did it as a sort of Cabaret thing. Conchita’s outfit took inspiration from Hakke Andrey a character from Atlus’ Maken X computer game it seems.

* * *

Madonna appears and does a song. Like a wild pokemon in the long grass. Wearing an eyepatch with a costume suggesting both pirate and pearly queen of London’s Eastend. Promoting her album Madam X. Then gives some inspirational words to the performers which come across as a bit patronising. A presenter says she knows what she is talking about which… yes please tell musicians to pay attention for some life advice as if it’s not their career and think it’s not at all insulting to them you grovelling little scab. Madonna? Knowing about being a successful singer? No really? Musicians performing at Euroviosn not knowing their stuff? Really? Then she quotes her own song and tries to get people to repeat it but it falls flat.

Then someone else performs.

Oh it’s Ukraine who pulled out of the contest! Except not really. Ukraine forbade Maruv to compete because she had toured in Russia and so Eurovision let her perform her song as a sign of goodwill on their part though not representing Ukraine obviously.

(Not Ukraine) interval act: MARUV – Siren Song (Bang!)

Well you can’t lose if you don’t compete! Oh yeah this is far too sexual for this year’s tastes. They’d have to tame it down immensely. Phwoar nonetheless. Going for that dad vote like Poland did a few years ago with their ‘My Słowianie – We Are Slavic’ milk churning women in traditional ress performance in 2014 but Maruv makes it clearly more dominatrix in tone.

However I recorded it as ‘a song called something like ‘Boee (Come With Me)’ was played at this point. I assume in hindsight it was Maruv as the lyric ‘come with me’ is mentioned.

I prefer music reflect the culture of the performers and this does. I wish more of the songs had followed this tone as it makes it much more interesting than the euro-pop that got humoginised over time and then got a slight revival due to developments in staging with back projection, slim large 4K HD monitors and such.

Also the ‘political protest is not allowed’ seems a rule very weakly enforced depending on which country is saying it. Here’s one video about the events happening outside the event.

Quavo appears. His first time at Eurovision. He is, like Madonna, dressed as if they’re filming a Mad Max or Waterworld sequel. He says his mom grew up listening to Madonna. Mikedrop moment as if he had been throwing shade intentionally or not…

Then a mentalist trick with a ‘not Derren Brown’ guy to pad the run time while the votes are going on.

Then ‘chicken song’ [a.k.a. ‘Toy’] singer Netta, who won last year, appeared in a yellow ‘na na banana’ dress with a new song. It’s like a song for preschool children got given a remix… When a 9 year old girl is asked what she wants at her birthday party I image something like this. She wants a classy evening dress affair dinner party but then she also wants bright colours and pop music.

Then Madonna, after the third or fourth reminder of all the entrants, fnally performed. Everyone was waiting for another ‘throttled by her cape’ moment of course. The staging screams Gregorian chanting monks even without the costumes. So it’s one more step down the ‘no, I’m not being blasphemous’ road like her videos in the 1980s which got her in trouble with the Catholic church back then. They’re trying to make her songs sound like anthemic hymns by doing them a beat or so slower tempo wise with chanting backing singers and a beats machine. I mean… okay. But it’s also weird considering it’s what you would hear if all the sound equipment failed at a concert.

Then the monks carry logs or pillars up the steps. She seems out of breath. Then she does a quasi-Shakespearean bit with one dancer to Tchaikovsky’s the sugar plum fairy… the dancer has a white gas mask on and a flower crown which seems quite political surely. Weird segway. Then the Quavo guy turns up with heavy vocal balancing effects on his voice and Madonna sounds like she is underwater.

She got a muted response in the hall…

* * *

The VOTES:

The.. vote… finally… the votes… it seemed shorter between the final act and the votes when they used to allow more entrants per year than it does with these never ending interval acts and padding.

Then the presenters have Gal Gadot turn up in a VT promoting the country… because what else can they do to pad it out even further. I don’t recall over host coutries doing this but maybe I’m forgetting them.

Jokes about Israelis but in a self-depricating manner. However only on light topics like music and things that come across as an advert for the country’s tourism board. Gosh ren’t we a quirky fun country? Nothing bad happens here. Just forget all the active warzone on the borders kind of stuff – we are all about the chicken song and Gal Gadot. Forget the whole ongoing conflict you might get caught up in as a visitor… it’s all good here we love everyone… well except ‘those people‘… but apart from them everyone is welcome.

Jury votes!!!

It starts off with last year’s host Portugal with Inez whoever she is… 12 to Netherlands…

We, Britain, gave 12 to North Macedonia…. the power of ‘dressing like your on the pull on a girl’s night out and it’s 2.30AM’ wins us over.

Russia has a piano player to do the point announcement…. after doing a brief recital piece. I mean all the point announcers are having a 30 second of fame moment I guess though they’re famous people in their own country anyway and it’s not enough time for people to remember them… presumably. Greece had an electric guitar rock band guy too.

And now I’ll just recount the ones who gave Britain points… any at all… and let’s not think ‘potential trade union deal partners post-Brexit?’ while doing it.

Norway – 2 points.

Hungary – 2 points.

Belarus – 5 points [also phwoar… shockingly the only true one this year it seems! Actually was she on a previous year?]

Armenia – 2 points

Georgia – 1 point.

Switzerland – 1 point

13 professional jury points in total! We are not ‘nul point’ this year! Others are doing worse than us and that’s as good as we can ask!

We gave Norway 12 points… wel they gave us two so that’s okay…

The public vote

3 points from the public. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…. well that’s this year’s sacrificial lamb done with.

Germany got no public points… brutal.

Once it was down to Sweden vs Netherlands they dragged out the final announcement to up the tension for no good reason repeating that Sweden needed 253 points. They got 93.

The winner was… The Netherlands with 492 points. 1975 was the last time they won. Last year’s winner hands the trophy to the new winner. The run up to get it is dragged out. The music loops. He holds it aloft. Someone, somewhere is shedding tears. Others are sat on the toilet evacuating their bowels. It’s over for another year.

So another year and another low ranking place. Once it as due to participation in the Iraq war… now it’s Brexit. In fairness some of the entries were bad and others were just throwing something at it and seeing if it would work some years. Some years we actually had good acts, others were ‘bring out the old horses to flog’ and a few were ‘sod it we just can’t be bothered’.

The presenters thank the broadcaster and it’s almost 2AM in Israel and they’ve still to wheel the piano out. They skip it and have him miming the piano this time (not that he was playing it anyway probably). He calls on the audience to sing the chorus with him as streamers fall from above.

Reign well God-king of the Netherlands, ride unto the shores of Valhalla all shiny and chrome upon the unplayed piano that is your steed. Let the thundering arsecheeks of the farting oarsmen clpa their rhythm in your wake. Let the warble of your voice be the birdsong that sends your opponents to their fate. Their defeat was a foregone conclusion as the fates foretold through their oracles bookie’s stakes…

* * *

Bonus: Those who didn’t make it to the finals

For the first year of doing these I’ll also include those who fell before the final hurdle. Sadly I actually liked some of them more than those acts who were in the grand final!

Semi-Finalists

Armenia : Walking Out – Srbuk

Zettai ryouiki again… it must have been the fashion this year. The only flesh allowed to be shown to be ‘sexy’ without offending Israeli TV censors I assume. Pyro technics which really punctuate the end of the song but… the whole song is in minor key though you feel it should be in major so… it was good but I can see why on balance some other acts edged it out into being in the finale.

Ireland : 22 – Sarah McTernan

The checkerboard pattern and popart featured gives the staging that aesthetic retro ‘1950s yet with a 1990s twist’ I recall a few British boybands having in some of their music videos. Red leather skirt ad strappy heels – again sexy in a conservative manner. She has a husky voice which I don’t feel fits the song and the syling they’ve used as you associate the 1950s with higher pitched singers of that era… this song if it was more upbeat with a different singer would definitely sound more like a 1950s hit but instead it sounds a little like it is meant to act as an ‘in those good old days’ reflective sad ballad but it just doesn’t work. A different song would have worked with her voice. So it’s understandable they didn’t progress to the final. Oh and obviously it’s a surprise Ireland didn’t get into the finals but this probably isn’t the first time ever though, from a British perspective, we tend to notice their absence.

Moldova : Stay – Anna Odobescu

Using sand/salt art projected onto a screen is interesting but I think it was done in previous years and… I’m not sure but I think that’s the Ukrainian artist, Kseniya Simonova, who is famous for it they have doing it live on the stage with the singer… wait yes I just confirmed it’s her. Well considering Ukraine pulled out this year as a protest [and yet did the interval somehow] I am assuming she is going to be getting a lot of criticsm in her homeland… [apparently not in hindsight]. Anyway the singer is wearing a dress which is half 1980s wedding dress and half modern ‘going out tonight’ dress. Heer voice reminds me of the American singer Anastacia. It’s very much a dramatic Eurovison style ballad and I enjoy it so I’m a bit surprised it didn’t get through considering how bland some of the fianlists were. Maybe some of the notes didn’t hit the heights the judges would have liked to give that extra punch to the songs impact.

Latvia : That Night – Carousel

I feel this and the Slovenian entry would have been an interesting juxtapositon to each other. Apparently there was only room for one soft song of this type this year and the young couple had the better ‘story’. A simple lace dress with boots and a wide brimmed hat to give that summertime mood when singing the reflective romantic song while accompanied by a 3 piece accompaniment. They all look much older in the official video. It’s a nice easy listening song. The singer has a charm making her appealling but I guess it was just too mellow for this year’s judges which is a shame as it would get my vote.. if I was the sort to vote for these things. Ultimately the stripped back staging with just a swaying dance, with a few turning walks, was just too little of an impact for a contest that seems to need more and more spectacle in the projected visuals nowadays.

Romania : On a Sunday – Ester Peony

Interesting costumes where it’s rhinestone/sequins covered eveningsuit wear on top with a punk-charcoal puffskirt rock lower half with platform Goth boots. Phwoar. You know who her look reminds me of? Missy from Dr Who a few years ago. The dancers look like they are meant to promoting a computer game… specifically the character designs of the fighter when the Mortal Kombat series first dabbled in 3D use. It’s going for that sort of alternative rock look but the song is a quite traditional Eurovison ballad. It’s an also ran entry ultimately. Take the dancers away and it’s not got anything unique in the song itself. Singer phwoar; song snore. The first line or so she has very odd pronunciation for Sunday as if warbling the line. The backing singers have an oddly ‘baby doll’ look to them. It’s all very ‘what fashion designers think of when given the brief to produce something ‘dark’ themed so they break out the black fethers, leather books and harsh tailoring or otherwise go to the Gothic Lolita side of the ‘dark’ spectrum. Indeed it is understandable why this didn’t get to the finale though I’m certain the singer is capable of better than this when allowed to do her own thing. I don’t get the audience’s reaction when the pyrotechnics go off unless they were not expecting them as they showed appaulled by them from their tone not excited as you might expect. Maybe they were too cloe to them.

Austria : Limits – Pænda

A soft uplifting song for the most part though it has one point towards the end where she sounds quite bad. Lighting gradually growing with the intensity. Her costume really doesn’t fit with the style of song. Is she wearing a dress or trousers? It’s just she has the look of a middle aged woman desperate to pull on Fridy night in the local bar kind of aura… [also considering the look of many of this years acts she is showing too much skin for the judges’ /broadcaster’s liking no doubt]. She sounds like she hits a lot of bad notes when she gets to the more intense moments. A very disjointed entry and indeed one I can definitely understand didn’t get through. If anything it represents my issue with this year everything is far too restrained and dull. The songs are all too focused on presenting something which appeals to the broadest dynamic and so instead of something memorable it’s all of the lowest common denominator.

Croatia : The Dream – Roko

Taking the lyrics and the whole ‘I’m an angel in a lake of fire’ aesthetic into account… is he meant to be playing Lucifer?! I mean that’s gutsy to be doing that in Israel of all places… Then the backing dancers come down and honestly it’s the look you see as a parody of an ‘overly pretentious pop act’. The song is nice enough but I think they shot themselves in the foot with their visual concept…

Lithuania : Run with the Lions – Jurij Veklenko

This would have been an interesting contrast with the Greek entry as both have distinctive vocalists. Visually there’s all the ‘generic stylish young handsome guy’ boxes ticked. He sings surprisingly high for a lot of the song if I’m honest. I know there’s singer/songwriters like Passenger who are like that but it’s not an easy sell for most people. The song is decent if generic. It’s quite bland and forgettable to be honest though there’s nothing wrong with it to be honest.

* * *

Non-Qualified Countries

Hungary : Az én apám – Joci Pápai

Straight away I feel this has a lot more impact than many got through to the finals. It really gets a good reaction from the audience there. Barring the ‘performing in bare feet’ bit he is very much in the standard ‘generic safe male performer’ visually. It’s actually shocking someone of this calibre didn’t get through. There’s not much to add. It’s disappointing this didn’t get through as it would have done well.

Montenegro : Heaven – D mol

Dance music start. Very conservative outfits… maybe a little too conservative as they remind me of American Evangelical preachers. The third guy is very nasal which sticks out like a sore thumb for his moment. It’s the sort of song you can imagine having been performed about ten years ago at the latest. They’re all decent but in a year of bland they’re the wrong kind of bland. They’re not ‘what a middle aged panel of judges thinks appeals to young people these days’ inoffensively safe but just ‘old fashioned’ safe. Too safe in a year I felt was overly safe… which is kind of tragic.

Georgia : Keep on Going – Oto Nemsadze

I still recall previous years entries by them. Georgia is the country always certain to do entries I thoroughly enjoy and would listen to independent of the Eurovision contest. Each year I forget and each year they surprise me and I recall the quality the country produces. I like this but it is in stark contrast to many other more mainstream, safely commerical, entries this year so got excluded for a ‘smoother’ running order experience I guess with only Iceland being the notable ‘see we let different acts take part’ token gesture entry. The wailing bit really adds support to his main vocals. Then a male choir chorus too! And pyrotechnics?! They really built this up throughout the song to a good climax. And he even thanks the audience which not every act does. They were robbed of a place! This is my ‘spiritual’ victor who sadly didn’t get placed!

Finland : Look Away – Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman

Leather jacket and blue jeans… is it the 1980s, 90s or 2019? A dance track song. Yeah it’s okay. Dance music isn’t my thing though it’s one of the pan European crowd pleasers. It would have stuck out a little this year but like some others feels like it’s missing the ‘punch’ it needed to just get a bit more traction. It’s better than some of the finalists to be honest. Generic for a previous year but for now it would have been distinctive. The dancer does very well considering all eyes are on her more than him during it. Oh it’s Darude… and he didn’t get through?! Shock result! Even I know who he is! Maybe he was felt to be a ‘ringer’ being entered into this contest and it would have been unfair as he would have taken so much of the popular vote from the public…

Poland : Pali się – Tulia

Nation of ‘we don’t take this serious’ with their milkchurning girls in traditional dress with ‘My Słowianie – We Are Slavic’ in 2014, a wheelchair user in 2015 performing In The Name of Love and now… they’ve early 90s girl band vocals like Elastica while wearing quasi- traditonal Slavic yet Mongolian ceremonial dress?! Their voices are cutting through me. Bit too repetitive but they get the audience on side. I would have liked to see them in the final as a novelty act to break up the monotony. Their floating heads on the screens seem more in keeping with this years tone than their costumes on stage. I can see why it didn’t get through but good on them thanking the crowd.

Portugal : Telemóveis – Conan Osíris

This should have got into the finals! The song has a very sort of Arabic chant style but mixed with Eastern mysticism style before exploding into a sort of Electro-synth dance beat reminding me of the soundtrack to Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost In The Shell anime film. It actually seemed really interesting costume wise in a ‘Mortal Kombat if Kazuma Kaneko did the costume designs’ way… On the whole this year felt very ‘safe’ in terms of most of the acts. At least this one had some style to it even if not to everyones’ tastes. Again thanking the audience. Maybe in the final they were not allowed to or their microphones got cut off when they did it?

Belgium : Wake Up – Eliot

Taiko drums? And this didn’t get placed? Let’s see why… drumming on the beat. Um… yeah his vocals are not strong enough sadly. Someone with a bit more power to their voice and this probably could have gone through but as it is it sounds like a teenager covering it for a school talent contest. The audience clap in time with the beat to support him. Well hopefully he can go away, train his voice some more and we will hear from him again. The drummers do very well in fairness. Smoke effects? I don’t think anyone else had those. Maybe he got cut so they wouldn’t have to fork out for those in the final?

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Ukraine’s withdrawal this year: Maruv was allowed to perform by Eurovision without it being connected to representing Ukraine for the reasons detailed below. In hindsight is very good of them as it’s not her fault that the country she was to represent took umbridge with her touring obligations which inevitably included work in Russia despite the broadcaster imposing what were clearly politically motivated conditions of her contract if she were to represent Ukraine. Kudos too should go to the show of solidarity by ‘Freedom Jazz’ and ‘Kazka’ who were offered the contract when Maruv wouldn’t agree to the terms.

So what’s the story?

Ukraine withdrew from the competition this year. It was politically motivated, though they would deny it of course, hence why Eurovision extended a hand to let Maruv perform even if she wasn’t able to compete. A goodwill gesture by them to the performer surely should be applauded as there was no political intent behind her decisions though the Ukraine frame it as such because she honoured tour dates that had, by the time of the contract being proposed, been agreed upon long beforehand.

To quote the Wikipedia article’s synopsis of events:

“During the final of the national selection, it was announced that the broadcaster had reserved the right to change the decision made by the jury and Ukrainian public. Following Maruv’s win, it was reported that the broadcaster had sent her management a contract, requiring Maruv to cancel all upcoming appearances and performances in Russia in order to become the Ukrainian representative. After it became clear that she would be performing in two concerts in Russia the following months, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Culture Vyacheslav Kyrylenko stated that artists who toured in Russia or “did not recognise the territorial integrity of Ukraine” should not take part in Eurovision. She was also given 48 hours to sign the contract or be replaced. The day afterwards, Maruv revealed that the broadcaster’s contract had additionally banned her from improvising on stage and communicating with any journalist without the permission of the broadcaster, and required her to fully comply with any requests from the broadcaster. If she were to not follow any of these clauses, she would be fined ₴2 million (~€67,000). Maruv also stated that the broadcaster would not give her any financial compensation for the competition and would not pay for the trip to Tel Aviv.

On 25 February, both Maruv and the broadcaster confirmed that she would not represent Ukraine in Israel due to disputes within the contract, and that another act would be chosen. National final runner-up Freedom Jazz announced on 26 February that they had rejected the broadcaster’s offer to represent Ukraine as well, with third place finisher Kazka confirming they had rejected the offer as well the following day.

It is considered controversial for Ukrainian artists to tour in Russia following the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine.”

Eurovision 2016

The 61st contest which this year is set in Stockholm.

Graham Norton is commentating for the UK audience on the BBC broadcast. He is still nothing compared to Terry Wogan’s coverage sadly.

My first impressions of each song and performance are noted below. I didn’t watch all the lead up semi-finals etc so I am seeing these for the first time.

There is an epilepsy warning accompanied by a pseudo-catwalk fashion show in the introductions of the competitors projecting their national flags onto avant-garde fashion designs worn by the models. It is a spectacle but could easily outshine the costumes of the competitors’ performances in its extravagance unfortunately. I remember that, year on year, there would be competitors with very unique appearances and performances but if it is going to be anything like last year? I feel like everything is going to feel very toned down compared to the past.

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Details on each performer can be found at: http://www.eurovision.tv/page/stockholm-2016/participants

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The presenters: No idea who they are. Home crowd loves them obviously. Cheesy jokes – but that happens every year. ‘put our differences aside and join in our love of music’ Petra declares – shame no one said that around the time of the Iraq war as it feels like Britain is still paying for a choice our government made without the support of its citizens. UK viewers cannot vote by text apparently and no reason is given why not. Then Graham rattles off a long list of how the voting has changed and I would be surprised anyone was definite what this meant from what he said. Richard Osmond (who gave our judge’s vote later) made a short film explaining it apparently. I wasn’t aware of it personally. Petra’s dress is awful. It is that oddly washed out vomit tone of salmon which never looks good. A little later the male presenter goes to the stadium next door where people are gathered for some reason and speaks to two previous winners – and cuts one off as she sings Hallelujah! Awkward.

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Performers intro videos – nice if a bit unconnected to the performers featured or indicative of their personal nationality. It gives you a few tourism brochure like images of the country but tells you nothing of note.

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Belgium: Laura Tesoro – What’s The Pressure : Disco/ R&B sensibility. Golden lights and sparkly silver clothing. It’s the first person to perform so you already know it’s the ‘no hoper’ for winning. If I heard this on the radio I would enjoy it as an upbeat little song. The dance routine feels very restrained. It’s a nice ‘warm up’ for later acts. Age 19 – Graham keeps mentioning everyone’s ages tonight. Is he feeling a little old or something? Wogan embraced it and mocked the young performers. Maybe the BBC have been very strict with Norton considering some of the things Wogan used to say – but that was the fun part noting the ridiculous aspects of the performances.

Czech Republic: Gabriela Gunčíková – I Stand: Nice dramatic intro. Big contrast to the previous song. In fairness to Stockholm they have really given the performers a massive amount of variety with the under stage lighting effect and everything. This song I can imagine being very effective in a film soundtrack associated with a very emotionally impactful scene but in isolation it feels a bit… numb. It reminds me of Spectre’s ‘The Writing is on the Wall’ theme song. I didn’t like that song initially but it really grew on me over time. I will be surprised if it gets a high level of votes tonight which is unfortunate. Good but in the way that it would take time to be appreciated which sadly a song contest like this doesn’t allow.

The Netherlands: Douwe Bob – Slow Down: Clock floor. Very country music in tone. Wearing a suit with an unbuttoned shirt to expose his throat tattoo just makes it look like he has a cravat. The keyboardist looks like a young Bob Dylan. This is the sort of slower acoustic song I would expect on a boy band album that doesn’t get released as a single. The 10 second stop is stupid. It adds nothing to the song. The lyrics were incredibly repetitive. Tells Europe to slow down… for what reason?

Azerbaijan: Samra – Miracle: Her intro is like a model’s film reel with her posing in a shop and roller skate park. Good timing with the flame effects to add emphasis. Clearly learned from last years winner. In fact I can imagine many of the entrants are really going to go to town with the stage effects… The song is like a B-side of a girl band album where they’ve let one of the less prominent members have a go as lead vocalist. So far everyone’s sung in English… I kind of want people to represent their nation in their own language and show a bit of pride rather than go with what is most ‘commercial’. Outfits wise its like a low-budget 1970s sci-fi film based on a pulp fiction story.

Hungary: Freddie – Pioneer: So again its a ‘stood posing around the city’ intro. Dull. Ooh a taiko drum on stage! The jeans and t-shirt look isn’t doing it for me. The backing singers bouncing on their heels back and forth is ‘dad dancing’so unintentionally hilarious. Let’s face it people will vote for the pretty boy’s face or the drummer who isn’t actually the competitor. The song is a nice anthemic one but… it’s missing that special something but definitely would grow on me very quickly. So far this one is the one I would say is in the lead. Good overall performance.

Italy: Francesca Michielin – No Degree Of Separation: ATTRACTIVE LADY! (If you read my coverage last year I kind of noted which ones I thought were attractive so ;P to any who take umbridge) And she sings in Italian!!! automatically I want her to win. The staging. There are actual physical decorations in the form of floral arrangements. (In the end I think she was the only one to have physical decorations onstagw while everyone else used the back projected scenes). She is wearing odd dungarees that remind me of a Klimt painting… The song is a very nice soft ballad. She kicks it up into English and I am really enjoying it. On the screen are whisps and water drops which an audience there wouldn’t see so that’s not great. The fruit offering at the end is a bit hokey. Overall I really liked it.

Israel: Hovi Star – Made Of Stars: The guy looks like one of the goth kids off South Park. Go look and tell me I’m wrong. A sparkly shirt under a dull black suit. Very emo looking though I thought that fashion faded out a few years ago. He has a good singing voice. The hoop gymnast dancers are impressive but very much distracting and I feel trying to make up for the limited tone of the song as it is much slower than the competition so far. At the end it kicks up instrumentally but he doesn’t really match that energy. It was a good effort but not enough.

Bulgaria: Poli Genova – If Love Was A Crime: Side of the head shaved hairstyles are fashionable now. I don’t know if I like the style or not as I grew up seeing it in the British comic 2000AD and Tank Girl as a futuristic punk style so it’s very old-fashioned to me. Her costume is very like a sci-fi cosplay as a sort of military half beige, half black, uniform. She is cute… kind of hitting a few geek fetishes… phwoar. (I’m joking). The song is energetic and she at least moves a bit unlike many of the previous entrants. I actually would like to see her do really well as the entire performance is coordinated in tone and aesthetic. Oh the costume lights up! and the backing singers appear. Yes I really hope she does well.

Sweden: Frans – If I Were Sorry: Franz wears a beanie. It reminds me of that character from ‘American Beauty’ who films a plastic carrier bag moving in the wind. He is being clapped along with so… yeah he has home team support and is a good, if sterile, young male, spray tanned one too many times, performer. Casual but stylishly fashionable clothing which is inoffensive. An upbeat slightly crooning style of song. Words appear behind him. He has what the Might Boosh would describe as ‘shrimp eyes’ usually associated with Julian Barrett. He is only 17 years old Graham notes again. Host nations on the year usually don’t go all out as they don’t want the cost year on year but this was a nice entry nonetheless.

Germany: Jamie-Lee = Ghost: Graham says she annoys him but doesn’t explain clearly. I know she is a Koreanphile. I really like the stage design. Lasers and old black gnarled tree forest. But she stays stood at the front and the backing singers are hidden away so it all feels a wasted opportunity for really elaborate dance choreography. Clearly the presenters little chat between this and the last song was to allow time for it to be set up. She starts in silhouette. Should have stayed that way as her head-dress or even maybe the whole outfit is ridiculous. I feared everyone would be very muted in visual tone this year. My fears are allayed. The song is slow and again maybe something that given a context in a young adult film might get an audience but it feels too weak to compete her. (Later I note they got very low votes. Is it because Eurovision is moving in a more ‘serious’ direction? Is it because of the fetishisation people perhaps felt was implied by her overt interest in Korean culture? Was it just because its Germany i.e. one of the ‘big 5’ nations and there is some bitterness towards them? Or maybe the song just wasn’t up to standard. What do you think?)

France: Amir – J’ai cherché: A trained dentist. Sings in French but adds a little bit of English. Good. Again dressed casual smart in a suit but with t-shirt and white trainers. Works the camera and moves around the stage. Good energy. No great energy! This is a competitor! Doesn’t need much in the sense of visuals as the song itself is more than enough… but then we know Eurovision doesn’t always award talent. (I was proven right in the end sadly).

Poland: Michał Szpak – Color Of Your Life: Long haired guy with a pseudo-rocker look. Graham says he doesn’t like performing. I kind of wish Graham would hold off these comments of his until after the person has performed. (Actually it turns out Graham is correct as this guy doesn’t come across very well). So he is a guy in a circus owner’s long red coat with epaulettes. Black shirt, trousers and shoes. No socks. Another modern look that feels wrong as people would be mocked for short trousers and this look when I was a teenager. The song is lacklustre. He gesticulated a lot. There isn’t much to add really. Ooooh Ooooh Ohhhh. I see violinists but couldn’t hear them.

Australia: Dami Im – Sound Of Silence: I appreciate they watch it ‘down under’ and as a special celebration they let them compete last year but I don’t think they should be a permanent addition to the EUROPEAN song contest. Emigrated to Australia at 9 years old. Won their X-Factor or similar talent show. Stong singing voice. Sat on a glittery box in a dress I would expect to see on a pre-teen beauty queen pageant contestant in America. The way she is sat on the box reminds me of Kermit the frog and any other muppets… The song is good. This is a strong competitor and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see this on another show. Serious competitor despite my views on who should or shouldn’t be allowed to compete.

Cyprus: Minus One – Alter Ego: Band performs in cages. Weird… oh wait they are a rock band so it’s okay. Vocalist has a bit of a whine in his voice so I’m not impressed. Lots of seizure inducing flashing. The song isn’t great as a rock song and as an Eurovision entry is generic. They wear black as shirts, leather jackets and such. Dry ice smoke. Graham should have warned about the light show on this entry even if he did the disclaimer at the start of the broadcast. I will be surprised if this rises above the bottom 5 ( and only then because of political voting). Fucking hell I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone didn’t get a headache from those lights let alone a seizure.

Serbia: Sanja Vučić ZAA – Goodbye (Shelter): Side shaved head again. Graham makes another critical but unfunny observation. Long black (leather?) dress with shoulder tassels and … whatever is happening on her hair fringe. Nice imagery. A dancer interacting with her for the songs narrative of her being a betrayed women standing up for herself. Nice visuals. The song would definitely do well under other circumstances. It reminds me of the late 90s – early 00s James Bond themes. I really like it although the song and visuals don’t really go together if I’m honest.

Lithuania: Donny Montell – I’ve Been Waiting for This Night: Competed before. Might remember him wearing a blindfold as his song was about ‘love being blind’. Has a mini trampoline this time. Side shaved head again. The ‘black t-shirt, black skinny jeans and trainers look that is popular coupled with a white leather jacket. The song is generic ‘I’ve been waiting for this night (to have another go at competing in Eurovision)’. Visuals are… ok. Someone heard the other competitors were going to use it so they made generic splashes and … oh! There was the mini trampoline and dry ice making his jacket disappear! Well that was the ‘hook’ of this performance otherwise… bland as hell.

Croatia: Nina Kraljić – Lighthouse: Partially shaved heads are on trend right now then obviously. Half shaved heads for the girls and the skinny jeans and t-shirt with designer trainers for the boys. Graham comments her dress is too big for her as if she lost weight – he should have saved it for after we saw the poncho dress to get the joke. Her hair is awful. Like someone bought a white widow’s peak wig and put it on wrong but didn’t adjust it. Interesting cape/poncho. Then underneath she has a very art deco dress with extravagant arm wings which are mirrored bits on one side and lavender feathers on the opposite side. Dame Edna has had her wardrobe raided I guess. The song… she sounds off-key. Backing singers/dancers are like cult members preparing for a sacrifice. This is a stereotypical Eurovision entry. I will be shocked it gets a big numbers of votes.

Russia: Sergey Lazarev – You Are The Only One: Bookies favourite apparently. Had to speak out against his homeland to please voters which really feels like he is going to cause himself trouble once back home. Dressed in black. Using the back screen to full effect for wings and storm effects. Backing singer/dancers appear. Very visually impressive. Definitely Graham’s description of him going on a charm offensive wasn’t inappropriate. Then sat on the screen… climbed as its made of rubber so he could dig his feet into it. They’ve really pulled out all the stops for this. The song is very anthemic and immediately pleasing. No wonder this is the favourite its a near masterclass on combining the best parts of the previous few years’ winners.

Spain: Barei – Say Yay! Apparently her fall is intentional in the middle. Graham is ruining the performances by alerting us to these aspects. (Actually the lights cut out and she is laying sideways, as if on a chez longe, on the floor). He has seen them during the preliminaries but we haven’t! It ruins the expereince for people who just watch the final. Very attractive features. Her hair… guess the style- except she brush it in the opposite direction to the other competitors. She has a sparkly mini dress on and pixie boots. Also gauntlet like jewellery on her left arm. Very good song! Extremely energetic performance and song. Gets the audience involved too! Works the stage wonderfully. It has definitely been affected by being placed directly after Russia’s song but this is certainly up there and deserves a lot of votes.

Latvia: Justs – Heartbeat: Similar to other male competitors he wears the fashionable uniform but with cut out knee slits and a black leather jacket. It’s… not great if I am honest. Subdued performance. He puts emphasis in certain parts but the electronica instrumental doesn’t justify it. This is the sort of song I imagine being played towards the end of the night when the nightclubs want people to leave. Maybe girls will vote for him as he is attractive in a Chris Hemsworth way.

Ukraine: Jamala – 1944: Grandmother was deported by Stalin. Denies the song is anything to do with Russia. ~cough~sure~cough~. Will get votes for its political commentary. Dress is a navy off the shoulder with long arm ‘wings’ piece. Very good song with traditional tones but electronic drum beat. Reminds me of a lot of 80s alternative songs or maybe 90s stuff like Moloko. The lights are red and therefore the focus is completely on her and its a very good performance. A Eurovision winner – we will have to see but I would listen to it again definitely which is more than I can say for most of these songs. I think the only one I listened to again from last year was Georgia’s entry ‘Warrior’. Didn’t sing in English which is a bonus to me. Good entry. (Was the winner in the end).

Malta: Ira Losco – Walk On Water: Was in it 2002 or 2012 before apparently. She is pregnant. Filmed smoke effects to open into it. Then an art deco corridor effect behind her. sequined dress. Lots of cleavage and slit to the thigh dress to expose a leg to get male voters onside. Then a dancer erupts from nowhere and disappears just as fast. The song… it’s okay. Nothing special in the context of the competition. Might get a bit of radio play as one of those songs people half remember and request on Sunday afternoon shows. An also ran entry. Might have done better in past years but the Eurovision has begun to shift to more modern tastes after years of stagnancy.

Georgia: Nika Kocharov and Young Georgian Lolitaz – Midnight Gold: Rock show lighting show with a mirroring effect. Wearing modern fashion in blacks and greys with wide-brimmed hats. Decent rock song. Eurovision tends to prefer spectacle though so while I would definitely listen to this again although it isn’t going to do neither good nor bad vote wise on the day. Then the epilepsy light show occurs. Again, thanks for the timely warning Graham. Also thanks for saying it felt overly long… I felt it passed very quickly. Personal tastes of course but he isn’t funny like Terry Wogan was and I think he is all too aware of it.

Austria: ZOË – Loin d’ici: Sings in French. Has a pastel pink ’16 year olds special day’ type dress on with a single strand wire tiara you can barely see. A gentle use of the wind machine. Pop dance song with violins. Enjoyable. Forgettable. Inoffensive. Will be used in a clip show edit to show this year’s competitors. I probably would enjoy other songs by her but this feels a bit too muted compared to other competitors this year.

United Kingdom: Joe and Jake – You’re Not Alone: Intro features football and rugby because we British handed in our ‘part of globally significant arts’ card a long time ago apparently. And smoke flares. We clearly pissed off someone at a sports match with drunken louts who the travelled to Stockholm… Two young guys so they’ll get girls’ votes. Dressed in the fashion uniform of this year. The song is quite ‘radio play on a Sunday’… It’s inoffensive. Oh fuck – we are going to be in the bottom three again aren’t we? I can already tell. Fuck. I can see the tabloids using this as a weak argument for ‘Brexit’ (Britain exiting the European Union). Decent performance but the other competitor’s came to compete and win – not just take part.

Armenia: Iveta Mukuchyan – LoveWave: Last entry. Last entries have won before so not saying bad but you can bet it will be one of the good ones as they want to end on a high when some turn over preferring not to watch the voting etc. OOOOH ATTRACTIVE! the lights and pyrotechnics have clearly been invested in. the dry ice smoke too. She is wearing a sparkly black opaque leotard with ‘butt cape’. Dirty old man vote winner of the night. The song is good and changes tone well unlike most of the one note songs tonight. Didn’t quite hit that high note at the end. Shame as a bit more polish and it would have been a serious contender.

Vote time: It was good. I think it is clear who the top ones are going to be. Of course now we have the presenters banter… Oh and she has a green dress on now. It looks terrible. I hope she was forced to wear in. Weird 70s crepe shoulder flower ruffles thing and the ‘skirt’, beneath a narrow silver ‘belt’ is a sparkly abomination like something dredged up from the deep. So they show Ian McKellen and Derrick Jacobi from a scene in that rubbish ITV show they did… which was random. Some come across better in the voting snippets than they did during the full performance and some come across worse as I notice the Czech entry awkwardly hit her top note apparently.

Hungary, Russia and maybe Spain are my ‘top three’ likely to win at the moment. I wish Bulgaria, Italy or Spain would win though. Australia will do well I have no doubt and Armenia deserve a good number of votes. Poland, Latvia, Croatia or Lithuania getting large numbers of votes will surprise me.

Justin Timberlake turns up in the green room because… just because. Oh promoting a film. Nice that we can’t have even one evening where America isn’t involved in any sense. Oh and he is going to sing 2 songs. Great. Bulgaria’s entrant is hovering around in the background. Okay she is winning me over since her outfit is far better than the presenters dress.
Then we get some VTs and such in a supercut of various moments in Swedish musical history and music videos by a guy who did a Madonna video. I will be fair it was entertaining as I recognised many of the songs. IT EVEN HAD PAPA EMERITUS FROM GHOST IN IT! I’m won over!

Then Justin Timberlake. Rock your body. Of course with more backing singers, a more tightly choreographed routine. Inevitably it blows everything else out of the water. Yes please remind us America does it bigger and better. There was talk of letting them compete in Eurovision. I hope it was just a rumour because we all know they are going to go whole hog into winning year on yea until Eurovision becomes amalgamated and just like every other homogenized American product we consume day on day. Nothing against Justin personally as he is very good but I just get a bad taste over the entire matter. Then again Britain has pulled out the stops dragging in international singers in a few years recently so I shouldn’t be overly critical. People joked they wanted to vote for the American entry. Be careful what you wish for…

Malta won the Junior Eurovision. The winner comes on stage promoting the Junior Eurovision. That’s nice as she seemed a little nervous but then many performers come across like that once the stage persona is
Petra chides her boy toy for interrupting her. Now she is wearing an elegant gothy lace and satin dress which is far better than the previous ones. Then they do a run down of ‘things to have to win’ sketch.

Humour can be very awkward but this was actually quite amusing in inoffensive. Oh they got the violin guy back! Then they did the costume change and she has a Shakira like style on ut the top is a one piece with skin tone which makes her look worse than ever! Like some one in their 50s trying to dress how they did as a 19 year old! I am wondering what her actual age is as I;m guessing the way she has been styled tonight has made her look far older than her actual age. Then they do a song which was good. She lets her hair down while he shows off his chest and lots of dancers with very different styles referencing previous entries get on stage. a Very impressive filler while all the voting is going on. Good for them.

Then they have a comedian, Lynda Woodruff, some on as a representative of the EBU while they go off for a costume change. Really falling flat answering some emailed questions. Then she crowd surfs off back into obscurity. Guy is back in open collared shirt and suit. Then a bit of bragging over how often they’ve won on a VT about Sweden’s achievements.

It’s self-deprecating however so they get away with it as they say Eurovision influences their foreign language lessons, gangs, religion, etc.

Petra returns in a flowing Dame Edna Everage dress… Sparkly with a mix of pink raw flesh tones. Like someone who got thrown through a window in the middle of the day into a bottle bank. She introduces the previous winner who does a very ‘Hugh Jackman at an award ceremony’ like performance.

The song ‘Heroes’ still holds up no question. In fact I could argue that putting this year’s winner up next to it will probably make this year look like a step down from last year in terms of quality unfortunately – certainly the fact so many acts adopted his use of back projected imagery proves how effective the entire performance was.

So national votes and televotes are presented separately. How you vote doesn’t change just how they present it. 50% from the voting boards and 50% from the public.

The vote announcers of each country always comes across strained and extremely false in their joy… and straight off the bat Australia got 12 points! Then a guy holding a dog. Oh right so they just say who got the 12 points from each country. I can live with them doing that I guess though it’s a bit less fun than the minute or so of build up for the big numbers. San Marino gave use 8 points. Czech Republic gave us 4. So far we are not doing bad this year which is encouraging. Ireland gave us 7 points. Georgia phwoar lady from last year! 🙂 Gave us nothing though… Bosnia and Herzevogina gave us nothing. I’m going to assume we just had a nice start. Malta gave us 12 points!!!! But that was a political vote if we are honest. Spain gave us nothing. (I should be noting who is giving who 12 points so will do that next year for those interested – oh except they put up a video on YouTube of the entire votes process so no need). Finland gives awkward banter and no points to us though 12 to their neighbour Sweden obviously. Switzerland gave us nothing. Denmark gave us three. France gave us nothing… obviously ;p Moldova lady is very Hello Nurse! Ash blonde, red lips and in a suit and they gave us nothing. Armenia had a connection issue and gave us nothing. Votes seem quite spread this year although Ukraine is getting quite a few. (So ironically even this new style of voting though much closer in its first year of use gave away the final winner early). Cyprus gave us nothing – the guy looks like a sweet shop owner. Bulgaria lady is hello brunette in off shoulder jacket dress and again we get no points. (admit you are enjoying this repetition in the abscence of there being no chance of anyone being ‘nul points’ -nil pwa- this year). The Netherlands give us nothing and their lady wears a jacket with random bits of kryptonite stuck on to ward off Superman. Latvia has a basement dwelling man-child stereotype give the vote and we get no points.

Israel are missing in action so Petra has to buy some time. ‘we are half way through’. Yeah whatever. Her boy toy is in the green room wearing a black shirt and trousers with a white blazer. Are the fascist fashion police on patrol tonight or something? This uniform for men I joked about is a bit too adhered to… Australia is in the lead. It reminds me of Britain’s Got Talent where it’s acts from other countries doing well not our own acts.

Ukrainian lady seems a little drunk or overwhelmed.

Israel sort their side out and we get nothing after the guy uses a little Swedish to flatter Petra. Belarus give us nothing but of course give Russia their 12 points because after all Belarus is beautiful Russia. Germany have their presenter in front of a crowd and give us nothing but emo Israel 12. Russia PHWOAR weird ‘parcel wrapped’ red dress and we get nothing. Norway has their 1985 winner give the vote who give us nothing nor anything to Sweden surprisingly. Australia give us 4 points from an anorexic Asian news presenter with a weird weaved neck ruffle thing. Belgium has a… humpty dumpty brought to life guy give us nothing but Australia 12. UK has Richard Osman give the vote. Nothing for us obviously. We gave Georgia 12 interestingly – its girls voting for a boy band obviously. Croatia has an attractive middle-aged voter giving us nothing but Australia 12 points. Greece has a well-groomed young guy making ladies’ hearts flutter and 12 points to Russia. Lithuania blonde in sparkly white dress and red lips gives us nothing but Australia 12 points. Serbia gave us 2 Points. Very attractive side swiped brunette haired lady in white dress voter. Australia has clearly won its obvious and the new points displaying thing has failed to keep tension. (I was wrong fortunately). FYR Macedonia gives nothing to us and 12 to Ukraine. Albania gave us 5 points and 12 to Australia. Estonia gave us 3 points and 12 to Sweden. Ukraine – WTF mix of traditional dress and the soviet star from the top of the Kremlin… I remember that person. We got no votes and 12 points went to Lithuania. Italy sexy lady, obviously, in a simple red dress giving nothing to us and 12 to Spain. Poland give us nothing and 12 to Ukraine. Slovenia – HELLO! Red hair and leather dress. We got nothing and 12 went to Ukraine. Hungary has a blonde in a yellow dress/coat. Nothing to us and 12 to Australia. Montenegro guy looks like he just walked in off the street and doesn’t speak English as all the others did. Nothing to us but 12 to Malta surprisingly. Sweden’s vote from a Kim Kardashian wannabe in a weird formal dress with cleavage window and sparkles in the shoulder, groin and arm areas like armour. Nothing to us and 12 to Australia.

If Australia win they will partner with an EU member and host it in their country… so that scuppers everyone’s idea of having a jaunt down under next year then. If they partner with anyone but the UK it’ll be a slap in the face of the commonwealth.

And so they move to the popular vote i.e. tele-votes.

Yeah Australia are around 100 points ahead.

*drum roll*

Six lowest voted for countries: 0 to the Czech Republic. 8 to the UK. 10 to Germany. 10 to Spain. 11 to Israel. 16 to Malta. 24 to Georgia. 33 to Croatia. 34 to italy. 39 to the Netherlands. 51 to Belgium. 53 to Cyprus. 56 to Hungary. 63 to Latvia. 73 Azerbaijan. 80 to Serbia.

63 points to the UK in total this year.We have done worse recently so this is a good result despite what the media will no doubt say.

Ten highest voted for countries: 96 points to Lithuania. 109 points to France. 120 points to Austria (which skyrocketed them up the chart). 134 points to Armenia (ditto skyrocket). 139 points to Sweden (ditto but cannot win). 180 points to Bulgaria (ditto skyrocket to second place so far).

Poland, Australia, Ukraine and Russia still need numbers.

Dramatic long pause.

191 points to Australia. So they win with 511 points possibly.

Russia, Ukraine and Poland left.

222 points to Poland. but only to fifth place at this point. went from the bottom to that.

Shocking.

Russia and Ukraine are left now. Kind of ironic considering recent events.

323 points to Ukraine. May very well have won.

So Russia got the most tele-votes. Who got 361 points. So he hasn’t done it.

Ukraine, Australia and Russia.

Russia 3rd place
Australia 2nd place
Ukraine 1st place

(We gave 10 points to Poland in the tele-vote apparently. It must have been patriotic immigrants who voted).

Well I’m glad Australia didn’t win just because of the power it gives them to decide who to partner with to host it next year.

Ukraine winning is a political statement I feel due to the, admittedly denied, implications of the song. It’s a very good song but clearly with this and Conchita Wurst it’s ‘pan-European sociopolitical statement’ entrants who win ultimately. The voting system revision did make it a bit more exciting and concise I will admit so that is a positive move forward for the contest as in previous years the voting seemed to drag on indefinitely.

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It’s a shame I can’t embed a link of the condescending tone of the reporter, Nick Higham, on the BBC news immediately after the show coverage ended. He was hilarious and instantly punchable in the face due to his attitude and trite comments about things such as how cheesy it was and the Ukrainian entry adding ‘a well needed tone of seriousness’ as it referenced the ethnic cleansing during Stalin’s era. He obviously didn’t want to cover the event but was forced into it just like the current royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell. Actually add in the political lead Nick Robinson and it seems the BBC are partial to arrogant correspondents named Nicholas at the moment…

Well that was fun. I hope you’ve enjoyed. Comment, Like, follow – all are welcome. That’s all until next year when America is let in as a guest entry with a view to becoming a permanent fixture take care!