Strike up the notes, it’s Te
Deum time! Emilie de Forest is back,
still shoe-less, but with an army of YouTube karaoke clips and a choral cover to launch the show – there were Only
Teardrops from this blogger, as the whole thing was JUST TOO MOVING.
Unusually, my emotional
spirits weren’t dampened by the arrival of our hosts – mainly because one of the
presenters (the one that’s not bespectacled or wearing a flower larger than her
own head) was Kasper the troubled spin doctor out of Borgen – and MAN OH MAN, do
I love Borgen. In
cultural terms, Kasper’s appearance is not dissimilar to, say, David
Morrissey stepping up to present it alongside Graham Norton and Emma
Willis: i.e., it's special. Anyway,
Pilou Asbaek, for that is his real name, has a fun wavy side quiff and appears
to be having a whale of a time (well DUH!).
I'm not sure how much crossover there is in the Venn diagram of Scandi
Noir and Eurovision, but I am FIRMLY in the middle bit. I can only hope that
the PMILF Brigitte makes an appearance at some point - although I might
spontaneously combust in excitement.
But enough Danish TV waffle,
it's time for European song waffle!
Armenia
Remember J-Lo's second (third?)
husband? He of vampire eye bags
who ended up dating her out of Made In Chelsea and my-daddy-owns-Topshop fame?
(What do you mean, no?) Well it's the Armenian him, singing what I am reliably
informed is called 'dubstep'. The dubstep bit is quite good actually, but it
takes a hundred years of dull orchestral warble to get there. Incredibly, this is the FAVOURITE!
Douze points for: his leather fingerless gloves.
Lativa
Popbitch called them Mumford
and c*nts - what this lacks in politeness, it makes up for in truth. The theme of the song is finding it difficult
to bake a cake. Guys, even I can manage a Victoria sponge.
Douze points for: I don't know... smugness?
Estonia
Impressive performance from a
technical perspective: yer lady here is singing with big-lunged gusto whilst
performing athletic ballet techno in massive white pants – helpful when one is
being thrown about the stage by a white-vested Arena poster boy. Shame it's to by-numbers Eurobeat.
Douze points for: flashing her Bridget Joneses, even if the
gusset shot to the stage was unlikely to hit an appreciative target audience.
Sweden
Mature popstrel singing electro-dirge -
think a low budget All By Myself, but with added slow electronica. Disappointing, all in all - but I am judging this by Swedish Eurovision standards, so we're talking a high bar here. It needed a high NRG dance remix, although I did enjoy the emotionally fraught,
grammatically-creative lyric "Undo my sad".
Douze points for: her perfect messy bob. HAIR ENVY.
Iceland
Possible drinking buddy rivals
to Lena herself – this lot look excellent fun, as evidenced by their impeccable
rockabilly suits in the colours of the Teletubbies and ironic Status Quo
guitareography
Douze points for: backing singer dudes with full ZZ Top
beards and coloured boiler suits.
Albania
The theme of each introductory
vignette was to have the singer recreate their own flag in some creative way;
Armenia produced a broach, the Swede used a pool and yellow lilos, the Latvians
managed to bake a fucking cake after all. Lady Albania, however, went for FULL ON BACK
TATTOO. Yes it *seems* crazy, but think of all those Olympians who get their
rings done. (Erm, that didn’t quite come out right.) Not much to add about the song, which
was essentially Kiss From A Rose being covered by Shakira in the style of Muse.
Douze points for: a man guitarist in a cream leather snood.
Russia
Oh Russia. I was all set to hate
this. On paper, this was a terrifying
recipe for creepy disaster: hair entwined Junior Eurovision champion blonde
twins with Putin-approved fembot smiles singing about showing love (HA!) while
holding glass staffs on a seesaw. But of course it was bloody amazing.
Douze points for: the audience booing. That was hilarious.
Azerbaijan
Lady in red sings a ballad
whilst other lady in red does some trapeze stuff. Meh.
A grudging douze points for: circus skills.
Ukraine
Ok, so much has been made of
the use of a human hamster wheel in this number and whilst I accept it was impressive, it is
important to note that this is not the first or best use of a human hamster
wheel at the Eurovision Song Contest. Hell, it's not even Ukraine's
first or best use of a human hamster wheel at the Eurovision Song Contest. (It’s
also not as good as this - omgtotesbigmegalolz!) But don’t get me wrong, this was still great –
I mean it's Ukrainian Eurovision which used the lyrics “Tick Tock Tricky Tricky
Tock Tock Tock”, so what would you expect?
Douze points for: not getting annexed by the Russian twins
halfway through the performance.
Belgium
The Go Compare man singing
opera about his mum. Oedipal. And awful.
Douze points for: Ghent's largest waistcoat.
Moldova
Bring on the Lady armour! Bring on the medieval skirted men dancers!
Bring on the Bucks Fizz inspired moment when she ripped off her own pigtail and
threw it at the audience!
Douze points for: oh come on - who else can boast onstage hair removal?
San Marino
Come on Valentina – here’s to
third time lucky. If you’re not going to
do it with a song about Facebook, then why not plump for an overblown Streisand-esque throwback yelly number
with a breathy talky bit?
Douze points for: So seventies they probably put vaseline on
the camera lens. Hello soft focus!
Half-time: Pilou looks
blissfully happy. By which I mean blissfully drunk.
Portugal
Well, *this* is a departure! Yes, it’s a woman, but this year SHE IS
BLONDE! And she’s not in black robes, but
in a slutty chiffon top with flowers over the boobs! And sure, she’s wailing in Portuguese, but
there’s a Baleric Summer Hit beat behind the whole thing! I suppose we can’t accuse Portugal of being stubbornly and exclusively fixated on their own cultural output when they’ve nicked the backing
track from a foreign country; even if it is Spain.
Douze points for: carefully-placed tit tape.
Netherlands
I liked the performance at the time, but I have zero memory of the song today. So I imagine it did well because it was fronted by a Country and Western duo
who oozed professionalism and musical ability - who knew THAT approach would work?!! For me, it lacked Juliette
Barnes throwing evils from the side of the stage. NASHVILE FOREVZ.
Douze points for: Amsterdam twang.
Montenegro
So the opening VT was Mr
Montenegro – not *the* Mr Montenegro, but their singer for this year (a cross between Andrew Ridgely and Jason Segel and the brother out
of Everybody Loves Raymond) – doing a jigsaw of Montenegro's flag helped by two
adorable Montenegrin children. Turns out that the 'but where is the last piece, oh no, but hooray that cute child has found it, phew' plot was enough to blind my critical eye, as by the time the song appeared, I was
too busy ‘awwwww’-ing to really listen.
We’ve seen accompanying ice-skaters before, but Plushenko wasn’t given
free reign of the whole stage, or his own on-floor lighting sequence.
Douze points for: being the song I wanted through even though it
was probably terrible and I won’t remember in any way come the final.
Hungry
Finally some hotness! By which I mean, man hotness - I imagine the
stadium erupted with testosterone at this point, as a million gays finally had a
hunk to scream at. Flagpoles up, eh boys? This was good old high-tempo Euro pop, where
hot dude gets to referee a domestic row through the medium of dance.
Douze points for: he hawt.
Voting time entertainment: body-popping Dane in a glittery tracksuit and the cast of Cats. Clearly no Riverdance, but it did trump the time the Azeris failed to remember the words to Waterloo. I am STILL shocked and appalled by that one and will definitely be writing a letter of complaint to Jon Ola Sand. At some point.
The results: Many congrats to Armenia (eventual dubstep), Sweden
(electro-dirge), Iceland (coloured suits), Russia (yay/boo twins), Azerbaijan
(trapeze), Ukraine (hamster wheel: the sequel), San Marino (seventies
Valentina - hooray for persistance!), the Netherlands (country and western), Montenegro (ice-skater) and
Hungary (hawt) – the final beckons!
No comments:
Post a Comment