2010 Semi final #1

Albania: A man stands on a spinning disc playing an LED violin and a girl in a metallic PVC tutu and blue suspenders gyrates and sings. Oh look, there’s a man pelvic thrusting at his saxophone. (At this point my boyfriend texted to say he’d had enough and was turning the TV off – the fool!) A stomping show opener. Applause utterly deserved.

Russia: SNORE. AWFUL. DIRGE. ZZZZZZ. There is a momentary highlight, when the guitarist does a talky bit and says “What are you doing man?” and the singer responds – in ‘song’ – “Looooooking at herrrrrr photooooo…” and pulls out a ratty bit of paper on which there is a hastily sketched line drawing of what I can only assume is a woman’s face. (You can imagine that conversation backstage, can’t you? “Where’s the photo Sergei?”, “Boris has it.”, “No, Vladimir has it.” “No, Aleksandr has it.”, “Oh shit, anyone got a biro?”) Anyway, (forced) applause utterly not deserved – but what do Russia care, they’ll always pull in the ‘please don’t cut off our gas’ vote.

Estonia: My favourite thing about this odd yet likeable band of male singers, who sport crushed velvet jackets with Hermes cravats and have a performance style partway between a barbershop quartet and Kraftwerk, is that they are called Malcolm Lincoln, after a genuine response given by a contestant in the Estonian ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’, in answer to the question ‘who was the 16th President of the United States?’. Get that contestant on Family Fortunes pronto!

Slovakia: So the gimmick here is that the backing dancers are all dressed like Lord of the Rings/tree people. It’s dull – even the plastic snakes used as whips can’t save it, let alone the entirely unsurprising ‘surprise’ appearance of a fairy godmother type in white, who would have done a better job of hiding if she’d stood on stage wearing a sign saying ‘Please ignore me just now, and pretend I’m not here – because I’m going to come on at minute two and surprise you…. Surprise!” Amateur.

Finland: A tiny blonde lady with a massive accordion (and her identical friend without) perform scary folky oompa music. Teeth, tits and terrifying.

Latvia: “Now what should I, Aisha, mature Euro diva and Latvian pop royalty, wear whilst performing my Eurovision song about ‘Mr God’? My favourite peach silk mini kimono and f*ck me Roman sandals, you say? Will that match my lived-in skin complexion and massive lungs? (Oi! Easy! I said *lungs*, people.) Yes! Perfect! To the stage, darlinks!”

Serbia: Milanamania – it will catch us all. I was all ready to mock the famed Serbian sensation Milan Stanković (possibly the fugliest man I’ve ever seen) with his bright blond bowl haircut and Tintin face, dancing around in his glittery ringmaster’s coat and ‘singing’. But it was, of course, a total winner.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: A man, not unattractive to straight woman, in a red velvet jacket on stage? Promising. Oh wait, what’s that? The sound of a cock rock number void of humour and musicality? Next!

Poland: The gimmick here is eating apples on stage, which is different, true, but hardly up to the pizzazz of using fire-eaters and leather clad whip wielders, or making the shape of a ‘1’ out of your backing dancers WHEN YOUR SONG IS CALLED ‘MY NUMBER 1’. Now *that’s* a gimmick. No, this is just a bad crooner, who looks like a shiny-suited business man fresh off the tube and on his way to Karaoke Box, fronting a sinister bad contemporary dance version of what is probably Adam and Eve, but looks more like Hansel and Gretel, albeit with stripping and a death scene.

Belgium: Ever at the cutting edge of excitement, Belgium go for the Ronseal approach to Eurovision, with one man (and what a lovely geeky-type man he is too) with a guitar, singing a song called – would you believe - ‘Me and My Guitar’. It’s nice, and he sounds like Kermit if his voice broke (Kermit that is, not the Belgian) – I’ll let you decide whether or not that’s a good thing.

Malta: I was all ready to dismiss this; another big Maltese lady, another big Maltese ballad – basically a Maltese entry by numbers. Until… HER DRESS GREW WINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, I am a seasoned professional Eurovision viewer (don’t try this at home, kids), and my eye has been expertly trained to knowingly pre-empt the twist in the Eurovision tale, but neither I, nor my equally professional co-viewer, noticed the grown man in silver tights wearing the gigantic angel wings hiding behind the lady Malteser until he choose to reveal himself. (And he revealed himself a little too much when we got a close-up shot of the silver tights, if you know what I mean… And you do, cause you’re filthy).

Albania: Mature Euro diva number two – I’ll be honest, I love a mature Euro diva. This is one foxy lady, in a sensible black trouser suit, but with suitably crazy glittery shoulder pads, just slugging her guts out to a gooooood Gnarls Barkley-esque pop number. Thumbs up.

Greece: Mmmmm, is that the sweet smell of butch pop testosterone? I think so! Instantly brilliant. Man, every year, the Greeks just bring it. Bring what, you may ask? Well, generally, they bring an aging Greek pop star, dressed in white, specially cultivated and nurtured in the Athens Eurovision lab, set them on stage - and let their genius flourish, preferably including a self-administered percussion interlude. An amazing pop number. Not Hell(enic)ish. SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!! OPA!

Portugal: Aha, the lesser known youthful Euro diva. Mind you, she’s probably a bit too sweet and naturally beautiful to qualify as a real diva. She’s gorgeous, the big floaty dress is gorgeous, but the song is a dirge-y bore. Did her dress turn into wings? No. Rubbish. (EV geeks will also note that it’s odd to see Portugal opting for a mainstream pop ballad, rather than their usual attitude of ‘we know no-one else in Europe really likes fado, but we do, so sod the lot of yer, here’s a lady wailing some’.)

FYR Macedonia: Our song is utter tripe – what’s our tactic? Nudity.
OK, let me tell you this, gothic lap dancers of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia - a vag flash is not acceptable, even at Eurovision. (OK, OK, there wasn’t actual genitalia on show, but it was just one flimsy pair of leather pants away, er, away. Ew.)

Belarus: Hello? Did they find the attractive Belorussian? My God, they did. Even more surprising – he has four similarly attractive Belorussian friends. Quite a gimmick by their standards. The song, however, is an awful ballad on a par with the Russian entry. The only thing that could save this would be the ladies’ dresses growing wings.

…Two minutes later…

WHAAAAAAAAAAT? DO MINE EYES DECEIVE ME? THEY’VE ONLY BLOODY GONE AND GROWN WINGS ON THEIR DRESSES!!! Seriously – two performances in one night where dresses don’t get ripped off to reveal mini skirts, but actually grow wings. Amazing. Malta must be seething that Belarus copied them! Or did Belarus get shafted by Malta? What a palaver. The spies have been busy on the Eurovision backstab grapevine. Someone get Marple on the case. And someone else get me a dress with wings.

Iceland: the lights go low, the sound of synths, a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiig woman approaches the mic… And BAM! No, not an inconvenient volcanic eruption which brings the world to its knees (*insert forced laughter here*) – it’s a massive Icelandic lady getting her mature diva on. A Eurovision classic is born. Loved it.

And that’s it!

In conclusion: a classic semi-final, with the main theme apparently ‘dresses wot grow wings’. We also counted eight violins – very Rybek-a-like, so that’s clearly this year’s copy-catting.

Am pleased that Albania, Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Moldova, Serbia and – at a push – Portugal (Westie bias) got through and well done to Belarus for winning the battle of the winged dresses. I am, naturally, vein-poppingly furious, but unsurprised, that Russia and B-H made it – both total shockers, and not in a good way. And am sorry to see Latvia and Estonia go out.

Thursday’s second SF threatens to be a ballad heavy snooze fest – am hoping some of the slowies will fall. As for the final, I’m hopeful, but I won’t be relying on the Big Four for too many kicks (when do we ever?!). On the basis of the previews, the UK will be the usual outright embarrassment, Germany - nice and mainstream, Spain aren’t opting for their usual olé olé flamenco vamos a la playa über-Espania number, which is very unusual, and France seem to be opting for a less-than-wise ragga porno number. Mon dieu!

But on the strength of SF#1, so far so good. CAN’T WAIT. xoxo