Now, like I mentioned in my preview post, I acted upon the opportunity to see some of the entries for this year. I had the chance to see more, but I figured that would be spoiling and decided to wait. You need just enough to give you an idea without experiencing the full ungodly horror before you're mentally prepared.
Once again, since Wogan is no longer on commentating duties, we were treated to the equally dry Sam Pang and Julia Zemiro. By the end of the three night event, I was starting to think that Wogan may have met his match.
Disclaimer: I'm not going to cover every single act, but rather just the ones worth talking about.
Semi Final 1 - Night of the Unnecessary Violins
The first thing we were told (by Sam & Julia) is that this year's competition is aimed at one family in the United Kingdom. What? What about the millions of other viewers? We were all treated to some stock standard footage of
And then we were treated to Oslo's attempt to shake things up a bit:we didn't have a host and hostess. Oh no. We had a host and two hostesses. All I could think about was how that affected the drinking game. What do you do if they both change there outfits? Answer: Nothing, because they didn't. Then we had their second attempt to shake things up, with the new rule that you could vote throughout the entire broadcast, and not just during a tedious 15 minute segment at the end of it all. (You could still vote for as many countries as you liked.) These two shake-ups, hosts and all, were carried over to the final.
17 countries competed in Semi Final One. Ten lucky countires got to go through to the final. Millions of unlucky viewers had to dal with Moldova's entry first up. Millions of unlucky viewers would have to deal with it again, because it managed to progress to the final. Although, why would you need to watch anymore Eurovision after seeing punk rockers with a violin and a saxophone?
There are many acts in Eurovision that have what they would think are "arty" costumes. One of these acts is no doubt also going to feature some panpipes somewhere while a woman dressed up a a tree does some ballet. There is also one act that has someone stand at the side of the stage, dressed completely different from everyone else and looking totally out of place compared to the rest of the act. This year it was Slovakia. On the plus side, they were dressed up as elves and the lead songstress looked kinda cute.
Finalnd, the country that a few years ago gave us Lordi, this year gave us the reincarnation of Abba fronted by Joy from My name Is Earl. They actually got advice from Lordi, but apart from "Be Yourselves" or something it seemed pretty useless advice. They should have said "dress outrageously and perform hard rock".
Julia warned us that Latvia's entry was grammatically all over the shop. Thanks Julia but you should have warned us that it was boring. And sung by Britney Spears.
Poland gave us what was apparently an Adam and Eve style story. In the right light backstage, the lead singer looked a bit like Paul McDermott. In the wrong light onstage they looked like Ronan Keating (or so I was told). The Polish Lily Allen ate the forbidden fruit, so now I know why that woman is so full of sin. They also all sang this in semi-traditional dress, and for one woman (after a certain point in the song) semi-traditional undress.
While we were taking a break from the onslaught, Sam and Julia demonstrated the impact we can have by voting for our favourite song on the website: none at all. By a strange coincidence, "none at all" is exactly how much suspiciont the Liza Minelli look-a-like from Malta had that she would not be progressing on to the finals. She did have giant angel wings and a smoke machine, but neither helped.
After the rest of the acts had been presented, we were treated to the tedious 15 minutes of voting time that I know you were all waiting for. During this time we had a recap of all the acts (i.e. padding), a sketch that might actually have been funny had it not gone one scene too far with its joke (i.e. padding), another recap (i.e. padding), and then some padding by the hosts (i.e. padding).
As the votes were tallied, we were treated to some more padding! This time in the form of the interval entyertainment about the human voice. It featured yodelling, coughing, beat boxing (including some on a catwalk - best fashion show ever!), singing, chanting....... and tapdancing. (I'm pretty sure that last one isn't generated by the human voice.)
Finally we had some more padding in the form of a preview of the five finalists, followed by the most tediously drawn out reveal of the ten finalists. For those of you paying attention, the acts all finished at 9 p.m. local time, and SBS's broadcast finished at 9:45 p.m., so you knew you were in for some serious padding.
Semi Final 2 - Tainted
Before we get underway, I can hear you all crying fowl about me reviewing this semi final because I was out celebrating two birthdays on this night. But I, being the resourceful man that I am, recorded the event onto my laptop (and then promptly deleted it once I was done with it).
Lithuania was up first in what was dubbed "the semi final of death" (due to so many strong acts being in it), with Eastern European Funk. No, that wasn't the genre, that was the name of the song. The genre was "Bad Imitation of the Cat Empire". Complete with a costume reveal of.... short silver shorts. Avert your eyes!
Denmark made it through to the final with a disco song that failed to be anything like a disco song, but it did feature what could have been the first reverb of the competition. When Julia Zemiro introduced this song, she used the French name, and all that proved is that Julia Zemiro sounds very sexy speaking in French. Sam Pang described it this way: "Sometimes three minutes.... takes longer than others."
A blonde Miley Cyrus failed to get Sweden over the line, despite the huge guitar.... or was she just really small? Or was it some form of strange illusion, because at some point she stopped playing and the guitar disappeared from the stage.
And after a couple more acts, we were treated to the Netherlands. The general design and sound of the song and staging were rather reminiscent of the sort of thing that would be put in a children's TV show. With good reason. The man who wrote it was Pierre Kartner, the man who wrote the theme song for The Smurfs! Very rarely can something to do with Eurovision be described as "awesome".
Bulgaria gave us a horrible combination of angel wings, 80's hair, Kyle Sandilands, and people covered in silver paint that made them look like they'd been covered in oil.
In between the two standard recaps, we were treated to a tribute to songs that finished in the bottom three, because apparently Norway holds the record for the most last place finishes in Eurovision. Remember that horrible U.K. entry that scored 0 points a while back? It was there and just as horrible as you remember it to be. I was shocked, because for a second night running, Eurovision was actually trying to be funny and succeeding.
Those Human Voice people returned for a second outing of entertainment, this time voicing all the sound effects in a clip of a kid moving through the city (except for a few things like a jet engine).. It was clever, funny, and at times a little bit creepy. Then the people in the Red Gloves manipulate him into travelling to Oslo and dancing onstage while they continued to make rap music noises. "That's how we like to welcome people to Norway." Yikes.
We finally got to the tedious, drawn out virtual envelope opening which was just as tedious and drawn out as it was last time. And after all was said and done after the credits had finished rolling, we had a shot and a musical stung that when added together could only be described as.... foreboding.
The Final - Everything That Would Have Won 25 Years Ago
The Final of the Eurovision Song Contest contained two things that have been lacking from the competition in recent years. Firstly, it contained (and I can't believe I'm about to say this) songs that were actually good. I know, I know, contestants are supposed to keep entering outlandish ABBA wannabes, but that doesn't win votes anymore.
Secondly, as one of the two hostesses stood onstage telling us how many people were watching, she happened to mention that this included people "as far away as Australia". That's right, we all got a collective shout out!
The Final didn't open with any of that, though. Instead, the competition's credibility was sadly upheld further by a classy opening act that took us on a journey through the history of Eurovision, including a pan through the inside of an old 1960's TV set and a quick rush past Big Ben (including Doppler effect).
It didn't take long to get down to business, starting with Azerbaijain, whose main singer was choreographed by the same guy who does Beyonce's choreography. And boy, did it show. It might as well have been Beyonce inside of that woman. She didn't look like Beyonce though. She looked a little bit like Summer Glau. Did I say a little? Because I meant a lot. She's only 17, though. Summer Glau is not....
And with only one act down and a second underway, the controversy kicked in. During Spain's performance, some idiot decided to jump onstage and join in the dancing. While he admittedly did pretty well, it was noticeable enough to be distracting. The organisers decided to give Spain another chance to perform again after all the other acts had done their bit.
Norway's entry was something that I would have thought was typically entered by the U.K. The U.K.'s entry, which came on later on in the night, was something I would have thought was typically something sung over the credits of a Disney film. The U.K., unsurprisingly finished with a grand total of 10 points and last place. The BBC's analysis? They succumbed to old Eurovision clichés that don't work anymore.
Belgium gave us a one-man acoustic guitar song about, well, a man and his guitar. The guy looked a bit like a young Captain Jack Harkness, but the song was actually a pretty decent one and nice to listen to.
When I first saw Serbia's entry during Semi Final One, I was stunned. Not because it was bad, because it wasn't. Not because it was good, because it wasn't. Some songs define a genre. Some songs perhaps defy a genre. This song defied every single genre. It had what can only be described as giant test tubes split in half down one side, 70's fashion, and strange hair, all set some some weird musical genre no one's ever heard from before. The best way I could describe it is indie-disco, but I know that can't be right.
Due to the financial crisis, Greece had to recycle Zorba the Greek, dig up some old tribal dancing, and steal costumes from the upcoming Prince of Persia film to go with it. Turkey traditionally give us belly dancing somewhere in their Eurovision entry. Start celebrating everyone, because for once they didn't! Instead, they gave us emo punk rock. And a female robot version of The Stig who axle grinded her own hand, who then unmasked herself and became a punk bellydancer. Oh.
Albania demonstrated why thou shalt not have gospel singers in a Kylie Minogue / Madonna style disco number. Iceland gave us Disco. Pure, Eurvision, pop diva disco. And an excuse to make Volcano jokes.
Russia continued the time old Eurovision tradition of using completely unnecessary props. Somehow I don't think that you need to hold an actual photograph on stage while your singing about one. To be fair, neither did they, because it wasn't actually a photograph but a pencil sketch or something.
Germany gave us a catchy little pop song not unlike something a slightly more mainstream Missy Higgins would sing. Did I mention it was very catchy? I still can't get the damn thing out of my head.
After the rest of the acts and a neat little sketch from what Sam Pang called the "Norwegian Josh Thomas", we were treated to the obligatory double recap during the 15 minutes of extra voting time. And then in the tradition of interval acts that were actually good and fun to watch this year, we were treated to a dance number performed by hundreds of people in the streets of cities around Europe. The idea was that it was easy to learn so you could join in and dance at home. To prove it, we were also treated to shots of people at home across Europe dancing. Or, in the case of the Ukraine, DANCING. (Okay, I'm not sure if it was that particular in/famous Ukraine act or whether it was just someone who dressed up that way, but they were there.)
And then the votes started to get tallied. If you're like me, this is where you stop watching to avoid the tedious part of the broadcast and look up the winner on the internet. Or, as was the case this year, have the result spoiled earlier in the day by looking at the BBC News RRS feed and forgetting that they would have the result emblazoned in their headlines.
The Final Wrap Up - Is Eurovision Credible Now?
The BBC radio program More or Less (it's mainly about statistics - I highly recommend their podcast, actually) had Azerbaijan, Russia, and Serbia in first, second, and third respectively. Sadly, they didn't do too well with that prediction (although Azerbaijan did come fifth).
The honour of winning the contest went to Germany, with that song that's terribly catchy and pretty conventional by Eurovision standards. The good folks at TV Tonight have posted a video of the winning act as well as the final results, for those of you interested in the voting aftermath.
Did it deserve to win? Yes: I challenge you to watch the song and not get it stuck in your head.
