Welcome From Kiev!
It’s Eurovision Night…
It’s Eurovision Night, we were up second, and if that’s the best we can do, what hope have we got of winning?
Although I doubt with the BBC Cutbacks, winning the Eurovision is probably the last thing the BBC needs, as we’ll have to host the thing next year if we win.
With Hungary’s “Riverdance” style routine sung by Nox starting things off in a pretty spectacular style - to be followed by the UK entry, and thirdly Malta’s ballad - which is good too.
The staging is the usual impressive Eurovision stuff, with flying cameras, curved video screens forming the sides of the stage, spinning mirrors, and a transparent stage lit from below, it’s spectacular.
Romania’s entry is obviously somewhat low budget, the the entire percussion section doing a “stomp” by banging toxic waste drums with what appear to be car wheels, and no fancy expensive outfits… although they’ve just attacked the drums with angle grinders… this has to be one of the strangest things I’ve seen on Eurovision - but it was a lot of fun!
Norway have gone for a very heavy “rock anthem” - “Love has gone over me” - complete with spandex and cowboy hats…
Skipping Turkey’s typically “eastern” feel, Moldova seen to have cut the costume budget by simply painting on the singers body, another “heavy rock” track whilst jumping around the stage… oh, and his mum has apparently just walked on stage with a drum! Oh, the title of the song translates as “Grandmamma Beats The Drumm” - so that does make some sense…
So far, seven acts in, the Romanian entry seems to be the best thing… hopefully that’ll change…
Err, No. Albania have gone for a hybrid rock/eastern thing with veils, violins and a very figure-hugging outfit…
Cyprus’ entry sounds very much like a lot of them, kinda eastern/arabian/rock feel… although a guy in a very tight shirt might get some female/gay votes! I think the winner is going to be something a little more distinctive (and they’ve just brought out some silver oil drums…)
Spain - well, it’s not very “eastern”, and there’s no oil drums in sight… but it is very energetic and colourful - however the still doesn’t give an impression of how much movement there is in the lighting patterns.
The Danish entry is much more lyrical than the mix of heavy rock and thumping beats we’ve had so far - a really good song - but probably not catchy enough to win…
More Europop from the Swedish entry - actually not too bad - “Las Vegas” - probably a bit to intellectual for the “boom bang a bang” musical generation - but actually fairly good.
The Ukranian entry has obviously just escaped from somewhere, the backing singers are still wearing their handcuffs! but rapping???
Germany (black leather, and a song which is very “Electropop” in feel)
Greece are also doing a drum-heavy routine with Riverdance influences…
Bosnia & Herzegovina did a very “Abba-esque” song - very traditional Eurovision fare…
France have produced something that has a kind of eastern feel… hmm, I’m starting to see a pattern here… although they all sound much like one another, and being memorable is part of winning Eurovision - all these “eastern” songs are blending into one another… Although it’s been a few songs since anyone brought an oil drum onto the stage…
I’m going to be adding to this post throughout the main show - so keep refreshing, and commenting!
At least the show is now over, the international phone, interactive and SMS voting is underway - so it’s time for us to vote for our favourites (but we can’t vote for our own entry of course)
It’s results time - 39 sets of results to go… who will win?
3 in, and already Moldova and the drumming granny are doing well at this early stage… oh dear… with Romania’s drum and powertools comba second… oh, and the UK has “nil points”…
6 in… no real change, Moldova’s and Romania are slipping, with Switzerland and Israel now topping the table - but our poppy song with an eastern feel, well, still nothing… although we can’t do as badly as in 2003 when we came last without scoring a single point. We can never do worse (although at this stage, we could easily match that low)
9 in… Switzerland up the top, Moldova second, UK still joint last with Cypress and France…
11 in, Andorra voted, and France have points, so we’re now sharing the bottom place with Cyprus.
12 in, and Cyprus got 10, so we’re now last all on our own… will Ireland give us any points…. Yes!!! Finally, 8 points! 
The UK Vote in full - and they got Cheryl Baker to read our votes, and she was doing a lot of “Bucks Fizz” Jokes in the bargain.
1 Turkey
2 Moldova
3 Cypress
4 Bosnia and Herzegovina
5 Norway
6 Latvia
7 Israel
8 Denmark
10 Malta
12 Greece
Now they’ve done the plug for the CD of the music, and the DVD of the performances… (see the link at the bottom for the CD!) it’s back to the results…
It’s getting dull now - Greece are storming into the lead, Romania are still contenders, Moldova seem to be out of the running now, and the UK has 18 points.
Finally, the 39 sets of votes are in - Greece have won. Malta are second. Romania are third, and Moldova got a healthy 6th for Granny. The UK, third from last.
How did I sit through that… more to the point, why did I sit through that? and we managed to be beaten by a Moldovian bloke, his granny and a drum…
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Tom, you deserve an award for persevering.
I gave up after hearing the 5th track that sounded the same and left it playing in the background whilst online.
You’ve not made any comment on the hottest looking woman, which is the real reason for watching. Mine would be the Hungarian girl that was up first.
Wow Tom! You’re a stronger man than I. I gave up in the middle of the second song - wait, that was ours!
Malcolm - how did you manage to stick with it all the way until the 5th song?!?!? :p
Malcolm, you’d be right about the Hungarian entry, although I think the Belarus entry comes a close second - although the German entry has to have a mention - at least until she opened her mouth…
However it became more a battle against the hypnotic effect of all the drum-heavy eastern influenced music, that when somethign notably different came along, it was worth paying attention to