Eat this, Kate Ryan
/gratuitous Eurovision plugging.
/fantastic use of Karola's long lost wind machine.
|
/gratuitous Eurovision plugging.
/fantastic use of Karola's long lost wind machine.
Labels: eurovision, eurovision 2007
Monday, September 03, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Semi-Final Eurovision Review
I tell you, it’s about time this song contest became *less* popular. 28 songs were too much for the poor people following every single rehearsal, and even I dreaded it at first. However, the night flew by for me, but that might have had something to do with the fabulous company. Some on the sofa, some through sms (not even hospitals can keep the ESC spirit at bay!).
(Anja and André are the Belgian commentators)
Immediately Anja helps us out by telling us that we’re in Helsinki (no kidding?!), which is the Capital of Finland. No?! I never knew… Fancy that. The Girlfriend sees this as proof that the VRT Commentary is an absolute must. More and more I wish she’d let me watch BBC or Holland (Paul de Leeuw!). Alas, she’s the boss of me, so…
I missed the complete openingact, fetching drinks and all, but I hear it was nice. I did notice Finnish is a pretty hot language, and that’s a bigger incentive to visit a country than those silly postcards.
Trends this year: Chains, S&M, fireworks (Lordi influence), hair shaking, and … Wind machines (Warskinny just pointed out to me that Finland is kinda windy, so they might have just left the doors open). So in the end Carola and her wind machine did win a little bit, somehow.
Right. On with the first act: Bulgaria! Drumming! Shouting “eeee” (love it when she does that)! A man with a mullet, which is sometimes a good sign in Eurovision (Dima Milan vs Fomins & Kleins from 2004) and a wind machine. And boy, was it windy on stage! That thing must have been programmed wrong, instead of “slight fangad av en stormvind”-breeze, it was on “hurricane”! The sofa is critical of the singing and we all cringe when the MulletMan has his obligatory moment in the spotlight (sing-drumming …). Apart from that we all we really do is notice the set. André, however, is completely in love. It’s the best thing they’ve ever sent, he claims. Well, since they’ve been taking part What?… three years…? That’s not really hard is it.
Israel on next, and to my horror most of the sofa quite like this. But then so did I at first, and by the end of the night all of them have forgotten about Israel in favour of other countries. Thank god. At one point I think that the drummer has tied an Arafat-scarf in his hair (massive points for provocation), but after much consideration The Sofa concludes that it’s a lace handkerchief. Israel is angry! They kick! They can’t sing! There’s a funny accordionman (points for that) and there’s even a “Sound of da police”-sample, according to The Girlfriend. Nevertheless, I’m glad it’s over.
Ah, there’s Cyprus and for the first time The Sofa is in agreement that this is “not bad”. The dress however, is horrid. It’s as if she’s stuck pieces aluminum foil together with black masking tape, leaving strange parts of her body uncovered. We know you’re a bit of a gay icon, Evridiki, but not even Cher would have worn that! She’s got a funny Dalida-accent, but overall she comes across as pretty damned scary. Evridiki goes all out with the Eurovision clichés (well, she should know, it’s her third time at Eurovision), using a stroboscope, wind machine, Romanian Octopus uplifting music (very “What Prince ass are for Don’t break my heart (Nicola)” from 2003) AND fireworks. Massive applause at Casa Piglina!
Belarus’s Ellen Degeneres is up next, though most of the Sofa agree with Jawnbc that he looks more like Paris Hilton than Ellen. Tsk. Critical lot. “Surely that’s not a guy” is a consensus at the house. The song is still crap, but I have to admit that the act works: Women in suits are always a hit with me, the wallclimbing thing is clever, there’s a Claudia Beni-“let’s stand in line behind the lead singer”-moment (and why wasn’t the bigger background singer allowed in there, we wonder?), an apple-pluck dance and generally so much acrobatics that you forget the song is bad. Good thinking on their part!
Compared to that Iceland is far simpler, and perhaps a bit too simple. Anja is mean about Iceland, calling the poor guy “The Beast looking for his beauty” and making remarks about his hair. I’ll have you know, Anja, that that’s called “nonchalance chic” or summat or nuthing. Someone on The Sofa asks if Lordi forgot their masks, but then acknowledges the fact that Mr Eirikur can sing. Shame about the cliché song, but then at least they didn’t send Jonsi again.
Georgia, now there’s a country that’s looked at past Contests to see how “It’s Done”. The straight ladies on The Sofa are in awe of the dress and “the sticky things on her back and arms”, our Resident Star Wars Geek is in love with the ninja-backing dancers and The Girlfriend successfully predicts swordfighting. Add fireworks to that, and yes, you’ve got a qualifier. (The song however is very repetitive. Kinda like me! *g*!)
Montenegro really managed to mess up their song. It’s probably impossible to find outfits with less colour. Some horrid beige they paint hospital walls in, so the patients don’t get too agitated. For some reason the backing singers were dressed in fake medieval beige outfits and Stevan looked far too young to be standing on that stage. Try again in a few years. With a better song.
Onto ex-baker “René Baumann” (at least that’s what André says), or DJ Bobo for Switzerland. First off, I am so so relieved this song did a “Kate Ryan” and failed to qualify. Thank you, Europe! See people, neighbour voting does have its benefits! The mannequins on stage were a great find, but apart from that… what a shambles. They were trying everything they could think of to make an impression ( Fireworks! Jumping! (who knew vampires jumped?) Scary lead singer!), apart from sending a decent song. Anja mocks the christian fundamentalists who objected to this song because it was demonic (they should have objected on account of poor taste!), thereby losing her place in heaven, Bavada predicts. Poor Anja. Poor Dj Bobo….
Moldova brings us our first hussy-alert of the evening. My god woman! What are you wearing?! You can practically see… well, everything! Please someone tell me that’s not Moldovan fashion. Obviously (and thankfully, given the outfit) the girl shaves er… down there but all I can think is “is she wearing underwear underneath and if not, did she wear the same outfit during all the rehearsals and isn’t that a bit filthy”. Her dancers are waving red flags about, but I’m way above making jokes about that…Let’s just say Carola and her flag-waving is a new (old) trend and leave it at that. (“If that old bird can score with that, so can we!”) And the song? What song? How on earth did this get through and will we be finding outfits like these in H&M soon …?
Edsilia represents the Netherlands in an orange dress (what else), and I immediately point out that that colour didn’t bode well for Kate Ryan last year (but then, I admit that might not have been just due to the dress). The Netherlands are clearly going for the prize of “Worst Choreography Ever” because whatever they’re doing, it’s awful. Hair waving, legs up in the air, prancing about. WTF? I like the Kylie-shorts the dancers are wearing and Edsilia is very much selling the song, but despite her fantastic performance the song is still not good enough. Kip points out that the Netherlands send the same song year after year, and she’s got a point. However, the respect for Edsilia on The Sofa is great.
Albania, The Girlfriend and I -and I think Bavada- love thee. We may be the only ones in Europe, but at least it should be some consolation to you. There’s a scary violinist and a backing singer with a dress so gigantic she was probably brought on stage with a crane (according to Kip at least). Mister Ndoci reminds Spikey of David Brent and The Girlfriend of Kenny Craig, and we allow ourselves to be swept away by his bombastic ballad.
Aha, Denmark. Anja consistently calls DQ “It” instead of “she”, but I’m pretty sure no-one will file a complaint for discrimination. The VRT is saved from a lawsuit, for the time being. DQ sings so much better than I thought she would and is smiling the best toothpaste-smile of the evening. Such glistening white teeth! My god! Dj Bobo’s vampires would be jealous. The feather-stuff is pretty inspired and funny, the clothes changes are expected, but good and we amuse ourselves by noticing one of DQ’s boobs nearly hanging out of the dress. Definitely better performed than I expected, but a shame about the song though.
Croatia brings us what looks like a girl on a spectacularly Bad Hair Day (nonchalance chic, Piglet?) and her father. Still, Kip is in love with the man’s gravelly voice, I appreciate the reinstatement of the traditional Croation Clothes Change and we come to the realisation (yep, it took us only 13 songs) that slutty outfits and S&M-chains are very much in fashion this year.
And if we hand’t realised the theme by now, Poland would have quickly set us straight on the matter. My. God. Either I’m turning into a prude, or there was something seriously twisted going on on stage. All I kept thinking was “good god, girl, cover yourself up! What will your parents say?!” Can you imagine? “Mum, dad, I’m taking part in Eurovision. I’ll be in a cage and look at my outfit! Isn’t it pretty?!” Yikes! No it’s not! Our lone gay guy goes “well at least the stage looks nice” and the rest of us just stare.
But thank god for Serbia. Our esteemed lead singer comes onstage with her hands in her pockets (“oh fancy meeting you lot here, I didn’t realise I was on a stage and there’s an audience”), takes a bow and then starts belting out Molitva. The Girlfriend was already in love with her (oh shut up…) and I’m falling as well. Anja’s a bit rude –again-, The Sofa questions our crush, but The Girlfriend and I go wild. I mean, there’s girl-on-girl cuddling and touching! What’s there not to like!? Spikey says he misses a Barbara Dex-dress (what’s he implying?!), Kip says she looks like “Heroes”-Hiro, and Bavada comes to the realisation that every song he likes (including this one) vaguely sounds like a communist hymn. The straight women on The Sofa (not affected by Marija) discuss the complicated hand choreography. Well, I don’t think our Marija is much for dancing, to be honest.
The Sofa also questions our love for the Czech Republic: Don’t these guys get laughed at by their hardrock-friends? Are they in pain? Why must they frighten little children? Tsk. No taste, the lot of them.
And the cringe-factor increases with Portugal: three languages, a dancing man (who’s. Serious. About. His. Craft), shiny outfits and fans still can’t make this song any better. It’s just impossible.
Carola’s wind machine (I wonder, did she have to donate it to the winning country?) is back in full force for Macedonia. Its setting is still on “hurricane”, because this poor girl truly has to battle to keep standing against the wind. We still like Macedonenglish (“leave in harmony”) but apart from that only Mrs Duvelman saw this thing qualifying.
Norway also brings us that latin-light vibe (wouldn’t it have been hilarious if Portugal and Norway had been right behind each other?) that we hate so much. Thanks for that, Norway. Last year you brought us a delightful little elf, now… well… I won’t continue the allegory, that would be too rude.The clothes changes scare the population of The Sofa (“don’t take off too much!”), the gay dancers aren’t even cute and we start discussing Kate Ryan’s fate last year. That’s how interesting this is (and how much we still haven’t gotten over Our Kate’s failure last year). Anja chips in with “Bien conservé, la madame en négligé”, a rhyme worthy of Terry Wogan.
Oh! Naked ViolinMan! Obvious gong-playbacking! Pirates of the Carribean! A chinese theme! This can only be Malta! The men have shaved their armpits and the windmachine is blowing so hard Naked Violinman will definitely catch a cold (or he’ll get vertigo *snort*). And only now do I realise Malta didn’t get through to the final… what a disgrace!
Andorra brings us teenage-punk with phallic guitars and a lead singer who dances with his eyes. “This is Eurovision, I can’t just stand there, stroking my guitar… I know, my eyes will do the dancing!” Never have I seen boys more in love with their guitars. There’s a lift after the break (Johnny Logan wrote this, I’m sure) and The Girlfriend fancies the nerdiest of the group and proclaims “she always falls for the losers”. Erm? Hello!?
Hungary scores points with her white marcelleke (undershirt) (but what was the text on her top?), I still think it’s a bit pretentious, but I have to admit she brought it well and deserved to go through. The Sofa is wildly enthusiastic, but I’ll be very very pissed off if she wins. But then that’ s my problem.
And then Carola is back, yet again (This year is full of Carola-clones!), but this time for Estonia. Someone please kill off the wind machine! None of the qualifiers will be able to perform on Saturday, they’ll all be sick in bed. This performance ruined the song for me: gay boys in cardigans, girls in satin night dresses, stroboscopes… overkill.
And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Belgium. We’ll be good! We’ll be fabulous! We… suck. That poor leadsinger must have been terrified. The choreography’s cool, the lead singer only looks gay when he claps (how does that work?), but not even the vocoder can save us. A discussion starts on The Sofa about who exactly sung flat (the lead or backing singer) and even Anja realises it wasn’t good. “I have a feeling”, she says, “they were better in the rehearsal”. “Well, in the last rehearsal. They weren’t very good in the first rehearsals either”, André promptly corrects her. Thus endeth another Eurovision for Belgium. And the “Politics Debate” in Belgium can start again!
No, then Slovenia knew what she was talking about. Now in past years I’ve generally liked Slovenia and never understood why they don’t qualify. Luckily this year was different. A Very Dramatic Dress, Dj Bobo’s vampires in the background and singing about “moeziek”. Fabulous!
Turkey brings us Sertab in Goldfinger outfits, while he looks like the ringmaster at a circus (red tailcoat, golden bow tie). The Sofa proclaims he looks like Piet Huysentruyt, but then with hair, and the ladies are pissed off at me for saying he looked cute. What can I say, photos can be deceiving. At some point, for whatever reason, Kenan starts waving something, possibly his underwear, about. I don’t get it. But then apparently I’m the only one.
At least Austria is subtle. *Snort* “Yes, I’m a qualified dancer. I studied dance in college for three years, and my job now is to be part of an AIDS-ribbon at Eurovision.” But then I realise that some of the er… well, ribbonpeople are men and my love for this goes up a mile. Who designed these fabulous costumes? Men in drag, in trousers, with rubies on their penis!? Fan-tas-tic! Oh yeah, the song: still crap.
Onto everyone’s Granny’s favourites: Latvia. Now if *they* win I’ll be even more pissed than if Hungary wins. Why are they wearing medals? Do Latvians get a medal when they win their national Eurovision preselection? Were they all in the war? What war? Is it a swimming medal? Or do you get one when you graduate? One of the men –one without a medal- chucks away the rose he’s carrying. Great. Now he’ll have to buy a new one on Saturday.
During the interval it dawns on us that we won’t make it through. Even though we feel we might scrape in at number 10 and keep hoping. The main problem though, if Belgium were to win again one year… what on earth would we do during the interval? Finland did something cool with ice princesses and vikings, but what would *we* do?… Smurfs? Asterix? Tintin?
I think that until we figure that out, we should just keep sending something bad.
|
I tell you, it’s about time this song contest became *less* popular. 28 songs were too much for the poor people following every single rehearsal, and even I dreaded it at first. However, the night flew by for me, but that might have had something to do with the fabulous company. Some on the sofa, some through sms (not even hospitals can keep the ESC spirit at bay!).
(Anja and André are the Belgian commentators)
Immediately Anja helps us out by telling us that we’re in Helsinki (no kidding?!), which is the Capital of Finland. No?! I never knew… Fancy that. The Girlfriend sees this as proof that the VRT Commentary is an absolute must. More and more I wish she’d let me watch BBC or Holland (Paul de Leeuw!). Alas, she’s the boss of me, so…
I missed the complete openingact, fetching drinks and all, but I hear it was nice. I did notice Finnish is a pretty hot language, and that’s a bigger incentive to visit a country than those silly postcards.
Trends this year: Chains, S&M, fireworks (Lordi influence), hair shaking, and … Wind machines (Warskinny just pointed out to me that Finland is kinda windy, so they might have just left the doors open). So in the end Carola and her wind machine did win a little bit, somehow.
Right. On with the first act: Bulgaria! Drumming! Shouting “eeee” (love it when she does that)! A man with a mullet, which is sometimes a good sign in Eurovision (Dima Milan vs Fomins & Kleins from 2004) and a wind machine. And boy, was it windy on stage! That thing must have been programmed wrong, instead of “slight fangad av en stormvind”-breeze, it was on “hurricane”! The sofa is critical of the singing and we all cringe when the MulletMan has his obligatory moment in the spotlight (sing-drumming …). Apart from that we all we really do is notice the set. André, however, is completely in love. It’s the best thing they’ve ever sent, he claims. Well, since they’ve been taking part What?… three years…? That’s not really hard is it.
Israel on next, and to my horror most of the sofa quite like this. But then so did I at first, and by the end of the night all of them have forgotten about Israel in favour of other countries. Thank god. At one point I think that the drummer has tied an Arafat-scarf in his hair (massive points for provocation), but after much consideration The Sofa concludes that it’s a lace handkerchief. Israel is angry! They kick! They can’t sing! There’s a funny accordionman (points for that) and there’s even a “Sound of da police”-sample, according to The Girlfriend. Nevertheless, I’m glad it’s over.
Ah, there’s Cyprus and for the first time The Sofa is in agreement that this is “not bad”. The dress however, is horrid. It’s as if she’s stuck pieces aluminum foil together with black masking tape, leaving strange parts of her body uncovered. We know you’re a bit of a gay icon, Evridiki, but not even Cher would have worn that! She’s got a funny Dalida-accent, but overall she comes across as pretty damned scary. Evridiki goes all out with the Eurovision clichés (well, she should know, it’s her third time at Eurovision), using a stroboscope, wind machine, Romanian Octopus uplifting music (very “
Belarus’s Ellen Degeneres is up next, though most of the Sofa agree with Jawnbc that he looks more like Paris Hilton than Ellen. Tsk. Critical lot. “Surely that’s not a guy” is a consensus at the house. The song is still crap, but I have to admit that the act works: Women in suits are always a hit with me, the wallclimbing thing is clever, there’s a Claudia Beni-“let’s stand in line behind the lead singer”-moment (and why wasn’t the bigger background singer allowed in there, we wonder?), an apple-pluck dance and generally so much acrobatics that you forget the song is bad. Good thinking on their part!
Compared to that Iceland is far simpler, and perhaps a bit too simple. Anja is mean about Iceland, calling the poor guy “The Beast looking for his beauty” and making remarks about his hair. I’ll have you know, Anja, that that’s called “nonchalance chic” or summat or nuthing. Someone on The Sofa asks if Lordi forgot their masks, but then acknowledges the fact that Mr Eirikur can sing. Shame about the cliché song, but then at least they didn’t send Jonsi again.
Georgia, now there’s a country that’s looked at past Contests to see how “It’s Done”. The straight ladies on The Sofa are in awe of the dress and “the sticky things on her back and arms”, our Resident Star Wars Geek is in love with the ninja-backing dancers and The Girlfriend successfully predicts swordfighting. Add fireworks to that, and yes, you’ve got a qualifier. (The song however is very repetitive. Kinda like me! *g*!)
Montenegro really managed to mess up their song. It’s probably impossible to find outfits with less colour. Some horrid beige they paint hospital walls in, so the patients don’t get too agitated. For some reason the backing singers were dressed in fake medieval beige outfits and Stevan looked far too young to be standing on that stage. Try again in a few years. With a better song.
Onto ex-baker “René Baumann” (at least that’s what André says), or DJ Bobo for Switzerland. First off, I am so so relieved this song did a “Kate Ryan” and failed to qualify. Thank you, Europe! See people, neighbour voting does have its benefits! The mannequins on stage were a great find, but apart from that… what a shambles. They were trying everything they could think of to make an impression ( Fireworks! Jumping! (who knew vampires jumped?) Scary lead singer!), apart from sending a decent song. Anja mocks the christian fundamentalists who objected to this song because it was demonic (they should have objected on account of poor taste!), thereby losing her place in heaven, Bavada predicts. Poor Anja. Poor Dj Bobo….
Moldova brings us our first hussy-alert of the evening. My god woman! What are you wearing?! You can practically see… well, everything! Please someone tell me that’s not Moldovan fashion. Obviously (and thankfully, given the outfit) the girl shaves er… down there but all I can think is “is she wearing underwear underneath and if not, did she wear the same outfit during all the rehearsals and isn’t that a bit filthy”. Her dancers are waving red flags about, but I’m way above making jokes about that…Let’s just say Carola and her flag-waving is a new (old) trend and leave it at that. (“If that old bird can score with that, so can we!”) And the song? What song? How on earth did this get through and will we be finding outfits like these in H&M soon …?
Edsilia represents the Netherlands in an orange dress (what else), and I immediately point out that that colour didn’t bode well for Kate Ryan last year (but then, I admit that might not have been just due to the dress). The Netherlands are clearly going for the prize of “Worst Choreography Ever” because whatever they’re doing, it’s awful. Hair waving, legs up in the air, prancing about. WTF? I like the Kylie-shorts the dancers are wearing and Edsilia is very much selling the song, but despite her fantastic performance the song is still not good enough. Kip points out that the Netherlands send the same song year after year, and she’s got a point. However, the respect for Edsilia on The Sofa is great.
Albania, The Girlfriend and I -and I think Bavada- love thee. We may be the only ones in Europe, but at least it should be some consolation to you. There’s a scary violinist and a backing singer with a dress so gigantic she was probably brought on stage with a crane (according to Kip at least). Mister Ndoci reminds Spikey of David Brent and The Girlfriend of Kenny Craig, and we allow ourselves to be swept away by his bombastic ballad.
Aha, Denmark. Anja consistently calls DQ “It” instead of “she”, but I’m pretty sure no-one will file a complaint for discrimination. The VRT is saved from a lawsuit, for the time being. DQ sings so much better than I thought she would and is smiling the best toothpaste-smile of the evening. Such glistening white teeth! My god! Dj Bobo’s vampires would be jealous. The feather-stuff is pretty inspired and funny, the clothes changes are expected, but good and we amuse ourselves by noticing one of DQ’s boobs nearly hanging out of the dress. Definitely better performed than I expected, but a shame about the song though.
Croatia brings us what looks like a girl on a spectacularly Bad Hair Day (nonchalance chic, Piglet?) and her father. Still, Kip is in love with the man’s gravelly voice, I appreciate the reinstatement of the traditional Croation Clothes Change and we come to the realisation (yep, it took us only 13 songs) that slutty outfits and S&M-chains are very much in fashion this year.
And if we hand’t realised the theme by now, Poland would have quickly set us straight on the matter. My. God. Either I’m turning into a prude, or there was something seriously twisted going on on stage. All I kept thinking was “good god, girl, cover yourself up! What will your parents say?!” Can you imagine? “Mum, dad, I’m taking part in Eurovision. I’ll be in a cage and look at my outfit! Isn’t it pretty?!” Yikes! No it’s not! Our lone gay guy goes “well at least the stage looks nice” and the rest of us just stare.
But thank god for Serbia. Our esteemed lead singer comes onstage with her hands in her pockets (“oh fancy meeting you lot here, I didn’t realise I was on a stage and there’s an audience”), takes a bow and then starts belting out Molitva. The Girlfriend was already in love with her (oh shut up…) and I’m falling as well. Anja’s a bit rude –again-, The Sofa questions our crush, but The Girlfriend and I go wild. I mean, there’s girl-on-girl cuddling and touching! What’s there not to like!? Spikey says he misses a Barbara Dex-dress (what’s he implying?!), Kip says she looks like “Heroes”-Hiro, and Bavada comes to the realisation that every song he likes (including this one) vaguely sounds like a communist hymn. The straight women on The Sofa (not affected by Marija) discuss the complicated hand choreography. Well, I don’t think our Marija is much for dancing, to be honest.
The Sofa also questions our love for the Czech Republic: Don’t these guys get laughed at by their hardrock-friends? Are they in pain? Why must they frighten little children? Tsk. No taste, the lot of them.
And the cringe-factor increases with Portugal: three languages, a dancing man (who’s. Serious. About. His. Craft), shiny outfits and fans still can’t make this song any better. It’s just impossible.
Carola’s wind machine (I wonder, did she have to donate it to the winning country?) is back in full force for Macedonia. Its setting is still on “hurricane”, because this poor girl truly has to battle to keep standing against the wind. We still like Macedonenglish (“leave in harmony”) but apart from that only Mrs Duvelman saw this thing qualifying.
Norway also brings us that latin-light vibe (wouldn’t it have been hilarious if Portugal and Norway had been right behind each other?) that we hate so much. Thanks for that, Norway. Last year you brought us a delightful little elf, now… well… I won’t continue the allegory, that would be too rude.The clothes changes scare the population of The Sofa (“don’t take off too much!”), the gay dancers aren’t even cute and we start discussing Kate Ryan’s fate last year. That’s how interesting this is (and how much we still haven’t gotten over Our Kate’s failure last year). Anja chips in with “Bien conservé, la madame en négligé”, a rhyme worthy of Terry Wogan.
Oh! Naked ViolinMan! Obvious gong-playbacking! Pirates of the Carribean! A chinese theme! This can only be Malta! The men have shaved their armpits and the windmachine is blowing so hard Naked Violinman will definitely catch a cold (or he’ll get vertigo *snort*). And only now do I realise Malta didn’t get through to the final… what a disgrace!
Andorra brings us teenage-punk with phallic guitars and a lead singer who dances with his eyes. “This is Eurovision, I can’t just stand there, stroking my guitar… I know, my eyes will do the dancing!” Never have I seen boys more in love with their guitars. There’s a lift after the break (Johnny Logan wrote this, I’m sure) and The Girlfriend fancies the nerdiest of the group and proclaims “she always falls for the losers”. Erm? Hello!?
Hungary scores points with her white marcelleke (undershirt) (but what was the text on her top?), I still think it’s a bit pretentious, but I have to admit she brought it well and deserved to go through. The Sofa is wildly enthusiastic, but I’ll be very very pissed off if she wins. But then that’ s my problem.
And then Carola is back, yet again (This year is full of Carola-clones!), but this time for Estonia. Someone please kill off the wind machine! None of the qualifiers will be able to perform on Saturday, they’ll all be sick in bed. This performance ruined the song for me: gay boys in cardigans, girls in satin night dresses, stroboscopes… overkill.
And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Belgium. We’ll be good! We’ll be fabulous! We… suck. That poor leadsinger must have been terrified. The choreography’s cool, the lead singer only looks gay when he claps (how does that work?), but not even the vocoder can save us. A discussion starts on The Sofa about who exactly sung flat (the lead or backing singer) and even Anja realises it wasn’t good. “I have a feeling”, she says, “they were better in the rehearsal”. “Well, in the last rehearsal. They weren’t very good in the first rehearsals either”, André promptly corrects her. Thus endeth another Eurovision for Belgium. And the “Politics Debate” in Belgium can start again!
No, then Slovenia knew what she was talking about. Now in past years I’ve generally liked Slovenia and never understood why they don’t qualify. Luckily this year was different. A Very Dramatic Dress, Dj Bobo’s vampires in the background and singing about “moeziek”. Fabulous!
Turkey brings us Sertab in Goldfinger outfits, while he looks like the ringmaster at a circus (red tailcoat, golden bow tie). The Sofa proclaims he looks like Piet Huysentruyt, but then with hair, and the ladies are pissed off at me for saying he looked cute. What can I say, photos can be deceiving. At some point, for whatever reason, Kenan starts waving something, possibly his underwear, about. I don’t get it. But then apparently I’m the only one.
At least Austria is subtle. *Snort* “Yes, I’m a qualified dancer. I studied dance in college for three years, and my job now is to be part of an AIDS-ribbon at Eurovision.” But then I realise that some of the er… well, ribbonpeople are men and my love for this goes up a mile. Who designed these fabulous costumes? Men in drag, in trousers, with rubies on their penis!? Fan-tas-tic! Oh yeah, the song: still crap.
Onto everyone’s Granny’s favourites: Latvia. Now if *they* win I’ll be even more pissed than if Hungary wins. Why are they wearing medals? Do Latvians get a medal when they win their national Eurovision preselection? Were they all in the war? What war? Is it a swimming medal? Or do you get one when you graduate? One of the men –one without a medal- chucks away the rose he’s carrying. Great. Now he’ll have to buy a new one on Saturday.
During the interval it dawns on us that we won’t make it through. Even though we feel we might scrape in at number 10 and keep hoping. The main problem though, if Belgium were to win again one year… what on earth would we do during the interval? Finland did something cool with ice princesses and vikings, but what would *we* do?… Smurfs? Asterix? Tintin?
I think that until we figure that out, we should just keep sending something bad.
Labels: eurovision, eurovision 2007
