ast year, Stylus turned its critical eye towards the Eurovision Song Contest, the world’s premier inter-country song-war. A panel of international pop-likers witnessed as Istanbul was invaded by staggering Icelandic men, bald Frenchwomen on stilts, nodding Poles, ginger Turkish ska-punks, Posh Spice’s filthy Swedish aunt and a horde of screaming leather-clad Ukrainians led by a woman called Ruslana, who stole our hearts, along with the hearts of the rest of Europe…
So we’re doing it all over again. This year, the contest’s 50th, finds it in post-Orange Revolution Kiev, as the Ukraine finds the eyes of the world focused on it for altogether happier reasons, as it prepares to host a major international cultural and televisual event for the first time in goodness knows how long – perhaps in its entire history. It certainly promised to be quite an occasion. What followed went something like this…
Edward Oculicz: Having turned down an invite to a Eurovision party in another city, I find myself watching the show with my Masters supervisor, who is perving on the male host’s accent.
Mike Atkinson: The camera pans over the audience, revealing a whole section of empty seats. Apparently, this year's online ticket sales were handled disasterously - and here's the proof. My journalist mate in Kyiv never received his, so he's gone off to watch the contest on the big screen in Independence Square.
Patrick Allan: I've been banging on about Eurovision non-stop for the last month, so you would have thought I might have found someone to watch it with. Unfortunately I'm on my own tonight because everyone's so exhausted from the Cup Final and Doctor Who. At least, that's what they've told me.
Alex Linsdell: RUSLANA! This sounds like it might be pretty ace but my dad is making a very big deal of manoeuvring himself out of the room, directly in front of the TV screen, for pretty much the duration.
Joe Macare: Ruslana is AWESOME, as she was last year. I want to marry her and run away to the hills where we (well, she) will hunt animals and skin them and cook their flesh over wood fires and we will wear their pelts. Will anything else this evening be as good as 'Wild Dances'?
Diego Valladolid: I bet the organisers asked Ruslana to show some mercy, so artists coming next wouldn't pale in comparison. The guitar player looks like a Mighty Mighty Bosstones member, which I think it's as anti-Ruslana as you can get, and she seems restrained… until she brandishes a Mad Max-inspired flame-thrower.
Andries Provoost: The track (I’m not sure whether to call it a song) is to “Wild Dances” as Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “I Won’t Change You” is to “Murder on the Dancefloor”.
Joe Macare: Terry Wogan says she has “girlish ebullience”. For the first but not the last time this evening, I say “Shut up, Wogan.”
Patrick Allan: Ruslana is nothing short of menacing, even her dancers look petrified. She ends the performance with a clumsy little jump, and the microphone audibly collides with her foot. Suddenly I don't feel threatened anymore.
Jessica Popper: Ruslana was supposed to be presenting the show but then they remembered her disastrous past attempts at speaking English and gave the job to a duo named Masha and Pasha.
Mike Atkinson: A symphony in ruched mauve, Masha appears to have taken her stylistic cue from Cadburys Dairy Milk easter eggs. She is also VERY LOUD.
Edward Oculicz: At least she doesn’t have her asparagus dress from the qualifying rounds on.
Mike Atkinson: Pasha has dead eyes. He's not really in the room, is he?
Alex Linsdell: He = totally ineffectual and drab at this point. “Let’s ask audience!” yeah there is nothing big or clever about pidjin English, fuckos.
Patrick Allan: Terry Wogan tells us it's going to be “one of those Eurovisions.”
And so, having noted that no-one thus far has borne any resemblance to Bob Mills, the contest proper gets underway with:
NOX – Forogj Viláj
Andries Provoost: Within five seconds of the flutey intro we hear repeated Ruslana-esque “hey”s, and the tone of the evening is set.
Mike Atkinson: A Magyar Riverdance, basically. This comes with all sorts of high-minded aspirations; it's supposed to fuse the "ancient Hungarian pentatonic scale" with the fast-paced modern beat of contemporary Hungary, or something. But all I can do is gasp in wonderment at the campest male dance troupe this side of Bangkok.
Doug Robertson: The dancers must have fallen asleep before the performance and, as a cruel joke, someone’s written all over their faces with a black magic marker.
Alex Linsdell: Those shiny pates probably make the chaps very aerodynamic. Clonk-riff-clap-CLONK-RIFF-FIDDLE-CLAP-CLONK! All bases rhythmic-preference-wise are covered here.
Diego Valladolid: Barry Blue knew that the link between glam and gypsy is in the "hey" shouting. The song relies on them, and a heavily onomatopoeic chorus, to create an entertaining Eurovision moment.
Edward Oculicz: Rocked-up in sound, and gothed-up n look, the male backing vocals of this were an excellent addition to the too-clean studio version that was sadly lacking them. The dancing went down a storm, and guitars have been rendered acceptable in the context of Eurovision. This was merely good in the qualifying round, but it was fantastic on the Saturday.
Koen Sebregts: Doesn't quite register with me but my girlfriend –who will be my co-host tonight despite a clear lack of interest in the whole affair- thinks it’s ok for an opening song. I'm sitting here watching this whilst feeling like an alien on its first night on earth, when it's actually my 25th year of watching the Eurovision Song Contest. I'm - terrifyingly - not in the mood yet.
Javine – Touch My Fire
Mike Atkinson: Big Drums! That's two sets tonight and counting.
Jessica Popper: Poor Javine! She is, without doubt, the unluckiest girl in pop. She missed out on being in the best girl group of the 21st century, her pop career dried up after a few (mostly very good) singles, she had to record a song for the Garfield soundtrack and then she's finally about to get her big break on Eurovision and she gets a sore throat!
William B. Swygart: They give it hell, though, Javine bellowing and sort of shimmying. Quivering from emotion or because she’s about to fall over? It’s rather difficult to tell…
Edward Oculicz: The entire dance routine is predicated upon the assumption that Javine is sexy. Therefore, it fell a bit flat.
Mike Atkinson: The skirtlet of Javine's teeny tiny mini-dress keeps wafting up around her waist, in Marilyn Monroe "oops" fashion. We didn't have this sort of thing with Nicki French.
Alex Linsdell: She is visibly struggling with the second verse. She misses the “feet” in the second chorus two, both of them. She really can’t say “feet”. It’s very hard to shake the suspicion that she is ad-libbing furiously to avoid those chunks of vocal that seem to suddenly be beyond her reach.
Fergal O’Reilly: Among her dancers are what appears to be an unnervingly malnourished version of Louise Redknapp and a comparitively malnourished and even more rodent-like version of Dane Bowers. Of course, it's not actually them because they're not that famous anymore.
Joe Macare: I feel like I'm supposed to like Javine for reasons that have little to do with patriotism, but it just doesn't work for me. She doesn't have the voice to support the kind of song that has been chosen here – or rather, the style of delivery she chooses demands a better voice to make it pay off.
Chiara – I’ll Be Your Angel
Andries Provoost: Terry announces Chiara as “a lump of a woman”, for the benefit of visually disabled viewers.
Mike Atkinson: She's been here before, you know. Birmingham 1998. Came third. The career went tits-up for a bit after that, but now she's back: as full-figured and radiantly lovely as ever.
Koen Sebregts: Yay for Malta! I'm flying there next week for a holiday - with my lovely co-commentator who is now sitting beside me looking downright morose, in even less of a Eurovision mood than I am. I'm sure this isn't a big hit over in the Maltese clubs. Right? Right? Maybe this is Malta party music, though, who knows.
Patrick Allan: Eurovision ballads usually put me straight to sleep, but the first of tonight's is fantastic. It sounds straight out of a Disney film which, in this case, is a very good thing.
William B. Swygart: The crowd is either going psychotic for this one or the sound on RealPlayer is buggering up.
Alex Linsdell: I trust her. My trust pays off when midsection is ushered in with a grrrrrowl and a swagger. Yeah! like a dogeared remnant from the more prime end of the C.Dion back catalogue, inevitably. None the worse for that.
Mike Atkinson: The applause starts up with the first line of the song, and more or less continues throughout. Which is a strange way to show your appreciation for a ballad, but there you go. Chiara has the all-important ability to form an emotional connection with her audience - there's no need of gimmickry here. The song's forgettable, but the performance has sold it. This will do well.
Luminita Anghel & Sistem – Let Me Try
Andries Provoost: Terry announces it as an “unremarkable” song. Shut up Terry.
Fergal O’Reilly: Wogan's 'young Ruby Wax' remark rings eerily true and casts something of a shadow over proceedings. He sure knows how to suck the fun out of things.
Mike Atkinson: BIG DRUMS #3! And my word, what drums they are: a vast array of yellow oil-drums, a la Stomp. But sod the industrial hardware: I'm transfixed on Luminita's unfeasibly globe-like orbs. Perfect spheres. Heaven knows I'm no expert, but breasts aren't supposed to look like that, are they?
Jessica Popper: I am quite mystified at how this won the semi-final. It's got an optimistic 'let's all work together in harmony' kind of vibe which goes down well at Eurovision (and the biggest drums of the night) but the song itself doesn't stand out to me at all.
Edward Oculicz: A magnificent build – but the chorus is trite and clichéd. Nobody has opened her mouth this wide since Claire from Steps. Some disappointingly judicious late-90s trance comes in.
Alex Linsdell: HOWEVER: brawny spanglemen beating the crap out of what can only be barrels of toxic waste! Delicate bells which are entirely at odds with every other aspect of this performance! And then: toxic-waste-barrels double as some kind of spectacular tap-shoe! Clunky-clank-yeah!, kids.
Mike Atkinson: Here comes the Big Drum breakdown... and woah, there's angle grinders! It's the missing link between the Safri Duo and Test Department!
Joe Macare: Oh, now they're sawing up the steel cyinder drum things. Shut up Wogan! You have no clue. That was miles better than Javine.
Wig Wam – In My Dreams
Fergal O’Reilly: Awesome! It's Eurovision so they're doing Europe! All this needs is Gob Bluth from Arrested Development doing his Intense Magician Dancing and spraying errant playing cards everywhere.
Mike Atkinson: There was a Finnish prog band in the 1970s called Wigwam. Sadly, these are not they. Although they could just about be old enough.
Alex Linsdell: Norway have just ‘got’ The Darkness, or in fact maybe haven’t at all, and the filterings from their un-getting thereof have formed a glamrock popgroup! Hey, big nose! Woah, silver trousers! Zonk, orange-rag-on-stick!
Patrick Allan: Wig Wam's appearance is that of Spinal Tap sans stuffed packages. My mother even felt the necessity to tell me after watching the semi-final that singer Glam “wasn't a very big man”.
Mike Atkinson: There's a big orange flag wrapped round the singer's mike stand. That's orange as in Orange Revolution, of course. To stress the point, he keeps picking the stand up and whirling it round the place. Gesture of solidarity or cheap stunt? I know which way I'm swinging.
Joe Macare: I was soooo prepared to hate this and talk about how the Darkness have a lot to answer for, but this is a far more accurate homage to the golden age of spandex rock than the Darkness have ever achieved. Actually, I am enjoying this enormously. I'm not sure they're joking at all, and I love them for it. In fact this is the best thing so far.
William B. Swygart: No, Turbonegro are shit. Put that fucking flag down, you twat. Why is everyone neglecting the art of verses? And why must they shout so much? Very loud, energetic etc, and among the favourites. Not in this bedroom, though.
Edward Oculicz: An amalgamation of Kiss, Queen and The Village People, with a bit of an AC/DC. But crucially, better than anything the two active ones of those bands have come up with in years. A loving pastiche, a gigantic riff and hook after hook after hook. The Wildhearts should do a cover version of this. There’s an air of authenticity and sincerity to this that makes it more glorious homage than hideous parody.
Alex Linsdell: I am going to pretend that the man is Brian Molko on stilts, this way I like it even more.
Gülseren – Rimi Rimi Ley
Mike Atkinson: As Paddy O'Connell said during the Thursday night qualifiers on BBC3: there can be no ley without rimi rimi.
William B. Swygart: Have a job coming on after the Norwegians, one which they completely fail at. It all goes along pleasantly enough, but that’s the problem.
Alex Linsdell: Chad Kroeger teamed rather unexpectedly with P!nk. It is swingin’ - it doesn’t stomp, it undulates. This is very refreshing until the big drums are attacked and the fun STOPS.
Doug Robertson: There is such a thing as “Too much drumming”. It generally happens the minute you have more than one drummer.
Andries Provoost: Due to lack of genuine entertainment in the actual song, I seek refuge in the Ceefax subtitles. The English translation rhymes “Rimi rimi ley” with “I believe everyone will have their day” and then “I believe love will always find a way”, whereas the Turkish lyrics appear to feature no rhymes whatsoever. Further on, one line ending in “flying” is followed by “crying”. None of the other English translations appear to contain rhymes, so does all this just conveniently happen to rhyme in English, or does an aspiring pop lyricist lurk in the BBC’s Turkish translation unit? By this point the three minutes have nicely passed.
Zdob Si Zdub – Boonika Bate Toba
Joe Macare: This reminds me of all my least favourite bands, from Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine through the Red Hot fucking Chilli Peppers to Crazy Town…
Mike Atkinson: My friends are all saying "Red Hot Chilli Peppers"...
Jessica Popper: "Chilli Peppers meets Rednex" according to my friend Mike…
Alex Linsdell: Like mid-period Mercury Rev, momentarily…
Edward Oculicz: It reminds me of what it would sound like if Jason Mraz covered the Red Hot Chili Peppers…
Alex Linsdell: Anthony Kiedis is fronting James, on the Chart Show indie chart, sometime in 1992! They have embraced the floppy fringe and blobby-flowers!
Doug Robertson: It’s what the world’s been waiting for! A song that sounds like the Baha Men working with Steriogram. Actually, it’s a bit better than that prospect sounds…
Mike Atkinson:...but that doesn't even begin to describe this thrash-folk tribute to a rockin' Grandma figure, who just loves banging her big old drum. "Who's the Beatles? Where from is Peter Pan?" they cry, before launching into frenzied chorus which sounds a bit like "knickerbocker glory", but probably isn't.
Diego Valladolid: Had this song been described to me before I heard it, I would have probably hated it. It's the obvious western-eastern musical mix, but it works and it's more aware of the contest/context it's in than similar songs from past years.
William B. Swygart: The chorus is shouted a lot, but – KEY – is also married to a flute line. A bloody brilliant flute line, that sounds like a hummingbird on heat.
Fergal O’Reilly: My inner ("inner") lazy critic slag is willing me to set up some "this is either genius or teh retarded!" dichotomy, but I think entering into the spirit of the occasion requires I go with the former - the tune's catchy and c'mon, there's a toothless peasant woman playing a drum and looking like she has no idea what's happening.
Koen Sebregts: Fantastic granny drumming. (Granny drumming? Yes, an actual granny that actually bangs a big bass drum. Brilliant). It’s a total party. Can't see if the huge smile the old dear smiles at the end is a toothless one, but I'm going to assume it is.
Patrick Allan: After the lyric, “drink a bottle of wine/no need to smoke the leaves” they've secured my vote, and the old lady in a rocking chair busting out a drum solo is merely the icing on the cake.
Joe Macare: “Let's make love!” he shouts at the end. Instead, I would like to make a nice ashtray out of his hollowed-out skull.
Mike Atkinson: My friends are on their feet and applauding. "This is the best Eurovision ever!", says one. It can't last, can it?
Ledina Celo – Tomorrow I Go
Alex Linsdell: At which point the realisation that 90% of the tracks are going to sound like this really starts to sink in. You know that something is rotten at the heart of Eurovision when a man whips out his big drum and you find yourself thinking, “put it AWAY”.
Mike Atkinson: Haven't we heard this one before? No? Really? Once again, a proper Eastern European country is out-Javining Javine, with Big Drums (that's the fifth set) and gypsy fiddles.
Doug Robertson: That’s a very half-hearted attempt to mime the violin. Even I know that the bow’s supposed to touch the strings, not hover 3 inches above them.
Andries Provoost: As far as contrived gimmicks go, the unwrapping of the violinists ranks higher than Guildo Horn but well below Joseph McCaul (half of this year’s Irish entry, who failed to qualify for the final – ed.).
Edward Oculicz: The best of the Arabic-influenced entries in my mind, catchy, but with a potent, and unexpected emotional kick.
Diego Valladolid: Somebody in the room I was in shouted "Albania is always shit!", with surprising rage. I can't remember past Albanian songs, but surely this is the weakest song so far.
Constantinos Christoforou – Ela Ela
Mike Atkinson: It's "Touch My Fire", Part Three! It's Big Drums, Chapter Six! It's K7's "Come Baby Come", bouzouki-style! It's a hot twink in a tight white tee! It's crap!
Jessica Popper: Failure to win Making Your Mind Up didn't mean Andy Scott-Lee would just give up. He is a Scott-Lee after all! So he took his initiative and a few months' supply of black vests to Cyprus (stopping at the gym on the way) where he presented himself as Constantinos Christoforou and, with a song Peter Andre (well, he was the only famous Cypriot he could think of!) would be proud of, he won the nation's hearts and now he has achieved his goal of appearing at Eurovision! Obviously a few people sussed him out as the UK were one of only 7 countries to give him any points at all.
Mike Atkinson: It's a special moment for connoisseurs, as "fire" (FYE-ya!) is rhymed with "desire" (diz-EYE-ya!) for the first time tonight. Convention dictates that at least one song does this every year. (Last year, we had three.)
Fergal O’Reilly: I can't get the lid off my San Miguel. Shit.
William B. Swygart: At the end he climbs atop some oil drums. Which was kinda inevitable.
Joe Macare: “Everybody! Let's go together!” No, stop it. “I'm the king of the night, let me show you tonight.” YOU ARE NOT THE KING OF THE NIGHT.
Son De Sol – Brujeria
Doug Robertson: It’s Banarama gone Flamenco! How fantastic!
Alex Linsdell: Another change of pace, which is very welcome. It’s Las Ketchup! Or maybe all Spanish pop music really sounds like this. So much colour! My mum is very critical of it, she wakes up just so she can pronounce it “too confusing”. She is right, it’s hard to tell where the stage ends and the performers begin.
Edward Oculicz: Fantastic dresses, and check out the blue one’s cleavage!
Mike Atkinson: The relentless jollity has been cranked up yet another notch, and the whole thing is enlivened greatly by the rambunctious brassiness of Son de Sol, whose vocals have an appealingly fishwifey quality: you're not so much being invited to have fun as being nagged into it, and if you don't jump to your feet this instant, then they're not above getting the rolling-pins out.
William B. Swygart: They are then joined by three doormen from the Spanish equivalent of Rotherham, who achieve the remarkable feat of grumbling out of tune.
Fergal O’Reilly: His name is Javier and he's Spain's version of the Streets, although technically speaking I have just made that up.
Joe Macare: This song is called 'Witchcraft' – is it a comment about how the occult world is always full of plump guys with bad facial hair and terrible clothes, and hot women who love them?
Diego Valladolid: They sang it in a quite nagging way. And it still worked. I love this song, but then I'm Spanish –I don't know how this can be seen outside our country, all context removed. All I can say is that this is my favourite Spanish entry since David Civera's, but it did sound strange amongst the other entries. Even the production is quite different from the rest. It would be heroic if this did good.
Shiri Maimon – Hasheket Shenish’ar
Fergal O’Reilly: A pretty lady dressed like a mermaid doing overwrought diva power-balladry. Sort of a bit - ah, there's the beer opened.
Mike Atkinson: This was the surprise hit of the Thursday night qualifiers: an old fashioned ballad, which picks over the wreckage of a broken wreckage in the most desolate of terms. Shiri has the artificial look of a Mariah Carey, but turns in an authentic, heartfelt performance. Proper singing, this is.
Patrick Allan: Wogan seems to love this dull as dishwater ballad, but I'm not convinced at all. It's like one of Mariah Carey's filler album tracks. The Maltese entry earlier on should blow this one out of the water when it comes to the voting.
Alex Linsdell: The chorus doesn’t do anything very superb, but immediately afterwards the backing vocalists belt out, “Ka shay, ka shaay a shaaa!” and early-part-of-song is deliciously and immaculately packaged up and we have closure on it and we swoon straight into verse two and are propelled through the shooting-star! fizz, into the second chorus. And it is a fizz, this is the killer blow here I feel. They might be overusing it to such an extent that the actual shooting-star associations start to lack credibility (how many could you usually expect to find within a three minute period? really) but, it works.
Jessica Popper: This is my favourite of the ballads, although it doesn't really get good until the final section where she sings in English. It's not because she sings in English, that bit is just loads better! She has a good voice and an extremely lovely dress as well.
Alex Linsdell: The singer looks warm and caring, and the backing singers look wise and affectionate, they are a fantastic bunch of charming, cosy pals who are not afraid to wear their unfashionable trot on their delectable sleeve. This is my favourite, so far. How?
No Name – Zauvijek Moja
Andries Provoost: The translation of the opening line teaches me that the Serbian language uses a different phrase to denote the Rocky Mountains than “Rocky Mountains”! Ne’er a dull moment in Eurovision and such.
Mike Atkinson: Big Drums #7! And another gypsy fiddle!
Patrick Allan: Oh lord, I can see kettle drums and hear kettle drums, but I can't see anyone hitting them. Out of nowhere pop two drummers who begin to back away furiously.
Alex Linsdell: Nice phrasing! Nice bells – chime, yum! Nice. Not a compelling visual concept, though. Some men, standing around a bit. Man with teeth thrashes timpani, enthusiastically. He is totally inaudible.
Doug Robertson: Awww. Their mums will be so proud. This is possibly the worst dance routine since Boyzone got in a choreographer.
Mike Atkinson: Coming on like a Slavic Walker Brothers - but only if you shut your eyes - the incongruously youthful No Name deliver a brooding blast of hairy-chested Balkan bombast: all swelling strings, thundering kettledrums and gruff yelps of passion. "I'll reach out for you across the Rocky Mountains, take you to my old stone house, and the sound of bells will rise above us and will meet the sky." Ee, that's poetry, that is.
Alex Linsdell: Later on the singer keens a bit and two of the other chaps circle each other in what probably equals some kind of mating ritual, in some other place, somewhere, but, bored.
Serbia marked the halfway point of the contest. For television viewers in most European countries this meant watching some adverts. For everyone else, however…
Jessica Popper: We're halfway through so it's time for a quick break to promote the new Eurovision book and show a few confusing behind the scenes clips from rehearsals.
Joe Macare: Oh God, the painfully staged 'banter' between the two hosts is bad. “Why, what's that you have there Masha?” “It's a piece of cheap Eurovision merchandising tat, Pasha!”
Alex Linsdell: Masha is ‘doing’ the ‘catalogues’! She is talking about Eurovisions of old, her book matches her dress. So meta. I love her so much. Nondescriptman is stooge and should accept his lot and be grateful.
Jakob Sveistrup – Talking To You
Andries Provoost: Terry considers this “terrific” before it’s even begun. Shut up Terry pt. 2.
Alex Linsdell: Ronan Keating in the body of Patrick Kielty; or, Patrick Kielty in the body of Patrick Kielty.
Fergal O’Reilly: There may also be some Rutger-Hauer-as-Roy-Batty in there; he's revealed to be disturbingly dead-eyed on closeups and despite his ostensibly cheery stage persona will probably kill a woman later.
Koen Sebregts: Danish reggae has quite a pedigree though: remember Laid Back and their "Sunshine Reggae"? And then there's that time Jimmy Cliff had to change planes at Copenhagen Airport. Oh yes. Still, I don't think it’s all that bad, this.
Diego Valladolid: This is not so much a song for the good days, as a song that makes all the days good as long as you don't have to hear it again. Because, gentle Jesus, the way he kinda "duck walks" to the front of the stage while singing a nagging "I-wa-nna-get-to-you" or something, is the material that nightmares are made of.
Jessica Popper: You're all going to laugh at me now, but I LOVE this song! It's Ronan Keating on a particularly jolly day and he looks like Sean, The Gay off Coronation St, and still I'm not put off. It seems he has got all his mates from the pub to do the bobbing from side to side thing he calls dancing. It's so, so cheesy, but mums Europe-wide will be falling in love with this bloke (and he's a teacher as well - a sure-fire mum hit!).
Patrick Allan: My mum's picked this one as the winner, possibly because she gave up on music in the mid-eighties.
Mike Atkinson: This surprised everyone by qualifying at the semi-finals, and I suppose that I'm vaguely starting to see why it got through. On the other hand, sustained exposure to Eurovision has a habit of skewing my aesthetic sensibilities out of all recognition. What is good? What is bad? I am utterly adrift.
Martin Stenmarck – Las Vegas
Joe Macare: This on the other hand is definitely a good song, spoilt by a preening twattish fool of a man in leather pants.
Doug Robertson: If it wasn’t for the existence of Viva Las Vegas, this is exactly what you’d expect a song called Las Vegas to sound like. As Viva Las Vegas does exist, this is somewhat redundant.
Mike Atkinson: Did this really beat Alcazar, Shirley Clamp, Nanne Gronvall, Bodies Without Organs and Pay TV in the Swedish national qualifiers? And how exactly did this happen?
Alex Linsdell: This is More Like It! for the length of the intro, and then the man starts to sing. It is a very upbeat number. I am afraid that I am well-inclined towards it because of his shiny attire. Very nice sustain-release horns after the chorus, they make me giddy. His big stick (possibly mic stand) does not impress, whereas the high kicks of the backing folk do. I like this about it. Vigour is here, if nothing else.
Diego Valladolid: It's impossible not to think about "Alcastar" not making it while listening to Martin Stenmarck. To be fair, he's a nice and charismatic singer, and the song is not so bad as I thought the first time I heard it. It's a shame they've gone for a light entertainment song instead of the exhilarating pop the Swedes are famous and loved for. And what if Lena Ph had had that laser-microphone stand last year…
Martin Vucic – Make My Day
Mike Atkinson: Here's another of those baffling semi-final qualifiers. By my calculations, I make this "Touch My Fire" Part 5, and the eighth appearance of those bloody Big Drums. We've been here before! Make it stop! I am losing the will to live, and I'm a Eurovision fan, God knows what it must be like for the rest of you.
Alex Linsdell: To be fair, the giant Perspex drums here are the most impressive (visually) of the night so far. The drummer should be living in them. He could!
William B. Swygart: MORE FUCKING DRUMS, married to a man with the exact build of Nick Faldo who briefly tries dancing like Holly Valance and completely fails. He then tries dancing in some other fashions, and continues to fail.
Diego Valladolid: Oh. It's so hard to be the grandson of the most famous bagpipe player ever. It makes you dress like a clown. More than that, this Martin Vicic proves that it doesn't matter if you can't dance, as long as you're a magnetic frontman. Which he isn't.
Fergal O’Reilly: I like this because it reminds me of "Reward" by the Teardrop Explodes a bit.
Edward Oculicz: I actually thought this was a bit unfairly maligned, but his dancing looks like what I do in front of the mirror in my bedroom. While I’m glad to see that there are proponents of my unique style as far away as Macedonia, the attraction here is the sexy bum-waggling ladies rather than the singer or the song. That jacket! Dear me. Oh and some splits. All too familiar. I identify with Mr Vukic, he’s a dork like me.
Green Jolly – Razom Nas Bahato
Doug Robertson: In the only bit of useful information he managed to impart in between entertaining us with his hilariously xenophobic, bordering on the racially offensive views, Terry Wogan told us that this was the anthem for the Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.
Jessica Popper: If the rest of Europe is anything like our family they'll all miss most of this while one of the family members (in our house this job somehow belonged to me) explains the Orange Revolution and the youngest sibling makes rubbish jokes about Orange phones. “Why wasn't it the Vodafone Revolution? The future's bright, the future's Orange!”
Edward Oculicz: Even by the generally low standard of political pop, this is just awful.
Koen: It starts off with interesting electronic bleeps, then the We Will Rock You drums and handclaps come in. Hm. Next up, a neutered Smells Like Teen Spirit riff. Where else could this end up but with a huge Ukrainian man rapping?
Joe Macare: The man with the green guitar is superfluous and annoying. The backing dancers are wearing chains – oh, and now inevitably, they've broken the chains of oppression!
Alex Linsdell: The handcuff dancing is really great, though. They just broke the chains! Yeah! Although, it took the second guy a couple of attempts. It’s pretty ‘brave’ of the Ukraine to showcase something as ploddy as this; in the brave new post-Ruslana migraine-centric world, it is almost endearing.
Diego Valladolid: This song was always going to be more important for the Ukraine viewers than for the rest of us. But it was still an enjoyable track.
William B. Swygart: Crowd goes mental as anything. The frontman looks utterly chuffed. Good lad.
Gracia – Run And Hide
Diego Valladolid: How ironic is that after an anti-New World Order hymn comes a track whose singer was named after Princess Grace, married to one of the world most powerful illuminati, and a high priestess herself (no, I don't have anything interesting to say about the song).
Fergal O’Reilly: Wogan describes it as "one for the raincoat brigade." Miserable postpunks? Raincoats covers? Oh. A woman in an actual raincoat.
William B. Swygart: Fucking sweet keyboard line finds itself tied to a bloody awful pop-rock plodder, fronted by a woman who can’t hit any notes at all. Ever.
Patrick Allan: The singer sounds like a small child playing one of those games where you have to guide a metal hoop along a thin wire path, being careful not to let the wire touch the sides of the hoop or you'll suffer an electric shock. The child is losing miserably.
Mike Atkinson: The second rock track in a row - providing you're willing to extend your definition of "rock" to this piece of souped-up Schlager, that is. It's actually the work of that deathless old hack Bernd Meinunger, now trading under the newly adopted pseudonym of "John O'Flynn". This is the thirteenth year that one of Meinunger's efforts have represented Germany, his past work including Lou's "Let's Get Happy", Corinna May's "I Can't Live Without Music", and Nicole's winning song in 1982, "Ein Bisschen Frieden (A Little Peace)" - and that's not counting his work for other countries, including this year's Swiss entry (of which more later). So it's actually about as "rock" as, well, Four Non Blondes - whose "What's Up" this closely resembles.
Fergal O’Reilly: Not especially popular WWE lug Tyson Tomko on drums there, marvellous.
Boris Novkovic – Vukovi Umuri Sami
Edward Oculicz: A squashed Gerard Depardieu performs the music for an airline commercial.
Patrick Allan: Boris gives a deeply emotional performance of “Wolves Die Alone” straight from the heart, with a look on his face as if he's just passed wind in a lift.
Joe Macare: “I thought wolves travelled in packs. Do they, like, separate off to go and die?” asks my friend.
Alex Linsdell: The singer makes a lot of fists, he is too impassioned and emotionally involved to convince as the rakish lounge lizard that he aspires to be. The painted man on drums is Bit Of Rough Trade Eno to unlothario’s Ferry.
Mike Atkinson: There’s an "I'm mad, me!" drummer, cast in the Keith Flint mould, who appears to have wandered in from an another act entirely. Just as the song - delivered with all appropriate gravitas - builds to a stirring crescendo, with some rather fine open-throated choral work from the backing singers, the Keith Flint wannabe suddenly leaps to the front of the stage and, for no readily apparent reason, does a handstand. Let's just say that it doesn't exactly complement the mood.
Diego Valladolid: What is the percussionist doing? Why does Boris allows this to happen?
Doug Robertson: At least this means he’s no longer drumming.
Helena Paparizou – My Number One
Mike Atkinson: Ooh, fit dudes in white collarless shirts slashed to the navel. HOT. "Touch My Fire" Part Six is actually the bookies' favourite - and Helena certainly has form, having finished third in 2001 with Antique's splendid "I Would Die For You".
Jessica Popper: Hooray! This is my highest scorer yet on my nifty BBC scorecard. I love Elena's band Antique, and it's nice to see a Swede succeed, even if it's not for Sweden exactly.
Diego Valladolid: Last year they were very close, weren't they? This song is amongst the favourites and it's hard not to see why. It's a very infectious and vibrant song, a lot more than Javine's kind of similar effort.
Alex Linsdell: Javine may be unable to say “feet”, but she is tight and economical. This is really slack and flagging in comparison. It’s probably very unfair to judge this against directly Javine, but it is very dull on all levels.
Edward Oculicz: Fantastic verses – though should have included “nutritious” as one of the rhymes. A faintly disappointing spectacle as the chorus lacks a bit of sparkle, but it just keeps and going like a jaunty juggernaut so it doesn’t matter a jot. After having been completely robbed in 2001 when she was one half of Antique, I’d love to see this one win.
Andries Provoost: The “lover/undercover” rhyme, also used to good effect in the Sophie Ellis-Bextor album track “Lover” (as I was duly reminded by Edward O on MSN), is indeed as fabulous a set-up for a Eurovision winner as any, and rhyming “delicious” with “capricious” and subsequently “vicious” keeps the ball rolling nicely.
Mike Atkinson: This marks the second FYE-ya! diz-EYE-ya! rhyme of the night - but Helena goes the extra difference, appending a cheeky take me HYE-ya! for good measure. And at this precise point, the hunky dancers do indeed take Helena HYE-ya, as they raise her above their heads. It's touches like this which separate the sheep from the goats. Take that, Cyprus! Not that any of this will affect the ritual swapping of the Greek-Cypriot douze points later on, of course.
Andries Provoost: (H)elena (which of the two IS it then?) may remind me a sight of a ginger Cat Deeley with dodgy extensions, but I’ll try not to hold that against her. Again a mid-song Terry voice-over. Oh my dear Lord, contrived gimmick alert! With violin strings!
Doug Robertson: She’s playing violin with a bloke’s belt. Now that’s impressive.
Mike Atkinson: I like the bit where Helena plays the fiddle, using the braces of one of her hunky dancers. Because you can't beat a good costume gimmick. The part where the hunky dancers form a perfect "Number One" on the floor is also impressive. They've thought of everything.
William B. Swygart: It’s not Moldova, put it that way.
Natalya Podolskaya – Nobody Hurt No One
Andries Provoost: The opening line goes “Hello sweet America”, implying that pesky Cold War thingy might be over at last.
Mike Atkinson: Ooh, searing social commentary! This song's high-minded attempt at examining problems relating to gun control in American high schools is severely undermined by its choice of "little Erica" as its subject, purely because she rhymes with "America".
Patrick Allan: Republica do “Teen Spirit” for what seems like ten minutes. It's not as bad as the German entry, though something about the line, “You're having fun until your child will shoot your gun” sort of dampens the Eurovision atmosphere.
Alex Linsdell: In the great pantheon of skyscraping Eurovision choruses, this is commendably unusual, which unfortunately doesn’t make it any fun.
William B. Swygart: I’m giving it points because it’s better than Germany’s attempt at the genre, and the singer is quite possibly the ginger Lauren Laverne.
Joe Macare: Natalia is pretty rocking, I reckon. She has this whole Joan Jett thing going on. This is pretty repetitive but I like it, maybe I'm just partial to Russians.
Femminem – Call Me
Alex Linsdell: There’s been a bit of a total fucking dearth of bouncy brassy girlpop until now, which hadn’t been entirely obvious, until this.
Joe Macare: You can't argue with a band called Feminnem. Can you?
Mike Atkinson: Feminnem! Ha ha yes very good! If your idea of a good Eurovision song is still "one that sounds a bit like Abba", then this is the one for you - although it most closely resembles Charlotte Nilsson's "Take Me To Your Heaven", the winner in 1999.
Fergal O’Reilly: It's supposed to be Abba-y, and yet it still reminds me almost as much of that suffocatingly jaunty Shakin' Stevens Christmas single, or possibly the other similar one by Gary Glitter. I can't remember the difference.
William B. Swygart: Three identical blonde Bosnians set about ‘Chain Reaction’ with jackhammers. There is no change of pace. Or volume. Or tempo. Ever. They are shouting, really, really loudly in the most unbearably painful Balkan shrieks imaginable. They have come to capture your heart BY FORCIBLY REMOVING IT FROM YOUR RIBCAGE WITH UNBELIEVABLY BRUTAL FORCE.
Alex Linsdell: Waterloo/Chain Reaction/Knock On Wood! Aw yeah. AND, the chorus is almost as good as it should be! Notches up halfway through, licks the ceiling, back down for the second verse whereupon it bounces deliriously off the walls and my heart goes bang! bang ! bang ! bang! thank Christ.
Edward Oculicz: Plastic, synthetic Scandi-pop, ridiculously catchy, undeniable feel-good factor. Who knew this country was such a disco powerhouse? Light on spectacle, but long on glamour and fun and heart-lifting spirit. Just fantastic.
Jessica Popper: "United in the song, that's all it takes, Fifty candles on the forty cakes" - I bet they were really cross when Lebanon dropped out leaving only 39 cakes! The song is still brilliant and has the best lyrics of the competition. Bonus points for being the only ones to celebrate 50 years of Eurovision.
William B. Swygart: No kettle drums either. SCORE!
Mike Atkinson: This is a hen night of a tune; a little too clinically calculated to qualify as camp, but not without a certain breezy charm.
Alex Linsdell: It really is far too predictable to love the fluffy dazzler one much more than the rest, but nothing else has touched this so far. A spaceship takes off during the middle-eight! Actual cascading harmonies! Big big Aryan smiles and dangerous whiff of genuine glee on the part of the performers. Happy. Win!
Vanilla Ninja – Cool Vibes
Fergal O’Reilly:"Shadows on my destiny"? Crikey, that's a bit Dark for Eurovision ennit?
Jessica Popper: Vanilla Ninja are one of the best girl bands currently in Europe and so popular that they've been poached by Switzerland to save them from further embarrassment (last year they came 22nd in the semi-final!).
Diego Valladolid: Vanilla Ninja may have, musically speaking, aged more than Supergrass did from "I Should CoCo" to "In It For The Money".
Mike Atkinson: Having came close to representing their native in Estonia 2003 with the awesome "Club Kung-Fu", Ver Ninje have since defected to Switzerland, where they have plied a successful trade as the toast of the ski resorts. Sadly, they have decided to play against their strengths with this, coming over all doom-laden and gothy and "our favourite band is Incubus actually".
Edward Oculicz: Vanilla Ninja are fucking great, their album “Traces of Sadness” was one of 2004’s best, and this is an odd one – it’s a slow-burner, whereas most of their radio singles are immediate and awesome. But this has fantastic drama, and the way the girls don’t seem to be playing the instruments at all is very Robert Palmer video. Needs a gothic choir.
Koen Sebregts: I love Vanilla Ninja almost as much as Edward does, but this is just not as good as their own stuff. There is the baffling brilliance of the chorus' lyrical sequence 'Cool Vibes – why don't you kill me', but the song eventually falls somewhere in between really good Goth Pop and decent girl group pop.
Alex Linsdell: Best frontperson of the night by several yardsticks. STEELY, scornful, a tiny bit totally-furious.
Andries Provoost: The fact the lead singer (or whatever the one who does 97.45% of the singing wishes to call herself) more than ‘kinda’ resembles Nicola Roberts transports me to a parallel universe in which Nicola is the focal point of Girls Aloud and all ugly ducklings in all girl groups in the world are the focal point of all girl groups in the world, a blessed realm which I don’t leave again until, oh, some three minutes later.
Joe Macare: This is great! Vanilla Ninja have the best name here, and they're kinda like The Donnas – really! Okay, maybe more like The Faders, but hey. The lead singer has real presence and this is much, much better than a song called 'Cool Vibes' has any right to be.
Mike Atkinson: But it's not as bleak as you think, because "Cool Vibes" is actually the name of a tiger! Yeah, but who knows that?
Walters & Kazha – The War Is Not Over
William B. Swygart: China Crisis are back, and this time, they’re Latvian.
Jessica Popper: Is this the Latvian answer to Sam & Mark?
Mike Atkinson: The blonde twink on the left looks like Bree Vanderkamp's teenage son on Desperate Housewives. The blonde twink on the right looks like a thirteen-year old version of Brian McFadden, when he was still Bryan Out Of Westlife.
Doug Robertson: Stools! Run away! Run away! Still, it’s nice to see that the Kings of Convenience are still going.
Andries Provoost: It’s the Olsen Brothers’ twinky nephew and his ‘special friend’ who begin with a bit of strummin’ of the ole acoustic guitar, then discard it while it mysteriously keeps on playing in a Ramón stylee, and ultimately indulge in a spot of sign language.
Mike Atkinson: This would be fine, if a) the sign language didn't resemble a Steps dance routine, and b) the lyrics weren't a load of disconnected platitudes, randomly strung together in an attempt to create an illusion of depth.
Diego Valladolid: I find this song oddly entertaining. Too catchy for my own good. The stupid dance-sign language they do adds to its Eurovisive charm. When I say stupid I mean, I don't think a lot of deaf people not only watch Eurovision but stay till entry number 23, to see a duo saying "the war is not over, everyone knows it, etc" in sign language. Or do they?
Andries Provoost: In a way, it’s what Eurovision is all about; in another (more accurate) way, not really.
Ortal – Chacun Pense A Soi
Fergal O’Reilly: The French lady has a pointy, demonic face. Like full-on Nicole Kidman territory.
Koen Sebregts: The final entry makes up for the previous one though, by having possibly the first French entry I've actually quite liked in all those years.
Alex Linsdell: Another fairly nondescript dance-pop-er that benefits from comparative sparseness (i.e. no great hulking tubthumpery). There is room to breathe!
Mike Atkinson: Oh dear. She sounds as if she's singing about shagging. "Shag a man ce soir". "Voulez-vous shagger avec moi?" We've got the giggles now. And I'm actually missing the Big Drums. They would have livened this up no end.
Andries Provoost: This may well be the very first uptempo French offering in all the years of active Eurovision watchage in my conscious lifetime, yet ends up sounding much less exciting than that implies. I appreciate it being seasoned with some nice Europop bleeps and bits which are however annihilated by the superannuated ‘rap’ scratches, making me wonder whether it is 1987 already.
William B. Swygart: France make the unique step of sending along a singer whose French accent isn’t actually as good as mine. Her voice is possibly the weakest on show tonight, and the scratching in the background is completely incongruous to it.
Alex Linsdell: Strings go stab. Stab stab jiggle canter whoa! ALL DONE.
And so the performances came to a close. This, however, was only the halfway point of the evening, as across Europe viewers vote via telephone and text-message for their favourites. The results are then totted up, and each country awards points to the ten most popular songs amongst its public – the most popular song scores 12 points, the second most popular scores 10, then the third scores 8, the fourth scores 7 and so on down to the tenth most popular, which scores 1. Coincidentally, that’s the same points scale as each Stylus panellist scored their favourite ten songs with, coming up with the ‘Stylus Scores’ you see underneath each entry. Scaling up the results of our 12 panellists to be of comparable scale to the results of the 39 countries (the 24 finalists plus the 15 that didn’t qualify from the semi-final – the maths is basically dividing our scores by twelve then multiplying the result by 39), we reckon the top five will come out something like this:
1) BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA – 299 points
2) GREECE – 241 points
3) MOLDOVA – 237 points
4) NORWAY – 198 points
5) SWITZERLAND – 185 points
But before we can find out how right we are, the actual vote collecting, tabulating and result announcing has to take place, and since this is a televised entertainment programme it needs to happen in an entertaining manner. What happened next goes something like this:
Mike Atkinson: It's over! And here come Ant & Shriek, as Wogan has taken to calling them.
Joe Macare: Is Masha an Auton?
Fergal O’Reilly: They're introducing two famous Ukrainians. Hang on, V-Vitalic? Oh. It's two boxing brothers called Vitali and Vladmir.
William B. Swygart: The voting begins, and is introduced by… THE KLITSCHKO BROTHERS! Yes, two of the best heavyweight boxers in the world today are here to start the voting, and amaze us with their impossibly weedy voices and chime-jangling skills. What would Dolph Lundgren say?
Mike Atkinson: I'm off outside to get a signal on the mobile. Two votes for the Norwegian comedy metal; two votes for the Moldovan banging granny.
Jessica Popper: Then there's a recap which makes me realise what a great year this is for entries. There are so many good ones!
William B. Swygart: The Klitschkos return to tinkle the chimes again.
Fergal O’Reilly: "YOU CANNOT VOTE ANY MORE", says Vladimir, convincingly.
Jessica Popper: Then the voting ends and it's time for an interval act with, guess what! More drums!
Mike Atkinson: Wogan always calls this the best bit. NO IT'S NOT! It's the same as every year: over-egged Riverdance-esque twaddle... and oh, how novel, BIG SODDING DRUMS! FOR THE TENTH FUCKING TIME TONIGHT! BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN COUNTING!
Fergal O’Reilly: I should have bought more beer.
Joe Macare: WTF is this? A contemporary ballet dancer – sorry, “body artist” – writhes around in a spotlight. This is well rubbish and has nothing to do with pop music.
Edward Oculicz: I can think of a few useful applications of what he’s doing right now.
Doug Robertson: The “body artist” is the sort of act who would turn up half way through The Paul Daniels Magic Show every other week for no apparent reason other than to make Paul’s tricks look like a maelstrom of excitement in comparison.
Jessica Popper: I think we should get him as our entry next year - do the rules say we need singing? Then after some more frantic drumming, Ruslana is back with a really great song.
Fergal O’Reilly: I am jolted from a stupor by red women dancing and have no idea what's happening.
Joe Macare: Oh, thank God, Ruslana is back. This is much better than a good 80-90% of what's been competing tonight. Only Wig Wam are in competition with Ruslana. She is a star. Terry Wogan openly pervs over her.
Doug Robertson: Shame someone’s stolen half of her skirt.
Joe Macare: They've gone straight to the Greek woman in the Green Room – fix! She says this is the biggest celebration Europe can ever celebrate. How would one go about proving that? Then she says “Good luck Europe!” - obviously biased against the Israeli and Russian entries.
Andries Provoost: And then we go on to the part of the evening that will go on to cause considerably more tedium than entertainment (whereas the rest of the show featured both in more or less equal measures): the voting. And boy, does it go on a bit.
The next segment involves going round all 39 countries and collecting the results of their voting. We’ve probably mentioned this before, but it never hurts to be reminded. Anyway, here’s some edited highlights, possibly with slightly skew-whiff chronology for added journalistic effect:
Mike Atkinson: Serbia's in the lead. And now it's Croatia. And now it's Moldova. And now Romania. And now Switzerland. And now Israel. Six sets of votes, and six different leaders. Greece, the favourites, are tanking in the lower half of the scoreboard.
Edward Oculicz: Austria surely must give Vanilla Ninja points. They’re HUGE there… oh wait. They got nothing, and they liked Israel. I repeat my call of last year for Austria to be banned for not taking the thing seriously.
Jessica Popper: An interesting fact is that Andorra, Albania, and Monaco had to use a jury vote, which means they must have had less than 100 votes! I know they are small countries but that is still quite shocking.
Joe Macare: Monaco. Monaco? Monaco.
Mike Atkinson: Andorra sent the owner of the local guest house to sing at the semis, and now they've sent the checkout girl from the local mini-mart to read out the votes.
Doug Robertson: The voting is pretty spread out, about the only thing that the combined nations of Europe agree on is that they don’t care much for Javine.
Edward Oculicz: Who the fuck is voting for Israel, Denmark, Latvia and Malta? Shame on you. I blame old people.
Mike Atkinson: The political snubs are interesting: Monaco and Belgium have snubbed France, and Belarus has snubbed Ukraine while giving 12 to Russia. Estonia give 12 points to Switzerland, as represented by the Estonian Vanilla Ninja. Smart tactics, Switzerland! After ten sets of votes, Switzerland become the first country to retain a lead.
Koen Sebregts: Totally mortified when my texted vote means nothing whatsoever and we, us, the Dutch, do not give Moldova any points. Shame, since Moldova seemed to be going pretty well before that. But now it's dropping to mid-table.
Joe Macare: Norway doing better now – in the top 5. Switzerland in the lead, which is great, go Vanilla Ninja! As Wogan says, I don't care who wins as long as we keep Moldova off the top.
Edward Oculicz: Bulgaria are very happy to vote for the first time in Eurovision. Sadly, they waste the opportunity by giving 10 points, inexplicably, to Cyprus.
Mike Atkinson: Here are the votes of the Irish jury, as read by Dana Provincial. Crikey, she's well preserved. "Welcome to Dublin, the spiritual home of Eurovision!" Can too much HRT make you delusional? That was a long time ago, Dana. The axis has shifted decisively Eastwards since then. "United Kingdom, eight points." AT LAST!
Edward Oculicz: Neighbourly voting is OK when it’s done by Ireland, particularly when they go for all the weak-assed, simpering songs that sucked.
Mike Atkinson: "Latvia, twelve points" - and the toothsome blonde twinks take the lead for the first time. Latvia have now been in the lead for the last six rounds of voting. Torpor descends.
Koen Sebregts: What's with Latvia racking up all those points? I may not care that much for the Israeli or Swiss entries but I'm rooting for them if it'll keep those boring Latvians off the top spot.
Doug Robertson: Cheryl “Eggs and” Baker is our representative. No wonder the rest of Europe hates us.
William B. Swygart: Cheryl Baker does the British results, while holding a glass of BUCKS FIZZ and announcing that the UK has finished MAKING ITS MIND UP. There remains very little in this world as unamusing as a Eurovision in-joke.
Fergal O’Reilly: This leads me to believe that the other representatives were not as highly regarded within their respective countries as I had assumed. I was expecting the UK's representative to be Andrew Marr.
Joe Macare: She gives Moldova two points and that is two points too many and I am ashamed to be British. 12 points go to Greece – why?
William B. Swygart: We reach the halfway point with Latvia in the lead, ten points ahead of Greece.
Mike Atkinson: Two people in the room with me are fast asleep. Does an hour and a half of numbers wafting about on a screen constitute acceptable prime time Saturday night entertainment? Suddenly, Celebrity Love Island Live seems like an enticing prospect. This was never a problem until last year, when the number of participating juries shot up by over 50%. Something needs to be done.
Joe Macare: At this stage I am hoping for Switzerland to win and Norway to “place”. I wish bad things for Greece, Israel and Latvia. And, of course, Moldova.
Alex Linsdell: It’s gone quite fast this year, and yet, kind of a slog. Draining. The drums, you see.
Koen Sebregts: We go and check out the Green Room now, our male host informs us. "Oh I like calling other countries", the female host replies. Brilliant.
Doug Robertson: Ruslana and a boxer, together at last. The world’s ultimate desire to see the two of them together, performing a badly written and acted skit has finally been fulfilled.
Joe Macare: Ruslana is dwarfed by a boxer. She says she wouldn't want to be in his boxer shoes. Now she is pretending to attack him. I wish she was really attacking him with her sharpened Xena weapons. Now they are holding up horseshoes. Why?
Koen Sebregts: My fears and righteous anger subside, as the Latvians quickly lose momentum…
Mike Atkinson: Wow, where did Greece come from? All of a sudden, they're sharing the lead with Latvia. That was stealthy work. Here comes Cyprus. Can we hazard a guess here? Wow, Latvia get just the one point. Who said "tactical"? And thus, with their statutory 12, Greece go sailing into a lead of 23 points - easily the biggest thus far.
Joe Macare: The Romanian judge is accurately described by a friend as “a strange mixture of Bob Hoskins and Phil Collins”. They give 12 points to Moldova and should be bombed back to the stone age in retribution. It wouldn't be a disproportionate response.
Edward Oculicz: Remember last year when Turkey stuffed up their link to Istanbul? Well, the big technical difficulties with relaying of votes came from… Kiev. Oh, the ironing is delicious…
Mike Atkinson: With Sweden giving their 12 points to Swedish-born Helena, whose song is already in the Swedish charts, Greece extend their lead to 37 points. Helena looks ecstatic. She's bagged it, hasn't she? This is an object lesson in how to gain the best advantage in the newly Eastern European dominated contest: get a Swedish singer to sing a Greek song, and you'll have both geographical constituences sewn up.
Fergal O’Reilly: Doing his own part for hard-hitting investigative journalism, the ever mean-spirited Wo-gan continues to obsessively sniff out what he perceives to be some kind of sinister inter-country tactical voting/nepotism scandal, as opposed to like, countries that are culturally similar to each other tending to prefer each others' songs a bit.
Mike Atkinson: As Greece give Cyprus their ritual 12 points, a delighted Constantinos Christoforou holds up a pre-prepared sign, hand-written in the Greek alphabet, thanking them for the vote. The crowd can't even be arsed to boo.
Mike Atkinson: Russia's 10 points push Malta up into a clear second place. Chiara looks delighted.
Joe Macare: I can't believe Malta are in second place, their song was TERRIBLE. Is this Michelle McManus syndrome?
Andries Provoost: Ultimately, after a period of time that more or less corresponds to the time it takes to sit through two Tori Amos concept albums, Ms Paparizou is crowned as the rightful winner. Huzzah!
Doug Robertson: Greece are the winners of Eurovision 2005. Hooray! Although with the length of time the voting took, they’re probably the winners of Eurovision 2006 as well.
And so in the end, the top ten (all of whom automatically qualify for next year’s final) looked something like this:
1) GREECE – 230 points
2) MALTA – 192 points
3) ROMANIA – 158 points
4) ISRAEL – 154 points
5) LATVIA – 153 points
6) MOLDOVA – 148 points
7) SERBIA & MONTENEGRO – 137 points
8) SWITZERLAND – 128 points
9) NORWAY – 125 points
10) DENMARK – 125 points
Stylus favourites Feminnem wound up coming 14th, with 79 points. Ah. Still, at least we correctly predicted that Germany would come in last.
Fergal O’Reilly: Stop winning everything, Greece. Let the other European nations have a turn at something, hm?
Edward Oculicz: I think the key thing with Greece is that they’ve got a lot of friends, and this year they sent a bloody good song, so it’s no surprise they improved on last year when they sent a thin, hookless, breathy mess. “My Number One” is ever so cheap and flimsy and insubstantial, but endlessly catchy and endearing. The voting was all over the place, with the occasional 12 not going where you’d expect, though you still noticed when they did.
Mike Atkinson: Looking at the scoreboard, there is only one Western European country left in the top half: Swizterland, who fielded an Estonian act. Most of the others (Belgium, Holland, Austria, Ireland, Portgual, Andorra, Monaco) were knocked out on Thursday. The remaining four - UK, France, Germany and Spain - are also the "big four", whose major financial contributions guarantee them a place in the finals. Astonishingly, these four countries also hold the bottom four positions. In other words, the Old West has been thoroughly routed by the New East. But what happens to the contest if the "big four" take the hump and refuse to continue contributing to their own humiliation? Because the day that commercial sponsorship takes over is the day that I lose interest.
Diego Valladolid: Everyone who has ever seen an atlas knows that Spain getting votes from Andorra, France and Porgutal is NOTHING to be proud about. We should take nationalist projects more seriously. We must divide Spain so we have more neighbours in this lonely peninsula.
William B. Swygart: Upon the announcement of her victory, Helena leaps up and gallops onstage, pausing only to shove some unidentified man to whom she is giving deeply evil eyes.
Joe Macare: The Greek woman looks a lot more feisty and aggressive now she's won. Maybe she'll be better in the repeat performance. Terry is rambling drunkenly and saying things like “Do stop shrieking dear”. I don't think he goes to Radio 2's cultural awareness training sessions.
William B. Swygart: Ruslana presents her with the trophy. It does take a very, very long time for her to let go of it, though. In fact, she doesn’t actually let go of it at all. Hmm. Here’s hoping they’re not using the same car park later.
Fergal O’Reilly: Viktor Yuschenko makes an appearance, having apparently not recovered from being turned into him with the cloak from Star Wars by his political rivals. It's a painful business.
Joe Macare: Yushchenko comes out and kisses Ruslana's hand – really. He makes a speech which I don't understand but it's probably about democracy. Then he gives the Greek woman a special prize to go with her normal prize. What a guy.
Doug Robertson: I can’t really see Blair doing that, although given the unlikelihood of us ever hosting the contest again, I don’t think it’s something he needs to worry about.
Koen Sebregts: I hear the song for the first time during the reprise. Not bad but nothing special in this field I should think. How many neighbours does Greece have then?
Joe Macare: Greek woman's song is a lot better the second time round. A LOT better. Lots of drama. It's weird how much better this song is this time round, and the non-drinking member of our party advises that it's not just the booze making us think that.
Edward Oculicz: Helena gives the reprise of “My Number One” some stick. There’s no poutiness – “it should have been me FOUR YEARS AGO”. Sagapo, Greece!
Joe Macare: The BBC3 coverage after the event is astonishing. First of all, the presenter is astonishingly bad – he cannot shut up about how the UK didn't do as well as we should have and how this was because of politics. Sorry, but Javine just wasn't very good on the night and the song wasn't that great! It was better than Gemini or James bloody Fox, but it wasn't a winner. Anyway, he asks everyone he meets about this and the only person who enthusiastically joins in is this Finnish guy, who's equally sore about it all because he didn't even get to the final.
William B. Swygart: Oh dear. It’s Geir Ronning, singer of the failed (and, quite frankly, fucking awful) Finnish entry ‘Why’. Geir says he’s not bitter about not making it out of the semi-final. He then demonstrates exactly how not bitter he is by grabbing the microphone and then unfurling a gigantic banner/bedsheet on which he has written “WE R NOT LOOSERS & U KNOW ‘WHY’”, which, if nothing else, surpasses Cheryl Baker’s appearance as the most horrendous Eurovision in-joke of the evening. Geir then spells it out for the benefit of the entire lobby before treating them to an entirely spontaneous performance of the chorus of his song. There is some scattered polite applause, and he hands the mic back. Yes. Well.
Joe Macare: Things get evening crazier when the BBC3 presenter manages to drag Glam, the fabulously named, tight trousered lead singer of Wig Wam, over to the little BBC3 sofas, where he proceeds to lick a lady's leg and be generally inappropriate, staying there clearly far longer than they wanted him to and being so over-friendly to Javine that she and the presenter have to swap places on the sofa so she can get away from him. It all reminds me of the “Stop the madness!” scene from Stalking Pete Doherty: a fawning need for attention from a rock star followed by conservative shock when said rock star engages in or causes anything remotely resembling wild behaviour. The difference being that Glam is a brilliant rock star rather than a rubbish, crack-addled mockney.
William B. Swygart: Glam gives a shout out to Plymouth. Aw. His song was still pretty rubbish, though.
And so, we come to journey’s end. All across Europe (and Israel), lights are turned off, kids are tucked into bed, cats are put out, and we close our eyes, quietly praying that we never have to hear another fucking kettle drum ever again.
See you next year…
Many thanks to ESCToday and the official Eurovision Song Contest site. Without their help, this article would not have been possible.
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By: Stylus Staff Published on: 2005-05-31 Comments (0) |