Eurovision 2009... The Appetiser

Eurovision has come and gone, and today I watched the two semi finals in an ill-advised four hour chunk. Tomorrow I'm gonna take down the final. It was fun, but I'm worried about the final, since a lot of the fun songs (read "novelty" or "mentally imbalanced") didn't make it through to the final and a whole lot of boring ones did.

Tomorrow I'll post about all those unlucky losers who didn't even make Saturday night, so whom most people won't even have seen, and then the day after that I'll run my coruscating eye of flame over the final. My judgement will be pedantic and frivolous and none shall escape.

I liked the presenters for the semis a lot, especially Andre. Nothing seemed scripted except for the French bits, which I worry they learned by rote because the supermodel whose name I didn't catch flubbed her lines at the start and had to consult a card. This lack of script/rehearsal gave the semi-finals a refreshing, shambolic air as the pair often lapsed into a moment's awkward silence before he would reset their momentum with a thunderous "My good friends! We have most wonderful night for you!" Yeah, he dropped his articles a lot, it was endearing. They shouted all the time, and I was worried about the little girls who they had on stage at the start because he seemed to be bellowing too close to their ears. But when the kids (2006 Junior Eurovision Champions) were handed the mic they hollered away in exactly the same hearty way.

One of the highlights of the first semi-final for me was fat-unenthusiastic-audience-member-in-the-front-row:


There he is just after Iceland had brought the house down with their heart-tugging ballad, only barely managing to muster the energy to applaud. He popped up a couple of other times, and by the time the camera panned past him after Portugal had sung song number 16 out of 18 he wasn't even bothering to applaud:


In fact he seems to be clenching his fists and trying not to scream. I can kinda understand.

The first semi featured a performance from TATU of their hit single that seemed to be trying to combine Russia's terrifying military history with their smiley, hippy, gypsy folksy side. They painted a tank and a fighter jet in hippy colours. I'm not sure how succesful it was. TATU by the way, now look like adults, which makes them more appealing to me but probably defeats the purpose of why they were first invented.

The second semi-final had dance performances, including this one:



Yeah, it was as awesome as it looks. And I haven't even got to the actual competition yet. See you tomorrow.