Sunday, 22 May 2005
My Boyfriend Is Turning Into Terry Wogan
As my favourite Portuguese person once texted me, "Europe's magical night is almost upon us" - well, actually, it's been and gone now, but you get what I mean. What a night it was!
Yes, the Eurovision Song Contest happened last night. The only thing that I would consider getting a TV licence for (if I didn't have fab friends I could watch it with) was as fun and crazy as has come to be expected. And it was celebrating 50 years of Europe's 'special' brand of music! Woo! And there was a flamethrower!
This year, to celebrate 50 years, there seemed to be an Irish theme. Perhaps the countries were trying to make up for Ireland not reaching the final, or perhaps they were paying homage to the country that has won Eurovision the most times. Whatever the reason, the night was full of Riverdance, drums, violins and even a tin whistle was heard during one song!
Before I describe the actual countries competing, I'd just like to make a quick mention of the hosts (let's not say anything about the bloke, he might as well have been a cardboard cutout) - that glittery dress the female host wore - I wants it, I does!!!
Onto the countries:
Hungary - they were first, and looked nervous. They also kicked off the Irish theme well.
UK - tsk, tsk! I'm not really surprised we came third from last!
Malta - she was actually quite good and did well. Although the song sounded very like "The Power Of Love" by Jennifer Rush. Cue: "I am your lady..."
Romania - they had circular saws causing sparks onstage!!! Their drums looked very inspired by Stomp, and they were quite fun.
NOTE: the whole evening was full of drums, and for the most part, people pretending to play them, although some actually did. There was also lots of pretend violin playing, too, and one fabulous pretend cello, although I forget who did that.
Norway - VERY glamrock, and what a scary lead singer! I don't think it's going to be possible to "Forget Norway" ever again!
Turkey - more drums, were frilly, but not memorable.
Moldova - they had a rocking grannie!!! Seriously! She sat in a rocking chair throughout the song, and towards the end stood up and beat the drum she had had on her lap! It was fab! Well, she was anyway - I was too busy watching her to notice anything else about this performance. ;)
Albania - no, no, no. Pretending to play white violins is NOT a good look.
Cyprus - "Glitter hands" and his women dressed in silver hankies.
Spain - according to Jon, they had a "random mafia perv". Mind you, a lot of blokes were blatantly perving down the low-cut tops last night! Spain were colourful, but not memorable.
Israel - we liked her - fab dress, great hair, super voice. Yay! Oh, the song? Sorry, I was too busy admiring the dress...
Serbia & Montenegro - what??? This was the weirdest boy band I've ever seen, with their drums, crazy Irish dancing (in the background), and, well!
Denmark - if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Ronan Keating should be pleased. But I wasn't. This was dire.
Sweden - women in white catsuits. There might have been a bloke screaming "Las Vegas". Um... that's about it.
FYR Macedonia - um... this guy was quite poor. Having female backing singers, one of whom can do the splits, is not good enough to make up for the main person being useless.
Ukraine - they had handcuffs! This was mostly a chant (not of the Gregorian variety) set to music, and it obviously meant a lot to the Ukrainians.
Germany - she kept screaming. I can still hear it now. Stop it.
Croatia - what a mishmash band! The backing singers and bagpipe player (yes, bagpipes) were from a folk band, the singer looked Victorian, and the drummer was scary - and then he did some ballet!!
Greece - they won. They were the faves. Why? The male dancers did do a nice figure '1' but, um, this was naff.
Russia - um... she had nice metal chains on her waist, I think. I don't remember much else.
Bosnia & Herzegovina - the band were called "Femminem" - how good is that??? Apart from that, this was "Waterloo" by Abba, but with three women. Seriously, we were singing "Waterloo" throughout this.
Switzerland - "Vanilla Ninja"??? The 'all girl' rock band with two blokes. Most of the girls did not look like they were actually playing, either.
Latvia - all together now - "awww"!!!!!!!!! What a cute (and by "cute", I mean "young") couple of lads. We had a discussion on exactly how old they are. Having read an interview with them which states that the rest of their 'band' could not perform because they were "under sixteen", I think I was right when I said they should not be drinking backstage! lol!
France - ho hum. They were the last to perform, and I don't think we were that impressed. By then we were trying to work out who had won the real competition of the night... no, not the song contest, but...
Who had the lowest cut top? This battle was fiercely fought by several countries. Each time we thought we had found a winner, the next country tried hard to be lower. It looked like it was between Sweden, Russia and Bosnia & Herzegovina... but, in a surprise twist, the winner was...
...the Lisbon announcer!!! Well done, Portugal!
BTW, the best performance of the night was the 'body artist' - that was amazing! What fluid movement, and such perfect balancing!
Also, did anyone else see the UFO fly over Helsinki?
Finally, after a very fun night, the UK would like to thank Ireland, Malta, Turkey and Cyprus for voting for our rather useless entry. But, most importantly, Jon and I would like to thank Ro for inviting us over to watch it. It was a most enjoyable evening! :D
