Saturday, 24 May 2008
Missing Wogan - Eurovision 2008
I can't believe it's that time of year already! I almost missed this year's Eurovision, but luckily it's broadcast online from the official Eurovision Website. Unfortunately if you watch online, you don't get Wogan's commentary - he's only available on BBC One. :(
As I've said previous years, Wogan makes Eurovision. And this year I learnt that the hard way! The man turns 70 this year (he was born on 3rd August, 1938), and he's still as brilliant as ever.
We love Wogan!
And what of the show itself? Well, thanks to poor time-keeping and problems downloading the software to watch it online, I missed Romania, the UK and Albania. However, if the rest were anything to go by, that probably wasn't a bad thing...
Germany had some sort of "Spice Girls" thing going, and they were tone-deaf. I was glad I only caught the end of their act!
Armenia had a pretty singer, although she also was not much of a singer, to be honest. She did well in the voting, though!
Bosnia Herzegovina... four brides, a woman wearing a skirt covered in apples and some weirdo. I'm sorry, I've forgotten the music, and I'm quite glad of that!
Israel - this bloke was bad. And wearing silver, if my memory is working.
Finland won once with metal, and ever since they've tried the same formula... I don't think it's likely to work again. Especially not if this year's band is an indicator of the quality of that genre in their country.
Croatia... what? Inspired by the mafia, perhaps? Why? Who knows? And the woman in red's dancing was rather scary. I hoped that this wouldn't do well!
Am I the only one who thought Poland's entry looked like Samantha Janus? Not when the camera went too close, but from a safe distance, at least. Other than that, I was too worried about her dress falling off to notice what she was singing, but I think it had several Mariah Carey histrionics. Still, probably better than anything I'd seen previously.
I was quite curious about Iceland's entry until the bloke started singing. Then it got rather bad very quickly. And WHAT was with his hair??? And why the busty, tone-deaf woman?
Turkey's entry provided many a laugh. Rather disconcertingly, however, they seemed to take themselves quite seriously. It was probably the largest audience they've ever had, and will ever play to, so I guess it's understandable.
Who ate Portugal? I don't mean to be rude, but I could have sworn there were six backing singers, and then one disappeared. And her make-up and costume was VERY scary. The song? Slow and uninspired.
Latvia's entry were "Pirates of the Sea" singing "Wolves of the Sea" and they were, at least, appropriately dressed. Shame about the song! However, the lyric "There's no Peter Pan, so what can you do?" was quite amusing.
Sweden's entry had a strange, barely-there dress with tassles that I think would distract everyone from the awful song. The big discussion between Jon and myself during her singing was, has she had cosmetic surgery to her face or is it just a bad make-up job? What did you think?
"The sun is hot" - so now you know! Denmark went for an educational song (just kidding!) with a cockney costume. What a shame that they looked like prats and sounded a little worse than that.
Georgia went goth in style, but rather cheesy in sound. It did not mix well. The lead singer wore sunglasses inside and she stayed very still - it didn't take us long to work out that she's blind. And somehow they all changed from black to white mid-set without affecting the music, mainly because there wasn't any quality to spoil.
She was wearing a silver, see-though dress and her backing dancers writhed in boxes - welcome to Ukraine's entry! I thought she was quite stunning, but Jon was impressed by the guys; they were quite acrobatic. Her song was rather egotistical, and not bad compared to other entries, but not particularly great, either.
All France's singers were suited and had beards - including the girls. I think they were having a laugh. The song, however, was quite refreshingly fun and chilled. I usually can't stand the French entry, so this was rather a shock to me!
Azerbaijan wore angel wings, a throne for a dreadlocked demon, and one of the 'angels' sang... falsetto doesn't quite cover it, methinks. Jon liked the costumes and the set. The song, however, didn't quite impress. Then the demon went white and falsetto, too.
Greece's entry sounded... Greek. A girl in pink was held up by three suited blokes. The song was called "Secret Combination" and included the lyric "I'm not easy but I'm true." Sadly, it was not very good, even if part of her dress disappeared partway through the song (and, unusually, it wasn't her skirt).
Spain's main singer had what looked like an Early Learning Centre guitar. And all the backing dancers liked to show their knickers. This was quite certainly the worst thing I saw all night. Which I thought would mean it'd probably do well, but luckily it didn't make the top five.
And now the host's entry - Serbia went for something... atmospheric? There were people lying down, someone wandering around lost and a guitarist and singer. Oh, and some others, I think. There was a violin, possibly because Ireland used to win all the time - ever since there's usually at least one violin somewhere during the evening. It could have been good... but it wasn't. Perhaps if the singer had had a better voice. Perhaps if it had been a better song. But it was not meant to be.
Russia also had a violin (although the guy was blatantly not playing) - quelle surprise! He was all in white and sounded awful, following two of the evening's main themes.
And to end the whole show, Norway's singer... could actually sing. I liked her dress, too. I wasn't so keen on what her backing singers wore, though. Still, tis was possibly my favourite.
Why was a Serbian basketball legend brought onstage to toss a ball into the crowd? And I thought they said there was an orchestra while the votes were counted? What I saw was barely musical! It could have been a typically bad Eurovision entry!
And finally, the voting...
Once again, there was political voting. But sadly, we were without Wogan, so this part was more boring than usual. :( And yet, the UK gave 12 points to a girl who lost most of her dress? I didn't think any straight blokes (except for Jon) watched this - so why???
The top five were: Norway (who were good), then Armenia (showing that looks matters more than the music), Greece (the girl who lost most of her dress), Ukraine (with the acrobats) and the winners: Russia??? But they were sooo unmemorable!!! Why, Europe, why?
And what about the UK? We came bottom, again - tied with Poland and Germany. For the last few years we've been in the bottom few, but then, we don't really try to win any more, and I'm not sure I'd want us to.
And that was it until next year. One thing I learned - don't watch Eurovision without Wogan!
