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| Ready for Eurovision!!! |
Since I still haven't started work, there was time for me to do other things this weekend. As you may have guessed from yesterday's post, it was Eurovision time again and those of you who have followed my blog for a few years, know that I LOVE EUROVISION! Fortunately my sister likes it as well, although she didn't have a pen and paper ready to write down all the peculiars of every song.
Anyway, last Tuesday the whole competition took off in Lisbon, Portugal, because last year's winner (Salvador Sobral) sang the winning song for Portugal last year. Since I live in the UK now and they go through automatically, they wouldn't sing in either of the semi finals, but they were allowed to vote. Unfortunately for us: the first one. Both the Netherlands and Norway were in the second one.
Neither of my two favourites of the first night went through (Belgium and Armenia), although my least favourite song did: Israel. The second semi final took place on the Thursday and as I said had Norway and the Netherlands in it. This time I had three favourites: the Netherlands (not biased at all me), Montenegro and Moldova. I didn't think Montenegro would get through, but the other two did. Yea!
Than came the night itself. Which once again was filled with strange things happening on the stage. There was a coffin type thing (Ukraine), there was metal as in the type of music (Hungary), Vikings (Denmark), a former winner (Norway), a stage crasher (UK), a young and clean Catweazle (Serbia), a €65,000 dress for an opera singer (Estonia, who sang in Italian) and an updated birdy song (Israel).
I have remarked upon it in the past and since last year's winner actually sung in their own language (Portuguese), this year a staggering 12 countries sang in their own language, not being English. And Estonia did a song in Italian. It was glorious! Both Italian language songs ended in the top 10 as well and for once France wasn't far behind (13).
Norway (15th), the Netherlands (18th) and the UK (23rd) didn't do so well. And definitely not as well as the top three! The voting changed last year and that has brought a lot of extra suspense into the competition. First we got the jury votes and at the end of that, Austria led the way, followed by Sweden, Israel, Germany and Cyprus. However, the public votes changed everything!
Sweden was the fourth country to get the points (they went lowest to highest), which meant they were very much out of the running. Austria was the 14th country and went to the top of the board again. It was now between Israel, Germany and Cyprus. The first of those three to get points was Germany and they were just behind Austria. At the end of the scoring, only two countries were left to receive points: Israel and Cyprus. It could go either way, but in the end, Cyprus....
Lost! Israel with the funny noises and the chicken wings and the Japanese nodding cats had won! A good end to a brilliant evening (yes, the song has grown on me). Now I just need to get the cd!
Hari OM
ReplyDelete(...wait, did I miss a post??? I'll check...) Oh the photo - why that didn't show on my reader... tsk... anyway, now the important stuff.
ISRAEL??????? Good grief, I am again left wondering at the cultural level of majority Euro watchers. For once, UK had a decent song, but there was definitely a voter backlash there. I was never more sure of mercy as when the French song finished. I only muted sound on two songs this year; Israel and Hungary. Otherwise, there were a few ordinary, I'll check emails now, tunes (Ireland, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the aforementioned France); my ears got interested at Estonia - the singing was astounding and that dress... well... Much of the rest was really quite enjoyable, but my other top choices were, Denmark, Netherlands, Austria, Bulgaria, Albania and Italy. Even didn't mind the Cyprus fire song.
Wouldn't have picked Israel in a month of passovers. "aaaahhh,...nomno-mno-mno-nonotchoor TOY... sigh... crash boom boom..." There have been worse. Many better, but there have been worse. YAM xx
I must admit, when I first heard the Israeli song, I didn't like it at all. But, it has grown on me. The Hungarian song got an extra point from me for singing in Hungarian, but otherwise it is definitely not my style!
DeleteMy favourite was very much Moldova. It made me happy and that is always good. My sister pointed out during the final that they were even dressed in the colours of the Moldovan flag!
...oh yes I spotted the flag connection directly - and their song was great fun! I did like it, just not in my top 5 or 6...I tried listening the toy song again just now. Nope. Noomlmmooope. it are not my song! It is, of course, very disco-dancey for the ones who like to campy-prancey all night; most of that crowd methinks. Overall, though, this year was a much stronger collection of tunes than last year's. Yxx
DeleteWow, you sure LUFFS your Eurovision, you are quite the expert!
ReplyDeleteLoves and licky kisses
Princess Leah xxx
We could not open the videos but we are glad you enjoyed them and had a relaxing weekend
ReplyDeleteHugs madi and mom
The competition just gets bigger and bigger and more bizarre. I didn't like the Israeli song but I didn't hear the others on the night so not sure which one I would go for.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, this year's entries were not as bizarre as they have been in the past. A lot of fairly normal songs actually!
DeleteI heard/saw the Israeli singer earlier. I am baffled. Then again, much current music baffles me.
ReplyDeleteWe suspect you and your sister are going to have lots of fun together! We did not know Eurovision.
ReplyDeleteStopping by for a visit!
Murphy & Stanley
It is only the biggest music fest in the whole wide world!!
DeleteThe scoring you describe has me so confused. But I am old and easily confused....
ReplyDeleteBasically each country participating in this year's contest (43) has a jury vote and a public vote. The jury vote is called out first and each country gets called up and gives their points (12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1) to their favourites. At the end there is a jury winner. The public vote works the same way, but they give it in a different way. It sounds a bit convoluted, but it is absolutely brilliant! Come over next year and you can see for yourself!
DeleteGlad you enjoyed it. We have American Idol and The Voice which I watch. Your's is a big venue. I have to come back and watch the videos later.
ReplyDelete