Now that we’ve seen all of the songs in the Eurovision semi-final shows here in Lisbon, we asked our occasional contributor-at-large Roy D Hacksaw to give us his considered overview on all the tunes and performances in semi-final two. Some opinions may vary from yours. Hungary, mainly…
If semi-final one was littered with contenders and ne’erdowells, semi-two is, how shall we say, where the more esoteric, nay, thoroughly batshit entries have come to rest their difficult bones. And how glorious it all is…
This round began with Norway, and we knew exactly what we’re going to get. No changes at all from the MGP performance shy of a few buffed corners, it’s slick, professional and charming, despite the song itself being an utter ideological dog’s arse of an abomination. But this has got victory germs crawling all over it, and despite my distaste for the song, I wouldn’t begrudge the boy Rybak a second victory. After all, he’s a lovely lad in real life – and it would annoy the heck out of that man Logan.
Romania too offered little different from their surprise national final win. They’ve still got the masks and the mid tempo rock out business, but they also offer an array of creepy mannequins lurking about in the background like static ghouls. As much as this song tires my blood, I can see it doing alright on the Thursday night. But whether it’s got the legs to go the whole hog and reach the big show is another matter.
Serbia continue the no-change-here furrow, with lots of meaningful stares, air grasps and walking to the front of the stage business. Interestingly band leader Sanja Ilić hasn’t made an on-stage appearance, leaving the heavy lifting to the tooty pipe fella and a bloke bashing pretend drums. As the only song of its folksy ilk you’d kind of second guess that it should do decently. But this year is so strange that all conventional wisdom if moot.
San Marino, however, brings the fun with their multi-robot entertainments and unintentional comedy japes. The press room hooted in mirth on many occasions throughout every run through, and do you know what? This is accidentally likeable, despite its non-promising ingredients. Surely we don’t have an unlikely qualification outsider on our hands?
There must be something in the water, because Denmark have pretty much repeated their national final show mark for mark too. Beards, wind, sails, you know the score. I’m sure I heard this song at Epcot about 20 years ago. Oh, there was an attempt at replicating a blizzard, but the stage snow was so wispy that it looked more like a toddler’s birthday surprise than an Ibiza foam party, and I suspect they’ll ditch it.
Russia’s a curious case though. They’ve perched their lass atop a massive merengue mountain, but still prefer to show more camera shots of her dancers and long sweeps from the back of the hall than of Julia herself. So what does that tell us about her own delegation’s priorities? It’s all a bit discomforting.
All of this makes Moldova look like an absolute fun riot – which to be fair it actually is. Cheesy choreography, comedy pratfalls, a set that feels like it came from a 70s TV variety show, this is unabashed beautiful nonsense from the word go. I can barely describe the cheery glow that filled this big old room at every one of its run throughs. Absolute classic old time Eurovision, distilled into a terrific three minutes. It couldn’t, could it?
The Netherlands, however, have made me seethingly cross, and that’s not an emotion that this show should be invoking. Whoever thought this stage show was a good idea really needs a good word with themselves. Seriously, in a contest where they’re trying to market this to the USA there’s a real chance that they won’t even be able to show it there. After the joy in the room that tailed Moldova this whole building has become morose, disinterested or visibly angered. Utterly, utterly wrong.
After that, what we really needed was a hands-in-the-air stomp from Australia, but weirdly it never quite materialised. The song might be an uplifting bouncy anthem, and our Jess is certainly a safe pair of hands, but it never quite reached its peak. What this really needed was a gang of backing dancers marching to the front with flags and getting everyone to clap rather than relying on the lass herself stomping about on her own in an ill-considered shiny frock, looking every bit like the bride’s cousin trying to find the rest of her party on a hen night in Cardiff. I really like the girl, and she’s giving it her all, but she can only play with the cards she’s been dealt. We assumed the Aussies were going all out for victory this year. On this evidence, no bleeder wants to win this thing.
Georgia started Wednesday morning with a gorgeous slice of choral ambience. Were this the nineties this would be a contender. These are different days, obviously, but a contest like this always needs a bunch of handsome, well-dressed men singing a simple song well, and all us grumbly old stagers at the back of the press room had the instant goosebumps by the pickup in the third quarter. Thoroughly beautiful, and absolutely needs to be here.
Poland, however delighted and disappointed in equal measure. While it added a much needed funtime bounce to the events of the day, it came across as a fair bit more flimsy and roomy than you’d have hoped. Then when you add the bit where the old chap at the back dances like an embarrassing dad at a wedding for a bit too long and we’re looking at a big opportunity missed.
This is especially underlined when Malta prowl the stage. The production here suddenly feels a whole lot more massive after Poland, and her circle of LED screens only adds to the menace. On top of that she is thoroughly believable, and delivers the song with clinical yet artistic precision. I wouldn’t begrudge seeing this come out of the envelope on Thursday, and neither would most of the punters here.
The big polariser here though is Hungary. There’s a core few who get it and absolutely love everything about it – and then there’s the other 97% for who it’s just terrifying noise. Amusingly, while operating in my normal punk rock world this would be considered as a flimsy light pop confection. But in this context it’s as if the dark lord of the underworld has wrenched open the gates to metal hell himself and spewed forth is most cheeky-faced denizens. It’s got everything you’d want from it too. For a start, the boys are giving it the full Metallica-at-a-festival and using every possible piece of on-stage real estate, there’s elements of crowd surfing, and enough pyro to melt a lorryload of babies. It was also the first time this week that my eyes have been moved to leak involuntarily at the very goodness of it all. How flipping brilliant would it be if this got through and then opened the big final! A boy can but dream.
Sadly the poor Latvian lass looked absolutely terrified as she wheezed out her jazzy ballad somewhat boringly. She’ll both stand and fall by following Hunga
ry, but whether the benefits of this outweigh the disbenefits are at this point quite unclear.
Now if you’ve seen Benjamin Ingrosso’s MelFest sh
ow, well, you’ll know what expect here from Sweden. It’s note for note and step for step the same as his home final performance, and the camera is so tight that he might just as well have sent a video to the rehearsals and
turned up next week. There is just a single shot from the back of the hall across the full three minutes, and to be honest it looks like he’s a tiny man dancing about on a giant park bench, so perhaps they’re right to keeping the lenses close.
Remember all those stunning Balkan entries from the early part of the century where the singer looked meaningfully down the camera pipe and they all walked towards the front of the stage grabbing the air in meaningful passion? Well Montenegro is a bit like the Lidl version of that. It’s got all the same ingredients, but it costs a quarter the price, and contains less flavour. Bless him, he’s got the voice, but he’s been lumbered with a horrible jacket and a well worn concept so he quite probably won’t be here for the duration.
Now, every year there’s that one song that you utterly love right down to the very bones of it that they right royally feck up with an ill-considered slice of stage shenannigans. Slovenia, come on down. It all scoots along nicely on a fine dancey groove, and then, suddenly, and for no good reason, they decide to pretend the music has stopped and loon about in confused silence for 15 seconds. Needless. Pointless. They’re dead to me now.
Ukraine, on the other hand, give us everything we could possibly hope for – and a whole load of other things we didn’t know we wanted. He begins laid down like a goth sardine trapped in a piano shaped tin, before rising mysteriously like a wraith, then loping about in front of a wind machine, oozing down the camera with his gammy eye, before climbing the stairs once more as they ignite behind him. Thoroughly beautiful hogwash! The perfect finishing song – if all the moving parts don’t keep breaking down like they did in the rehearsals.
So there we have it. We’ve now seen all of the songs that are in semi-final action, and we have to confess I’ve got no bloody idea what’s going to happen. All barring a few terrifying exceptions *coughnorwaycough*, the considered contenders have under-performed, while many plucky outsiders have upped their game and dragged their bones into serious contention. At this stage, only a small handful of songs feel completely out of it, and I get a serious twinge that there’ll still be some pretty high-profile names in contention when it comes to the last couple of envelope openings next week. Which of course all makes for terrific viewing fun! Can’t flipping wait!