We’re nearly there. Another summer day down by the ocean, under the tentage you and I. I’m not getting a tan that’s for sure, but us Eesti types don’t.
Israel rehearsed earlier, and if you want a good old thumping banger of a song, this might be for you. Mei grabs this by its neck’s scruff and gives it a darn good shaky shaky. She has lots of strutting around with her two female homies and makes lots of interesting shapes with her arms. She’s a bit Hebrew a bit English in delivery, and would still skin us out given half a chance. Is it qualifying? Well, it’s one out of either this song or the next…
[But first, the Eskimo ice creams are very nice. Vanilla ice cream coated in a crunchy layer of nice chocolate. It’s lovely and Danish, and definitely definitely not Portuguese – that makes them even nicer]…which is Norway. Mr Epsen is decidedly nervous, in a Lia Vissi 1985 sort of way. You can tell by the way he holds his mike. However his singing is spot on. Shaky mikes can be remedied – shaky voices can’t. But, are you reading NRK, we need close shots. Not big wide angle ones of stages, bright white lights or anything like that. Just Carl and a camera on a dark stage. The wide angle loses him, and the violinists on the parking ramp distract. He should maybe keep the piano and just move around that. But it’s almost – alomst – there.
Phil was showing off his shin earlier, which proved itself to be far less musical than the Georgian popular beat combo of the same name. Mariko looks like the work colleague of a good drinking buddy – I’ll point it out to him later. This song has grown on me which is a fine sentiment as far as it goes, but Mr Herblstrüger from Salzburg will only hear this song once and on a first listening will completely pass him by. They all sing far better than some of the other car crashes we’ve seen recently, but it will be to no avail. The crucial thing may be how they perform is the parachute – yes a parachute – that one of The Shin is strung to. I don’t like writing this but I’m trying to be constructively honest.
Final on was the long-awaited Poland. Very easy on the eye – for some of us anyway. Donatan has been thrown aside like the flour that blew off the loaves of bread in the video. Instead of him and his accordion playing ways, we have five sultry Slavic girls to sing, dance, scrub, wash, churn butter and do whatever they do in the countryside outside Łódž. More please I say. I hope that this qualifies. A certain breed of televoter will genuinely like it. A certain other breed of televoter will vote for it in an ironic way. Whether the jurors will want to ‘shake what their mama gave them’ is another matter entirely.
I’m signing off now. Thanks for reading, dear viewer. I hear there’s stuff afoot at the Euroclub again tonight, so I might go there before the Feds catch up with me.
Tata for now.
R x