I blame it on Elhaida Dani. I was in perfectly good form yesterday, and then about 5 minutes into Albania’s second rehearsal I was hit by a tidal wave of meh. All worded out for the day. Not bad, I don’t normally get to rehearsal #47 before that happens.
So, that is probably in and of itself a review of Albania. It induced a tidal wave of meh. I did catch a run-through of Romania as well as I was waiting to leave, it’s starting to feel a little bit cold-eyed in its heartstrings-tugging. Not necessarily a bad thing, not necessarily a good thing, but definitely a thing.
Georgia can go un-reviewed. By then I was off to Stephansplatz (YAY!). I had tickets to see the Spanish Riding School, but decided I’d rather do aimless tourism instead.
Naturally, I ended up in position to take photos of horses. And the Spanish Riding School.
Anyhoo, while I’ve been chatting nine-to-the-dozen to you all, Lithuania have been on and been professionally fluffy and airy and pleasant. There’s an audience for that kind of thing, so long as it doesn’t get hit by a tidal wave of meh at about 2050 UK time and decide to go off for a BBC FOUR documentary about the Santiago subway system or something, and never come back.
Then came Ireland, and I just turned to Martin of escgo and said “I’m liking that a little too much”. Given that the set is “We’ll take forest please. In gold,” it really does look gorgeous. There’s a quiet intimacy to it, like we’re privy to a quiet moment of introspection that has absolutely no clue that it’s in an enormous arena, absolutely no idea that there are cameramen charging around the stage, that just doesn’t realise that it’s being shown live on television screens around Europe. It almost never breaks the fourth wall to connect directly with me at home – normally I’d regard that as a problem, but here it works.
Best Irish entry in years and years and years. That could do ENORMOUS business if it gets to Saturday and gets drawn late.