Nick “does” 2025 – Belgium

BELGIUM – Strobe Lights – Red Sebastian

We made it through the A’s. Phew.

Now, in the early exchanges in the betting markets, Belgium were the early favourites to win the contest for a while, and then – well, then they released their songs.

Now, I’m pretty sure that Strobe Lights was the song that was rumoured to be winner material, and sure enough it came through whatever bizarre Trial By Belgium they used to pick their entry this year, and so here we are.

And it’s… really entirely competent. The staging at Eurosong was small and rather uninteresting, but I’ll be disappointed if that’s all we get in Basel. The song builds according to the standard recipe, Red shows off a full range of note-singing mostly successfully, everybody will hopefully give him a rapturous “Well done!” when he finishes but there’s every chance that 5 seconds later Europe will be going “Which one was Belgium again?”

Actually, they might even be saying it before he finishes. It’s all ingredients and no pudding, this one. A pity, because while I can’t fault it for effort and craftmanship, it just feels like it’s missing an emotional core to carry us along with it.

I thought I was going to give this a 6 based on the music video, but after I’d double checked the NF performance… you know, I don’t think it really justifies a 6.

Nick’s score: 5