Azerbaijan – His heart might not go on any longer than three minutes

Nadir Rustamli from Azerbaijan rehearsed his song Fade To Black
Nadir Rustamli from Azerbaijan rehearsed his song Fade To Black

This has all the right elements for a good song – and yet in spite of that, seems to have something missing for me to make it great.

It has a simple and powerful staging: two sets of stairs, one with Nadir on and the other with two dancers who cavort nicely with scant regard for health and safety.

It’s shot mostly with a dark stage, backlit so the dramatic effect is enhanced. Nadir sings the song well and emotes his way through and, yes, he is certainly giving it his all.

Drowning

And yet, after the three songs immediately preceding it (which were mental in their own way), and taking to the stage right before Georgia – which is going to be a whole different level of bonkers (hopefully) and San Marino, the Azeris find themselves drowning in a sea of mental.

There is no passing piece of driftwood to cling to here. The song is “nice” enough if not spectacular or memorable enough in the right ways. That staging is “nice”. The singing “nice”, the overall visual look “nice”. It’s just apathy in a sea of batshit, and that is the ultimate vote loser, no matter how well this goes down in the press centre. As one of my colleagues said “Baku?, Bakant!”

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