well we picked up a few stragglers at the bar and dragged them over to the Arena.
Romania
It’s a case of a fine Italian hand. Two great singers and a nice song sung in a language that people actually like. He’s far better than she is and they don’t always coodinate their notes but so what, it’s a definite qualifier and probably top ten. They would do even better but they need to kill the backing singers. No literally kill them,preferably with a lot of pain. On the whole though I’m rather pleased.
The next two were worrying for different reasons. The Russians weren’t able to get their act together and therefore Greece had to go on first.complete with silver box that opened out into a purple studded heart with thorns around it that Kalomira steps through. The presentation is a little scrappy at times but the formula of a good looking girl, a good beat and three good looking boys to back her up will be enough to distract from the shenanigans on stage and the fact that the song is shit. Being drawn last doesn’t hurt either so it should get through to the final without any problem but it’s more Greece 07 than Greece 05 so expect a simlar-ish result. They will never get the prop off in time if they aren’t drawn last in the final though.
Russia
You can speculate as much as you like for the reason for the Russian delay. Some may allegedly suggest it’s to do with his recent You Tube behaviour where he was behaving very bizarrely on a Russian TV programme judging panel. However that aside he performs a song that I frankly didn’t rate into a potential winner on the strength of his vocals. What might scupper it is once again the ridiculous stage show involving a ladder and an ice skater. The song doesn’t need this, he’s a strong enough vocalist to carry it on his own. There’s a windows backdrop so cue various jokes from the Oneurope team involving Playschool and unusual things that the playschool toys might get up to if they were into the same sort of games as Dima, but the stage show is more Hector’s House and less fun than that. Expect a top 5 but not a winner.
And so good friends we will retire for the day and find our favourite Serbian restaurant with lots of good food and drink very cheaply (though no boiled kneepads). We’ll be back tomorrow to see some of the big guns in semi final two along with moving house to our “plush” tower block apartment that we’re boked into from tomorrow.
By for now.
Franko