Oh dear. It’s your accidental last place, only deliberate. Remember that staging Ani Lorak did a couple of years ago? YES AND SO DOES EVERYBODY ELSE YOU FOOLS^!
Josh’s vocals aren’t remotely secure. The backing singers are chipping in. Oh, gah, it’s so inoffensive that it becomes offensive. Other opinions are, as always, available – but I just can’t see who the target audience is. I can’t see who is supposed to watch this song and performance and be inspired to say “I’m going to vote for that!!!”. It’s just all so, so, so done before.
Tell me, Europe, who’s going to vote for it? Orderly queue, please!
Phil: I still don’t think it’s coming in the bottom five – of that I am certain. Josh doesn’t, as has been put on record, have much to work with apart from a Waterman backing track – However, the one thing he does have is the ability to make this song work.
As it stands at the moment, however, it is coming across on the screen as Nick said, it is a bit “meh”, a little uninspired, somewhat forced and Josh has clearly caught Jon Lillygreen’s “Not looking in the camera disease”.
It still has potential to pick up votes from across Europe, though more likely 2’s and 3’s from a few countries. I think the best he can aim for is middle to high teens to be honest ( 12th to 18th) but only if he works hard on selling the song ( which I am sure he will).
It does depend on what is around him, uptempo songs will kill it – couple of ballads would make you sit up and take a bit of notice …
Franko: Another one that’s caused consternation in the OnEurope ranks. Phil is talking it up and thinks it’s going to get a decent result. I want to agree with him very much. I really want to but I have to believe the evidence of my eyes and ears.
They’ve made some effort on the visuals and trying to sort out Josh’s two left feet by the use of props and proper boy dancers which takes the focus of attention away from Josh’s shortcomings. There are elements of classic Eurovision performances here with nods to Ani Lorak, Carola and Scooch (OK perhaps the last one doesn’t qualify…..). We’ve got lit boxes, a wind machine, ladies wearing trains that blow in the wind and a union jack backdrop on the lights. The stairs are less frightening for the performers than the Azerbaijani ones. Josh seriously needs to start looking into the camera and letting his personality transmit. It’s obviously a British disease he’s learned from Jon and the Islanders. Oh and some of the long notes at the end are not sounding good at all at the moment but that will come with practice.
I think the problem is that it’s so ordinary and plodding. Inoffensive but not phone-grabbing and voting exciting. There’s no key change, no real standout bit of the performance that people are going to remember. It just trundles along. It doesn’t do anything particularly wrong, it just isn’t going to be anyone’s favourite and that’s what you need to win this contest or even finish top 10. There are moments when you wonder if he’s just stopped performing and it leaves you feeling uncomfortable. God knows what it does to Josh, he looks frightened.
The UK made everyone think that we were contenders again last year, but it seems they were only joking.
I wish it well but I fear for it.