Poland, not taking me for the ride of my life

RAFAŁ, Poland, First Rehearsal, Rotterdam Ahoy, 10 May 2021 — EBU / Andres Putting
RAFAŁ, Poland, First Rehearsal, Rotterdam Ahoy, 10 May 2021

I’m waiting for Poland’s Rafał to give me the ride of my life that he’s been promising for the last couple of months. He’d better come up with the goods, I’m not going to settle for less. I mean, lockdown’s been harsh but a boy’s gotta still have some standards.

Unsurprisingly there’s an 80s feel to this. Purples and blues, with visuals of video game animations and a Tron-like vortex.

The Warsaw neon museum, where the video is set, has been recreated on the backdrop. I never did get to see it when I was there due to a little oversampling of the local wodka and homosexualist revelry the night before I was meant to visit, so I feel like I’m catching up on some overdue sightseeing.

Yet again four male dancers are employed to back him, and they cavort around with handheld palm lights making use of the full stage, but not ever providing us with a standout moment.

Rafał’s in the sunglasses some of the way through, and he plays with the camera, pretending to hold and spin it like he’s doing a selfie. He connects better once he realises he’s actually inside so can take the sunglasses off. He does so with a cheesy “Hello Europe!”. It’s not so long before he pops them back on again, maybe when he realises his performance is slipping away from him. He does seem to run out of steam by the end, and he deviates considerably from the notes he’s supposed to singing.

There’s a lot of pyro, all of it completely superfluous, and a bit half-baked. It would be quicker to tell you which parts of the song don’t have a limp floor sparkler fizzing up (and getting in the way of the camera too). They could have cut a minute of these and had 20 seconds of something really impressive. I’m over this well before the three minutes are done.

I’m sorry, Rafał, I’ve had better rides. Even counting some of the bad ones. You’ve not lived up to your promise.

Monty x

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments