So, Friday is a very short day in rehearsal land it would appear. Here is what we think about the fag-end of Semi Final 2, based on some grainy rehearsal footage – it’s just like the old days before X and Ticky-tok.
San Marino
The San Marinese here have not picked the worst 30 seconds imaginable for this song, but it is somewhere close. It’s not showing Megara off to her batshit best, thats for sure. You do, however, get a glimpse behind the curtain though with the cookie sideways camera angles, her and the bands look and style and clearly SMRTV are holding the good stuff back. Yay and Boo in equal measure.
Georgia
Again, a country that is not doing itself any favours in the clippage here. Another song with another slut drop dance break sung by an alluring woman. IT’S ALL VERY TIRESOME and, frankly, I want to move onto better things. I must give props to Georgian broadcasting though for actually spending some hard earned money on loads of the titular fire – less so on the fact there are no hunky boys putting said fire out… or Nutsa wearing a hard helmet and some braces.
Belgium
People have been saying ” That Mustii… He is singing in the wrong key.. it looks too busy with the microphones.. no-one is going to understand it… to those people I say, politely, and with all due respect ” SHUT THE FUCK UP AND SIT DOWN!”. This is the one that we have all been sleeping on and by christ it looks good. If it’s not going to be the Dutch or the Croatian madness then it’s going to be this class. He’s attacking the end of the song like a Mustii posessed and I’m here for it. He looks like Bowie and sings like Mercury – what’s not to love?
Estonia
Welcome to the batshit corner of the Eurovision 2024. This was supposed to be the “Wacky” entry to end all entries when it was picked back in January but now it’s May and in a competitive setting and it doesn’t look anywhere near as cutting edge or as mental as they envisioned it to be. It looks as though that has permeated down to the delegation as well as they are going through the motions in this clip. They could be holding the full on batshittery until Wednesday but I fear this is going nowhere.
Israel
As we know, whatever I say is going to be wrong when it comes to this song. It’s performed immaculately and is clinical and surgical in it’s delivery and, as I have said before, if it was any other year, this song would be up there challenging for the jury win, it still might, but nothing I have seen has disuaded me from that view.
Norway
Coming after the two different versions of “circus” was always going to be a tough ask for this song. It would need to extra stand-out in order to get noticed and I don’t think that this clip does the song justice in any way.
Your lead singer is all arm waving thinking she is Kate Bush in Wuthering Heights but ending up looking more like Kate Middleton at a rave sponsored by Waitrose or the Womens Institute. (and not a Kaleen rave either, that’s for sure!) That is definitely *not* the look they were going for and when the beat drops in this one, the camera pans back and a shot with the singers back to you? – that’s a no-no right there. I fear that this now has “Fulen” written all the way through it result wise.
Netherlands
We all know what this is going to be, so AVROTRIOS have decided not to give us that clip but the bit that gets me every time – the final 30 seconds. They are going to have the lyrics translated on the screen and the black stage, rather than him standing around his world burning down as in the preview video, is very effective.
The cynic in me says that we are going to see one tear rolling down his cheek thanks to Glycerine but it wouldn’t be out of place. You come for the mental, you stay for the emotion and that is what makes this not like Finland last year. Clever and thought out it rather than ” Crazy, Party, Drunk, Bolero”.
And there we have it, a shorter shift than we are used to but the good news is that I have picked up my shiny laminate badge and we will be putting up a timetable of events for next week sometime over the weekend so stay tuned for that, won’t you!