1ST SEMI-FINAL
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One of my favorite times of the year is when the Eurovision Song Contest comes on. Just like Easter or Christmas. Or the elections for anything...
And this year is no exception... at least... when we could FINALLY see (mostly) unknown artists in action in Denmark.
The first semi-final started with the winner from last year living a flashback of last year's edition before walking, turning into a Lego construction and a bunch of webcam images of people singing fly, we listen to the winning song from last year (Only Teardrops) and the contest starts. It seems that when I wrote this, a mere 4 1/2 hours were left for the second semi-final, so I decided to make it quick this time.
ARMENIA - From what I've seen, I liked the postcard but the artist's name was even better: Aram MP3. His song started out as a ballad before becoming more or less like an overplayed song on the radio.
LATVIA - A song about cakes, from my understanding and from the postcard. There's something very intriguing, why did they choose trees for the visuals? The translation of the band's name is "Foreigners", which is a nice touch.
ESTONIA - The performance was a bit OK, they were dancing in some weird room (apparently a dance studio) doing some weird dances. The song sounded more or less like those overplayed songs on the radio.
SWEDEN - Nice postcard: swimming inflatables to make the flag. The song is very well done, but my favorite part is when the song goes high-pitched near the end.
ICELAND - Look, it's a band with six randomly colored people! My first perception was fruit based. I must say, well done!
RTP 1 went to a commercial break afterwards and I had to switch to TVR International from Romania afterwards. We were missing the first of three "Eurovision Book of Records" segments, and I had to watch the firs one with a Romanian man talking over. The first record is: Highest Hair. It belonged to Jedward for Ireland in 2011. How much? The answer is: 18,2 cm.
Back to RTP 1, and also, back to the show:
ALBANIA - Just another beautiful song which does remind me of those songs the radio doesn't play because it isn't that popular...
RUSSIA - I liked their postcard but I got puzzled when their performance started. They looked like Siamese twins at the beginning, but then they separated their hairs. There was a hamster wheel in there.
AZERBAIJAN - Another well-done postcard and the song mentions fire. I learned about Azeri fire two years ago.
UKRAINE - What I thought about the filming of this postcard:
Let's find a train station with a blue train! And I'll put some post-its next to it!
And that was her licky day.
The song itself is very catchy, I see.
BELGIUM - A fat man? Really? One of those songs with mixed results. But the worst is yet to come...
MOLDOVA - She is modelling tubes to make the flag and then the song... I see something... Those men in tribal costumes... But anyway, that's a good song.
SAN MARINO - Oh, an artist! (literally)
And we have a beautiful song. However...
PORTUGAL - According to Suzy herself, it took eight hours to film the postcard. It was a challenge. I was one of the fewest people not to like it, despite being one of Europe's favorite songs for the final. My family was against Suzy because she was a pimba singer.
Switching back to TVR International (and also using the official site, which had a looong delay of... at least half a minute), we have the EBoR again. This time: Most Beard. It belongs to...
Ukraine's 2007 effort which had lots of beard. Uh... that was the silver award (at least)...
NETHERLANDS - A flag made of tulips. How wonderful. What a beautiful song... Their dresses look like chess pieces... (not literally, I was talking about the colors)
MONTENEGRO - This time we have an original postcard featuring a jigsaw puzzle of their flag on top of a piano, the last piece is missing and, oh, there it is! We have a song in a local language (the second one for this evening) and I like it when the woman who is rollerskating interacts with the visuals on the floor, creating effects that look like fireworks.
HUNGARY - The best performance was Hungary's performance. It started out with the flag being formed out of Rubik's cubes, but the song... I really like it!
The song could work for a bunch of stuff: an Audiosurf level, a video game, Ben 10: Omniverse...
(wait, what? Ben 10: Omniverse? That's the first thing I thought when the song was starting...)
After we've seen all sixteen songs, let's go for a minute to the Green Room. We later got to see what looks like the "Interval Act" which features visuals of people (the artists?) dancing. Later we got to see a comedic tour through Copenhagen (which RTP 1 didn't air), Eurovision Book of Records with the largest shoulder pads (Jedward from 2011's XXXXL shoulder pads), and before we knew the ten lucky countries to go to the final, someone took a selfie.
These are the lucky countries:
Montenegro
Hungary
Russia
Armenia
Azerbaijan
San Marino
Ukraine
Sweden
Netherlands
Iceland
And that's it for part 1 of my review. I'll return probably tomorrow with part 2, with the review of the second semi-final.
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