Eurovision semifinal 1: or, one American and several poor decisions

[cryptogirl]

Well, Tuesday night delivered a heady mix of box Liebfraumilch and shouting at the telly that heralds the start of Eurovision season proper. This year marked the debut of Ana Matronic from Scissor Sisters taking over Sara Cox's copresenter slot with Scott Mills. First impressions? Well, she has lots of enthusiasm, sure, but she had two main problems:


1) She had no prior knowledge of Eurovision,

2) ...see 1.

She *did* have some excellent off-the-cuff quips, such as describing Moje 3's redesigned studio outfits as if 'Hello Kitty styled Destiny's Child' (never mind that, my Yewtree klaxon went off right away O_O), but her interviewing style left a bit to be desired in her segments with Loreen and Bonnie Tyler- who, incidentally, had availed herself of the green room beforehand.

(To be fair, Scott Mills is a hard act to topple after last year's 'Gay or European' minigame. Oh yes.)

Mostly, though, she just drawled about how amazing everything was and how beautiful the ladies were. Och well. Maybe she'll get into her stride in tonight's semi. Other highlights for me:

- Loreen performing Euphoria with a children's choir and quasi-sign language. She's already performed this at the Melodifestivalen qualifier, as you'll all know because you all watched it on the eurovision.tv livestream, yes?

- The stage, with its rising/lowering coloured crystals that light up with the performing country's flag, and the polygonal lampshade thingies. The Malmö Opera House is a smaller venue this year, but I like what they've done with it all the same.

- The LED wristband gimmick, which turned the audience into the national flags. I love a bit of LED action, me.

- The new postcards, on which most of the budget is dumped every year. This year's logo has a butterfly, so they've run with that and it works rather well. It always makes me want to book holidays to random Eastern European countries :(

The Swedish host did a good job, but I didn't really warm to her. Also, her plummy English accent kept making me think of Lara Croft in the early Tomb Raider games. No, that's not right.

Meanwhile, Pete and I drew our countries for the Fabulous Sweepstake Where One Of The Prizes Is Definitely Not A Bottle Of Bucks Fizz. Pete got Belarus, I got Albania. We'll see tonight if mine get through with their quasi-U2ian stylings.

Onto the voting. Well, I ended up voting for Montenegro, AKA dubstep spacemen with Google Glass Lady, purely because their stage act was the most fun. And the song did grow on me; I might set it as my ringtone. But as for the countries that got through...oh dear. We're stuck with:

MOLDOVA- Well, I'm glad Aliona got through. It's still one of the better slow tunes, and I wasn't expecting the 'rising up with LED dress looking like a volcano' thing, but then again who does?

LITHUANIA- Really? Really? Really?

IRELAND- ...really? Really? (Well, the staging was good- as someone on Twitter said, 'like something beamed from the mind of Peter Andre'. But really? Really...)

ESTONIA- I think I speak for everyone when I say I almost banged the side of the telly thinking it had gone black and white because it was broken. But no! A wild minigimmick appears! Anyway, her vocals were good so I can't fault it really :|

BELARUS- This one had added glitterball hatching fun, as you can see from the video linked earlier. Glad something peppy and summery got in.

DENMARK- Currently odds-on favourite to win, apparently. Can't fault the performance, and to be fair it is growing on me...

RUSSIA- Oh, I don't know. Another ballad, Europe? Meh, I say. MEH.

BELGIUM- Mini Chris de Burgh made it through! I didn't actually think his vocals were very strong, to be honest, but at least an upbeat one is through, from the 'boring' country.

UKRAINE- GIANTS.. GODDAMN GIANTS. Now that's a gimmick that's hard to beat. And the song is a grower.

NETHERLANDS- Hmm. On the one hand, they haven't qualified for 9 years, so getting through is a big deal. On the other hand, I still don't like the song. As my coworker said, it's a bit like Lana del Rey, only less good. And I don't like Lana del Rey.

The six acts going home, meanwhile, are:

AUSTRIA- Pity that this got the chop, being one of the few vaguely rocky entries. Maybe she suffered from the 'going first syndrome' like poor Englebert did?

SLOVENIA- One of the decent dance tracks culled. A real shame. I especially liked the welding masks on the dancers :(

CROATIA- The traditional entry this year, which turns out to be a Dalmatian traditional singing style. Perhaps the juries don't like straightforward good singing groups?

MONTENEGRO- THEY WERE ROBBED. ROBBED. NOT HAPPY, EUROPE. YOU HAD ONE JOB. ONE JOB.

CYPRUS- Not bad singing, but another so-so ballad. Not mourning its loss.

SERBIA- I liked this track since I watched the Beosong qualifier show. However, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING WITH THE LOLITA ON ACID COSTUME CHANGE. It made the 'slut drop' dance move that bit more dubious than it already was :|

And that's it for my semifinal 1 roundup! Join me on the Twitterwebz as I ruin your timeline later tonight- first with a dose of 1978 Top of the Pops from 7:30 on BBC Four, and then with all the semifinal action from 8 on BBC Three. OPA!

Comments

[swaldman]

I can't even remember my thoughts on the music (except that it alerted me to Anouk, who I've been listening to since. My thought at the time was "This is a really good singer who should not have gone anywhere near Eurovision and knows it").

Production-wise,
* I really like the design of the arena. It's pretty without showing off,and the high-level vertical wall of moving lights upstage works really nicely. The designers have finally dared to do something different. The raised walkway at the start was particularly neat.

HOWEVER,

* I didn't like the way that it was used. In the majority of the songs there was so much visual Stuff going on that there was no focus on the performers - they were lost in a sea of shiny. It's always a challenge to make a few people work on a gigantic stage, and to pull it off you need to use the lighting and set to focus attention - not pull it away.

From a more technical point of view,
* NO NO NO NO NO NO NO to whoever thought it would be best to light the singers from flat front on. It interferes the least with the pretty around them, but it gives them no facial definition or sculpting. This, in common with over-enthusiastic matte makeup, gave a lot of singers weirdly flat and lifeless faces. (also, it made some rather impressive cleavages vanish...)

* ARRRGH OVERCOMPRESSED SOUND YOU ARE THE BANE OF EVERY TV MUSIC EVENT
Some of those songs might have been good, but the silly level of compression sapped any life or energy out of them, along with much of my enjoyment.