Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade

Yesterday 24th May was again a date to mark in the agenda, as the annual Eurovision Song Contest, this time organised in Belgrade (Serbia) after the Serbs won the last edition last year. The Eurovision has been a tradition for over 50 years now. Personally I started watching the Eurovision Song Contest in 1991 and have been watching it annually until 2004. I have mainly great memories of the festival in the nineties. 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, and to lesser extend 1998 were all great. Also, 2000 was great as well. Some highlights I can recall were Kan (Duo Datz - Israel), Eternal Wanderer (Youddiph - Russia), Ale Jestem (Anna-maria Jopek - Poland), We Will Be Free (Frances Ruffelle - UK), The Voice (Eimaer Quinn - Ireland), and many many more. The festival still contained some really good songs by quality musicians, and many countries sent ethnically-inspired songs that gave insight in the musical traditions and background of the country. Unfortunately the last couple of years the festival faded in quality, mainly due to the countries now allowed to sing in English, resulting in more and more countries giving up their folk-inspired songs and choosing void poppy songs instead. The festival should be a multicultural event bringing musical cultures together, but it has become a bit of a kitsch event. Nonetheless, the festival is still fun, if only for the banter between the countries and the frustrated reactions from the losers ("they always vote for their neighbours") afterwards. I had not seen the Song Contest for 3 years now due to my travels. Since I left Belgium I had no TV connection anymore so it was hard to follow the contest the last few years. But this weekend I had a chance again to witness the festival live, as a bar in Berlin broadcasted it on big screen. With the CouchSurfing members who were gathering in the bar, this would become a multinational party with some people from all over Europe. The bar we chose to watch the festival is called Goldman's, right next to the Rosenthaler Platz and Torstraße in the "Mitte" district of Berlin. The Goldman's is situated in the basement of the Circus Hostel but the bar is cosy and drinks are really cheap. The bar has a high camp image, due to the person that is all over the bar: David Hasselhoff. I am not sure why the bar management picked him, but pictures and memorabilia of "The Hoff" are all over the bar. Pictures of the Hoff, record sleeves (yes, he used to be a singer!) and more memorabilia. But that's okay, the Song Contest has a high camp image so we could just as well make it more campy by having The Hoff in there as well. I arrived at 9 pm, a few minutes before the festival started. After saying hi to my Swedish friends Rolf and Hilda it was time to take off with the festival. Achtung, fertig, los und lauf! The contest these days is different than 10 years ago. Due to many eastern European countries now taking part since the fall of the Iron Curtain, the number of countries wanting to take part is now almost doubled. 43 there were this year. Austria had dropped out but with San Marino and Azerbaijan we again had 2 debutantes. Because having 43 songs in one contest would take almost 5 hours without the results, it was needed to reform the Song Contest. Two semi-finals now have to determine which 25 songs eventually start in the final. My former home countries Ireland (who sent a highly bizarre entry: a singing turkey) and Belgium did not survive the semi-finals. So 25 countries eventually started in the finals of the Eurovision. I won't comment on them all but I will list the songs that I somehow find worth mentioning for different reasons. THE BEST SONGS: 1) ISRAEL : local "pop idols" winner Boaz Mauda was ready to show his talent outside of his own home country for the first time. "The Fire in your Eyes" to me was the best song of the evening. Written by transsexual Dana International by the way, who won the festival for Israel 10 years ago with "Diva". The song had something bombastic and dramatic, but Boaz has an amazing voice and brought the song simply fantastic. In my opinion the absolute nr 1 of the festival. He deserved better than the (still honourful) 9th place. 2) ARMENIA : Armenia sent female singer Sirusho. Apart from her very cute face and nice outfit (including the first short skirt of the evening, there would be many following) this song was just really good. She had a good voice, and her song "Qele, Qele" was one of the few songs of the evening that was not just a simple pop song. Her song had some traditional Armenian instruments involved, which made it one of the few ethnically inspired songs. As I love Middle Eastern music, it was no surprise that this floated my boat. Great song, and well deserved finish in the top-5! Those two were my big favourites. But there were a few other songs I also quite liked: 3) ALBANIA : Olta Boka was the youngest singer on the festival. She was only 16 years old. But I liked her song "Zemren E Lame Peng" a lot. It was a somewhat bombastic song with a slightly dramatic touch, and very well sung. She also looked very cute, although I must say I feel kinda guilty to say that now that I found out the girl is only 16 years old! 4) TURKEY : my former homeland sent one of their most popular bands, rock band Mor ve Ötesi. Mor ve Ötesi make very atypical Turkish music: rock and sometimes heavy rock. They are also very popular in Turkey, having recently played a concert for 100000 people and having won several trophies as best band in Turkey. Still I was somewhat surprised to see this band represent Turkey (despite their popularity I was surprised) as they are very well known for their politically inspired songs. Their last album tackled Turkish politics and influence of Islam in politics. That such a band was selected to represent the country is quite surprising, but their song "Deli" was very good. They finished 7th. Probably the Turks thought a popular group would get massive votes from the Turkish expats in other European countries, this worked partially but apart from the first 5 sets of votes they never came close to really winning it. 5) GEORGIA : Diana Gurtskaya, a blind singer, brought the song "Peace will come". Usually when I see anti-war songs at the ESC I get suspicious as it's been done so often before, but this song was actually good. So far my favourites. There were also some bizarrities as usual. Azerbaijan and Spain were the amusing bizarrities. - Azerbaijan (a Muslim country!) brought a song where an angel and a devil were having a conversation with each other, of course sung. There were also some ladies dancing with the devil, dressed in very short skirts that left little to the imagination. Elnur and Samir's "Day by Day" did quite well, and the act was overall amusing. - Spain sent a local comedian Rodolfo Chikilicuatre who brought the song "Baila el chiki chiki". The lyrics were quite hilarious and the guy looked like some nerdy version of Elvis with bizarre glasses. Surrounded by some seductive girls in clothing that looked more like a bikini, the guy tried to introduce us the Chiki Chiki, a new sort of dance similar to the Macarena and other such attempts to create new dance styles out of nothing. The lyrics and act were highly bizarre, yet amusing. - France (with some female backing vocalists dressed as bearded men) was not bad but also didn't really stick long enough to remember the song. The French government made a riot out of this song as only a few lines were sung in French instead of English. - Bosnia was not as amuzing as Spain and Azerbaijan, but Laka and his song Pokusaj were far from bad. The guy looked like Renars Kaupers from Brainstorm but with a bit of make-up and silly clothing, and entering the stage while the female dancers were hanging clothes on a washing line! Bizarre act but the song was catchy. - Latvia sent a group of men and women dressed as pirates. I didn't like it at all. - Croatia sent Kraljevi Ulice and 75Cents. 75Cents is a 75 years old rapper and probably the oldest guy ever on a Eurovision stage. I didn't really like the song, and the image of a 75 year old guy scratching records on a turntable is just wrong on so many levels! :) So far the bizarrities, then the disappointments: - Poland, Romania, Denmark: all songs that were forgotten as soon as the singer vowed his/her last words. Boring is the right word here. - Sweden: a while ago Charlotte Nilsson won the contest for Sweden with her song "Take me to your heaven" which even became a hit in Europe. Now she tried again with the song "Hero" and new name Charlotte Perrelli (a new name as she married and adopted her husband's name). If she had won it'd be the second time an artist won twice for the same country. But she did not manage to repeat Johnny Logan's success, as this time she failed miserably. The song was nothing special, and without some friendly scores from the neighbouring nordic countries she probably ended close to bottom. - Ukraine: what the bloody hell was that ?! Ani Lorak must have worn the shortest skirt ever in a Song Contest. OK, there were a lot of sexy ladies with short skirts tonight, men who like staring at legs will have had a great time. I won't complain about this obviously, but the song has to be somewhat good as well. The Albanian and Armenian girls were sexy as well, but had a good song also. Ukraine however was terrible music-wise, in my opinion. "Shady Lady" was almost a parody on a red-light district or peepshow, with male dancers staring to singer Ani Lorak's buttocks and legs that she always moved in a very seductive way. All fine, but if the song is terrible then I consider this a failure. Unbelievable that this act finished 2nd. Probably the woman tried to mainly score with her body rather than her song, and unfortunately it worked as well. The other countries were nothing special, although Greece, Serbia, Norway, UK and Portugal were decent. Decent, but nothing more. Russia was quite good but also not top-5 material IMO. And then there was my current home country Germany. It was a disgrace. "No Angels" and their song "Disappear" got the price for both worst clothing and one of the weakest songs. I don't know why Romania gave this 12 points, but apart from that they only got 2 more points and finished bottom along with Poland and the UK. For Germany and the UK it has been ages ago since they last had a decent score. Maybe Germany should send Tokio Hotel or Rammstein who both have a huge fanbase across Europe, then at least there'd be a chance to have a decent score. OK, the voting. 43 countries had to vote: the 25 finalists and the 18 countries eliminated in the semi-finals. Because reading all the points of 43 countries would take ages, the first 7 scores per country appeared on the screen without being read, and then the spokesperson for that country only read the 3 highest scores. I regret this as by not hearing all scores out loud it takes tension away and sort of makes it less easy to have an overview of the scoreboard, but of course the system is understandable as reading the full scores would take at least 2 hours. In the beginning it were Russia, Greece and Turkey who were all very close and battling for the nr 1 spot. After about 5 countries' votes, Turkey started to fall behind while Greece ran away on top (which I don't understand - their singer looked not too bad but the song was mediocre) with only Russia able to somewhat follow. Meanwhile Armenia and Ukraine began climbing to the top-5. Especially for Armenia I obviously was very happy. That Sweden remained in the lower areas of the scorelines was a surprise. After a while the Greek engine started to have problems while Russia suddenly started to massively collect the high scores. After a short while Russia, represented for the second time by Dima Bilal, ran away from its competitors and it was clear they would be the big favourites. Greece struggled but managed to stay in the top-3, although Ukraine now came very close and would eventually pass Greece in the end. Armenia settled comfortably in the top-5 and to my own pleasure they also collected several 12 points (and even 10 points from political enemies Turkey!) Turkey did not receive any more points for a while but then recovered and collected enough points to secure a place in the top-10. My own favourites Israel never got any 12 or 10 points but did collect enough points to make sure they would also make the top-10. In the end Russia came out as winner. Dima Bilal is already a huge star in his home country and now hopes that he can also break through in the western world. His English pronounciation was still a bit weak, but it has to be said: his song "Believe" was very decent (and with a violin and an ice-skater the act was also sobre but original) and he has a good voice and the looks to make many girls fall for him. So he definitely has that potential to break through internationally. Ukraine came second (which I absolutely don't get : the woman was very sexy but the song was not that good and the act a bit cheap ; that's just my opinion though) and Greece in the end finished 4th. My own favourites: Armenia had a great 4th place and it pleases me that an ethnically-inspired song scored this well. Israel came 9th (deserved at least top-5) and Turkey 7th. Of the songs I really liked, only Albania (despite a 12 from neighbours Macedonia) did not too well, ending at 17th spot. Some general conclusions: - those who state that the Eurovision is dominated by Eastern European countries due to them favouring their neighbours, are sad people who seek excuses for their own country's failure. First of all it is normal that people vote for their neighbours: they share the same taste in music, and the singers are known in their neighbouring countries and have fans there. But most of all, the voting for neighbours did not influence the result. Russia got votes from 36 out of 43 countries, this means Western Europe also massively voted for him. On top of that, not all former USSR countries gave him a 12 points. In general, all entries finishing top-4 received votes from many Western European countries as well. And if you really want to complain about countries favouring their neighbours, then surely this is not a purely Eastern European thing. Have you seen how the Nordic countries gave each other high scores as well? And those are not Eastern European countries. In the end this phenomenon always existed, long before the Eastern European countries came into play and even when it was still with juries rather than televoting. The only countries favouring their neighbours were the Balkan states and the ex-Yugoslavian states. But this had little or no influence on the actual result. The countries finishing on top were given high scores by both Eastern European and Western European countries. - the skirts were never this short in the Eurovision and several singers clearly tried to get some extra points by revealing their body. The Ukrainian singer in particular. Unfortunately it even worked... - the organisation by Serbian TV was very decent, but the festival seems to be a victim of its own success. With so many countries participating, there is not much time anymore for decent introduction films or to let the hosts speak. The hosts said very little apart from re-reading some scores during the voting. Also, the voting is cut short with the countries no longer able to read all scores like in the old days. It all has to go fast in order to squeeze the votes of 43 countries and songs of 25 countries in a 4 hours broadcast. Pity but guess there is no alternative as you cannot exclude countries from participating on that ground. There you go, next year the festival will be based in Moscow. It will be interesting to see if winner Bilal is now going to get the international breakthrough as well like he was hoping for prior to the song contest. Overall it was very decent, no stunning songs but also not really lot of bad songs. I had an amuzing night. Short note: due to a technical problem during writing of the report, part of the report is published twice in my blog. The incomplete part will be removed later on, so meanwhile skip the next entry and continue reading my blog from the entry below that. Sorry for inconvenience.