Eurovision Uberthread

[Pauro 76]

Were Ireland eliminated last night or are we actually on the semi-final tonight?

[mypost]

We're on tonight.

Saw the pink and black costume last night. If it sounds gaudy, it's because it is. How can an air hostess, (who is usually impeccably groomed), dress so poorly?

She's one of the few female singers in the contest to wear trousers. :rolleyes: This is Eurovision night, not a night down the pub.

[Partizan]

are we any good? You fancy our chances mypost of getting through?

[mypost]

It's not our worst ever entry, but it's on too early to have a realistic chance of making it, imo. It's also in a semi final with a lot of very strong entries.

The Brits can't vote, so that's that safety valve gone.

[sligofan4ever]

What did ye think of it ? personally I think they performed it well, and the crowd seemed to really like it, but lets face it we need to hope for the best without UK not being allowed vote. Come to think of it, when we were last in the finals they didn't even vote for us even though we did for them :mad:. Just as i'm writing is anyone watching Serbia ? sweet jesus thats terrible, they won it 2 years ago now they are just humiliating themselves!.

[Battery Rover]

First time I heard it and was only half listening but did the music to our song sound like something from Blondie or am I just imagining it.

[sligoman]

...and we're out, no shock really.

[Partizan]

song was a big pile of crap. Didnt help matters that we dont have a large diaspora in Europe outside of the UK. The Brits not been able to vote was akin to starting a match with 3 goals down.

Notice the way the votes went, to the East who played happy neighbour to each other. Its time to pull out of the cheese circus and enter the Sanremo Music Festival, a festival which actually is more at home with the original ideals of the ESC which has desceded into farce.

[stann]

It probably is time to pull out now alright, for too many countries there's just no chance any more.
Mind you, we didn't help ourselves with the quality of song which was shash, belting performance notwithstanding.
The Cyprus one was one of the best songs I've ever heard in a Eurovision, and was several miles ahead of tonight's opposition, but that didn't make it either.

[Partizan]

agree there Stan. Time to pull the plug. The Eurovision has long lost alot of its appeal (what little it had) and has been turned into a political contest by the Eastern European countries who vie for it and expend huge sums of money and effort on it in the process. Its long past its sell by date.

Many Western countries have lost interest in it and we certainly could spare the expense by pulling out of it. Even if we had a good song (havent since Rock & Roll kids) we still wouldnt make it through because of the voting system. The public vote should be abolished and replaced with a jury system which was alot fairer as public vote is open to political abuse and gamesmanship.

Thats said its time to go and ask the Italians if we can enter theres. :D

With 7 wins, it doesnt look like our record will be beaten for a while yet.

[DaveyCakes]

song was a big pile of crap. Didnt help matters that we dont have a large diaspora in Europe outside of the UK. The Brits not been able to vote was akin to starting a match with 3 goals down.

Notice the way the votes went, to the East who played happy neighbour to each other. Its time to pull out of the cheese circus and enter the Sanremo Music Festival, a festival which actually is more at home with the original ideals of the ESC which has desceded into farce.

So it would have been fine if we'd got through with a bit of happy neighbours from UK, but if anyone else does it its terrible?

[mypost]

Portugal and Iceland got through, despite the voting problems. Even bleedin' Ronan Keating got through. :eek:

Cyprus out, Serbia out, Slovenia out, Poland out, Latvia out, all Eastern Europe. Obviously not many Poles around Europe watching.

The Brits can't vote in our semi-final anymore. Mypost voted for Albania, which went through. :)

Regarding our entry, nothing wrong with the performance, the early draw was an issue but the costume was as usual, rubbish. Why can't Irish girls cut it in the Eurovision fashion stakes? :rolleyes:

[irishultra]

The Eurovision has always been a favours contest, what I find weird is that the the Swedes have given us far and away the most points, way more than they have given to their Scandanavian friends Denmark and Norway.

Also Ireland has given the UK far and away the most points, while in second place comes France which by coincidence also happen to be the two closest countries to us.

Look at the Netherlands, Israel constantly gives it high points because of its good treatment of Jews throughout the centuries.

Tonight, 4 Nordic countries(Estonia, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania) went through, does anyone accuse them of this voting, and if they do, they don't get angry about it.

Having said that it really should have gone through and the Eurovision is really stale now. Like looking back it looked rubbish but now it seems so pushed.

[Lionel Ritchie]

First time I heard it and was only half listening but did the music to our song sound like something from Blondie or am I just imagining it.

:eek: Take that back or step outside!

...it's like claiming that bloke who sang I'll Always Be Lonely sounds a bit like Metallica.

[DaveyCakes]

If you include Hungary and Slovakia as being in Eastern Europe (I wouldn't, but many would), 15 of the 19 semi finalists last night were from the Eastern/Balkan region. Of course a load of them were going to qualify. I thought we deserved to go through, but there you go. I also thought that most of the qualifiers were merited, other than Croatia, Lithuania, and Moldova.

[kingdom hoop]

Just one little unimportant observation follows:
Is it called Euro...Vision because, when it comes to appraisal of song, the use of the eyes is more important than the ears?

Or is that just coincident? Why not EuroAudio, for example?

[Lionel Ritchie]

Just one little unimportant observation follows:
Is it called Euro...Vision because, when it comes to appraisal of song, the use of the eyes is more important than the ears?

Or is that just coincident? Why not EuroAudio, for example?

I think it's a very important observation. The 'Song Contest' bit is still there but is smaller than 'Fianna Fail' on a 2009 election poster. I suppose the 'Vision' thing goes back to it's origins as an experiment in live pan-European broadcasting using little more than valves, microwaves and hope.

...and besides the Audio aspect is uniformly unlistenable anyway. :)

[John83]

Having just heard the Irish entry for the first time, all I can say is this: if that deserved to go through to the final, I'm very happy I didn't watch the rest of the contestents in the semi.

[paudie]

The Eurovision has always been a favours contest, what I find weird is that the the Swedes have given us far and away the most points, way more than they have given to their Scandanavian friends Denmark and Norway.

Also Ireland has given the UK far and away the most points, while in second place comes France which by coincidence also happen to be the two closest countries to us.

Look at the Netherlands, Israel constantly gives it high points because of its good treatment of Jews throughout the centuries.

Tonight, 4 Nordic countries(Estonia, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania) went through, does anyone accuse them of this voting, and if they do, they don't get angry about it.

Having said that it really should have gone through and the Eurovision is really stale now. Like looking back it looked rubbish but now it seems so pushed.

Surely Estonia and Lithuania are Baltic rather than Nordic countries.

Surely if people think the Eurovision is rubbish they shouldn't watch it. Of course it is rubbish:D

[stann]

Just one little unimportant observation follows:
Is it called Euro...Vision because, when it comes to appraisal of song, the use of the eyes is more important than the ears?

Or is that just coincident? Why not EuroAudio, for example?

It's to do with its origins as a collaboration between the various national TV broadcasters around Europe I think, KH.
I think the key thing was it was to be a single television event simultaneously broadcast, hence euroVISION.
In a sense the song contest aspect was secondary. Hearing some of the entries in the final this year that seems to still be the case. :D

[sligoman]

Norway way out in front...hard to see anyone catching up, although not even half-way through yet so it's not impossible.

[Pauro 76]

Thought the Iceland entry deserved to win, classy song.

[mypost]

With the juries back, the ballads were always going to score well, and shows why Iceland and the UK scored highly, and why Sakis of Greece, and Elena of Romania didn't. Nothing special about the Norway song for me, fairly drab.

About us, we finished in 11th place in the semi-final with 52 points, Denmark gave us the highest individual score with 10 points. As only the top 9 qualified, Serbia finished 10th, but the jury wildcard went to the 13th placed Croatians at the expense of their neighbours.

[OwlsFan]

I enjoyed it I have to admit. I thought the standard of most of the songs wasn't bad (I know it's fashionable to say they're rubbish) and it certainly helps when you've heard them before (at the semi-final stage). The Norwegian song is very catchy and i went to bed with it in my head. The German entry was verging on pornography - I like the one with the whip :D My favourite was the Albanian entry. Not sure about the green man though. I also liked the Estonian (the girl with the fringe).

A good evening's entertainment. Highlight - when the woman giving the results of the Swedish jury sang a snippet of each of the songs Sweden was voting for. AMusing!

[bennocelt]

only listened to the last few songs on the radio - what i heard was dire stuff - the english one was so out of tune..........

or song was a joke too - at least dustin was a laugh

[mypost]

They announced the dates of next year's contest as well during the week, only to find that they clash with the CL Final on the Saturday night :rolleyes:, so they'll have to move it again.

[Pauro 76]

http://www.rte.ie/arts/2010/0210/eurosong.html

Irish Eurosong entrants for 2010 announced. Seems like they're not playing it for laughs this year then! What happened to comedian Justin Lee Collins' supposed Irish entry then?

[mypost]

They announced the dates of next year's contest as well during the week, only to find that they clash with the CL Final on the Saturday night :rolleyes:, so they'll have to move it again.

With the new date as the 29th May, rehearsals have begun. Ireland are 12th in the second semi-final 2 days before.

That's the easy part. Getting there appears to be a bit more difficult:

http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/15708

[Lionel Ritchie]

What's she going ten days ahead of the gig for? Christ we didn't get that long to acclimatise in Orlando or Saipan.

[mypost]

Her song rehearsals are Wednesday and Friday/Saturday. Then nothing at all until the show dry-runs the following Wednesday.

[DaveyCakes]

Poor standard in the first semi-final. The only half-decent songs were Belgium, Iceland and Bosnia. At least they all qualified.

[mypost]

Poor standard in the first semi-final. The only half-decent songs were Belgium, Iceland and Bosnia. At least they all qualified.

Well we qualified for the final for the first time from a semi-final for 4 years. Obviously the jury voting is making its mark. Ireland, Portugal, Belgium, and Iceland all made it out of the semi final. Ireland are 10th in the final.

With all the ballad songs around for the juries to pick from, I don't like most of the songs this year. Albania, Iceland, Slovakia, and Germany are the few highlights for me. Slovakia are already gone, while Croatia and Sweden failed to qualify. The rest are much of a muchness.

[DaveyCakes]

I enjoyed Sweden, Azerbaijan and Turkey last night. Our song is the best we've had in years, but I thought it was still pretty dull. Azerbaijan and Germany are favourites.

[holidaysong]

I enjoyed the Turkish one myself. Was surprised we got through actually, I don't think much of it at all.. How was our entry chosen by the way?

[culloty82]

I enjoyed the Turkish one myself. Was surprised we got through actually, I don't think much of it at all.. How was our entry chosen by the way?

Quite liked Turkey's too myself, rockier than the usual tripe. As for Niamh, there was a Eurosong Late Late in February with five different songs against each other. You'd 6 regional panels and based on the public and the jury, each gave a maximum of 12 points and Niamh got a perfect score of 144. I think this is the second year that the jury's back so shouldn't be as much bloc voting this time.

[mypost]

Was surprised we got through actually, I don't think much of it at all.. How was our entry chosen by the way?

Contest was March 5th, and Niamh walked it.

Our song has no appeal for voters, but is manna from heaven for juries. They love ballads, and Eurovision is stuffed with them this year. There's still mass bloc voting, especially with the new rules, it's just nullified more with the jury vote carrying the same power now as the televote. Only Holland, Sweden, and Switzerland of the "Western" countries didn't qualify.

[superfrank]

Wait til yez hear the Spanish one. It's absolute dross. The guy is a big ham.

[DaveyCakes]

There's been a lot of money on Armenia today. They're joint favourites with their friends and neighbours Azerbaijan now, maybe they'll restart the war if it gets very tense.

[Spudulika]

The Azeri's have put a massive amount into publicity for their entry (lots on the web). Armenia is a good one, Russia is absolutely tragic - which is what happens when you pick a youtube song! Good luck to Ireland - hopefully top half respectability will be achieved.

[GUFCghost]

:poo:dear god!They'er all ****!

[Longfordian]

Such a load of ****e, the German girl that won was hot enough though!

[mypost]

You're not going to get top half respectability with that, up against the competition that was out there.

No gimmicks, no choreography, no visuals, just a 42-year old statue singing a flat meaningless ballad, in an ocean of ballads. As usual, our song is 100% focussed on the performer, when you actually need a performance to go with it. And as usual, it doesn't stand out, and it didn't work.

Western countries are back in the contest with a bang now with 3 of them in the top 5, there's the effects of the voting system in operation. Delighted for Lena and the Germans, they've tried for very long, and nothing worked for them until this year. They're the first Top 4 country to win it since televoting started, and ARD will probably fund most of it themselves next year, rather than half as they have done for so long now.

At least the Brits finished last. It's the only consolation we can take from the final.

In the semi final, we finished 9th, level with Cyprus on 67 points. Sweden finished 11th. Swiss juries loved Niamh, as they gave her 12 points. The UK gave us 10, Croatia gave us 3, we gave them one, and handed Lithuania the 12. Again.....:rolleyes:

[De Town]

Terrible bit of aftertiming I know, but I had a look at the betting yesterday around 3 o'clock, and went and listened to the top 8 songs or so, and I picked out Germany as the winner. Course I didn't bother putting money on it though. :(

[Lionel Ritchie]

Discussing the merit of this thing from a musical perspective is akin to discussing the cinematic value of Home & Away but sure anyway


You're not going to get top half respectability with that, up against the competition that was out there.

No gimmicks, no choreography, no visuals, just a 42-year old statue singing a flat meaningless ballad, in an ocean of ballads. As usual, our song is 100% focussed on the performer, when you actually need a performance to go with it. And as usual, it doesn't stand out, and it didn't work.

I believe you. The whole of Belgium reckons you're talkin' ****e mind. ;-)


Western countries are back in the contest with a bang now with 3 of them in the top 5, there's the effects of the voting system in operation. Delighted for Lena and the Germans, they've tried for very long, and nothing worked for them until this year. They're the first Top 4 country to win it since televoting started, and ARD will probably fund most of it themselves next year, rather than half as they have done for so long now.
Ah the good old certainty of chance. Good to see that at last Europe gets a demonstration that democracy simply doesn't work too. Worse again giving an untramelled vote to countries from the dismal side of the sadly defunct iron curtain.
She was gracious too -reigning in her victory speech with only half the count in and all that.


At least the Brits finished last. It's the only consolation we can take from the final.


I suppose "our" 25 votes affords us some height relative to their 10 -though I fear ****y boots will the reward for attempting to whizz on them. Graham Norton was pretty good too

[mypost]

Discussing the merit of this thing from a musical perspective is akin to discussing the cinematic value of Home & Away but sure anyway

Well, at least there is no miming, and no covers, like you get at every other concert. Every song is brand new, regardless of type or country.
I believe you. The whole of Belgium reckons you're talkin' ****e mind. ;-)

Yes, Belgium qualified from the semi for the first time in 6 years. At least they had a guitar. We didn't. Cutbacks and all that.


I suppose "our" 25 votes affords us some height relative to their 10 -though I fear ****y boots will the reward for attempting to whizz on them. Graham Norton was pretty good too

I never ever listen to that fruitcake. Since Wogan left, I watch RTE's coverage in the final now. Hamburg will imo, get the gig next year.

[OwlsFan]

I watch RTE's coverage in the final now.

Marty thought we were going to win it but once it became obvious we weren't, he almost shut off and became bored and resigned. Instead of focusing on what was happening at the top of the leader board, he just got more depressed every time another null poins came is for us.

I am expecting a few photos at least of that Armenian woman in the Totty Watch thread. I will always think of apricots in the different light in future. They call her the new Angelina Jollie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HcflEJ-uw&feature=related

As ever good entertainment and trying to predict the voting is fun. Cyprus/Greece is always the most obvious and Iceland -> Denmark.

[Wolfie]

The contention that music is peripheral to this entire competition was further enforced when it was announced you could start voting before you heard any of the songs!!!!

This competition also serves as a reminder that we have far more in common with Britain than remotely anywhere else.

Forgive the gross generalisation - but the rest of Europe are on an entirely different wavelength to us.

[bennocelt]

MyPost I enjoy your posts, but please tell me you dont seriously actually like the Eurovision for its music???? I only watched the voting part, in a pub - and it was fun and a bit of craic guessing who woud vote for who - but thats all it is - a joke!!!
And Wolfie is right, Europeans are a strange bunch........................
But then on the other hand I suppose we did give the world Westlife, Boyzone, Chrystal Swing and Jedward!

[mypost]

In the early years, I used to just watch the voting, but it's now so predictable, that I prefer watching the songs.

The Europeans put everything into the contest, and get the rewards. They're much more sophisticated and organised than us. We and the Brits do sfa for it, and get nothing.

[Lionel Ritchie]

The Europeans put everything into the contest, and get the rewards. They're much more sophisticated and organised than us. We and the Brits do sfa for it, and get nothing.

A somewhat bizzare statement. I don't doubt that some of the countries you seem to be referring to (we're Europeans too btw) put everything into it -too much some would say. But I'm not sure where they "get the rewards" you speak of. Only Ireland, Sweden and Norway have won the thing more than once in the last two decades. That fairly even spread of winners means all these other countries, including the one-time winners, who bust a gut for it every year actually have very little to show for it relative to their outlay.

Little wonder in that scenario that Italy, Czech, Austria, Luxembourg and more to follow have decided there's no percentage in it and have walked.