– Here’s a sneak peak of Mr. Putin’s expansion plans. Go ahead and vote for us, suckers!
Sadly you won’t find your favorite Eurovision bloggers reporting live from the press center and from premier VIP seating inside the arena this year. Due to a series of unforeseen circumstances, which we won’t bore you with the details. But we promise to be back on location next year when it’s Italy’s turn to host Eurovision again!
In the early days of the semi-final era in the Eurovision Song Contest Macedonia used to be a dead certain qualifier. Placing 9 or 10 they had a remarkable ability to scrape through by the skin of their teeth, and ended up finishing mid-table. Perhaps not much to write home about, but they were in, playing in the big league, and for a small and young nation that meant a lot. It must have been a hard blow when finishing 10th twice in the televote all of a sudden wasn’t enough to qualify as a jury gave away the final tickets to Sweden and Finland. We suppose the EBU panicked after the Eastern bloc’s domination in Helsinki and had a few Scandinavians on their neck with big wallets and sinking TV ratings to attend to.
There were rehearsals. Actual, real rehearsals! With artist in clothes! Well, sort of anyway. Here are our first impressions from the second semi final:
1. Malta is definitely coming home with us
Malta’s performance was once again steady as a rock and we’re starting to get that winning feeling. And attention! If you look closely, you will see a selfie of us and Marco Mengoni as a part of their stage backdrop. We are very happy to be up there with the loves of our life during such an important moment in history. Oh, and yeah, we are also glad that 130 million viewers get to see our friendly faces, of course. Vote for us, Marco and Malta. It’s number one, peeps.
“And to the right we have an image of my favorite girls in Good Evening Europe. Do notice the fine details and carefully planned and coordinated outfits.”
2. Mei Feingold is still very angry
Half way through the song we just want to scream “WE GOT YOUR POINT THE FIRST TIME” back at her. Also, her stage backdrop looks like something from an adaption of a not so pleasant Cormac McCarthy novel. But thumbs up for effort and all.
Ever wondered what became of Skyler White after her husband finally ended his walk on the wild side? She entered the witness protection program, moved to Macedonia and became a popstar. How splendid!
If you’re still a little confused about the Sammarinese entry, thinking that was really two separate songs merged into one big fanwank, here’s another one for you:
Not the fanwank part obviously.
Read the rest of this entry »
Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” went under the hammer earlier this week and some absurdly rich sheik had to depart with a nice pile of dosh to become the new owner. It proves to show that the more primal parts of human nature appeal to most of us. Kaliopi gets that better than most other participants in this year’s line up and for that we salute her.
Of all the reviews we’ve read and heard of this song so far, Read the rest of this entry »
The official welcome party of Eurovision Song Contest 2011 went down on Saturday and since we were not there parading up the red carpet like we did last year, we have decided that it wasn’t half as good, and we probably didn’t miss out on anything. Most of the Eurovision celebs had thrown on their fanciest rags for the occasion, and let’s just say that some have a better sense of style than others…
Flipping through the pics from eurovision.tv we can at least point out a couple of observations. The EBU photographer is clearly no fashion photographer, in fact, we wonder if he has even held a camera in his hands ever before. And at times we wonder if this is even taken from the right event as it looks more like some random guy’s Facebook album from a Halloween party he attended in high school. Good grief! Very well, here’s some red carpet highlights and lowlights for you.
We conclude our Balkan festive week with a real floor banger from the country with the strange prefix. A lot could be said about Vlatko Ilievski’ ode to Russian girls, but it is far from dull, that’s for sure. It’s like when you’ve been to a party and you know you should be heading home, but instead you end up going to an afterparty and start slamming vodka shots down your throat for no apparent reason. What just seems like the most sensible thing to do at the spur of the moment does not have the same kind of charm when you wake up the morning after. When you start wondering WTF you did with that Macedonian Jon Bon Jovi, and you’re not entirely sure if it was in fact the Slovenian rocker from last year and didn’t I just say I was really Russian? The Macedonians seem to be a crazy bunch of people and we fear even the toughest GEE blogger girl would probably end up under the table before 9 p.m. at any given bar in Skopje.
A song about other countries’ hot girls, must go under the category oldest trick in the ESC rule book for scoring votes, last used by Romania two years ago. We already dread the next Swedish entrant serenading Polish guys, or some Dutch girl (over)sharing her memories of her Greek holiday sweetheart.
So, you thought we forgot about the men this year? Oh no, not us. We have been following them for quite some time now. And even though there’s no equal to our long lost love, Marcin Mrozínski (is there ever?), there’s a couple of highlights in the goodiebag this year as well. Here are the votes of the GEE jury:
1 point go to Azerbaijan’s Eldar Chris Martin Qasimov
Barely made the list, but as cute as he is, we’re kinda glad he did. We enjoy his style and he does have the most Chris Martinest of voices. And after all we do love Chris Martin. So guess there’s your point, Eldar.
The Macedonians seem to take ESC rather seriously, and we suppose it’s a nice opportunity to celebrate and display their national identity. Because of the name dispute with the Greeks, we have to call them FYR Macedonia, needless to say that FYROM has not received many points from their Greek neighbours since their debut in 1998. Still, with a little help from their friends, they have managed to qualify for the final every year, but was twice unlucky in 2008 and 2009 after having finished 10th in the televoting, when the jury gave their wildcards to Sweden and Finland.
We find ourselves being a little indifferent towards FYR Macedonia’s entry this year. It’s not good, it’s not bad, there’s just nothing there to really catch our attention. If this is what the Macedonians want to share with Europe, we simply think that we don’t share the same taste in music. To us it sounds outdated, and quite frankly like a bit of a mess. Within less than 3 minutes we get a pale Macedonian version of Bruce Springsteen or Eros Ramazotti (can’t quite make up our minds), mixed with some ridiculously bad rapping and a horrible puddle rock guitar solo. What’s that all about? We just don’t get it.
Perhaps this is the kind of music that really catches on in more southern parts of Europe, perhaps you will hear Gjoko’s voice on the radio in a bar in Split or Ljubljana during your summer holiday this year. Perhaps you will grow to like it then, in a different setting, listening to it with a different mindset.
At the end of the day we must admit that we understand why the jury has kicked the Macedonians out of the final twice, in favour of our Nordic neighbours. We do however predict that it will not happen again for the third time this year. This year’s entry will not even come close to finishing among the 10 qualifiers in semi-final 1.
Good Evening Europe 