Well two out of five isn’t bad. Is it? I knew my favourites wouldn’t match those of the 42 Eurovision juries and voting public. I was at least correct in Norway winning, Alexander Rybak fiddling like a man possessed right into the Eurovision record books with the highest ever points tally of 387. It was well-deserved; even though we knew he’d win months ago, he put on a good show, and his self-penned entry Fairytale did more than enough to get 12 points from 16 juries.
My other prediction that was almost correct was Turkey. Hadise came fourth with Dum Tek Tek, one place higher than I had her ahead of the final on Saturday night. I had Iceland sixth, but Johanna put on a belting performance of Is it True? bagging her second place, and making me realise that the song was much better than I had first thought. Another emotive performance came from France’s major-selling artist Patricia Kaas, taking her beautiful Et S’il Fallait Le Faire to eighth place.
I wasn’t quite so hot with Ukraine, Sweden, and Greece. Ukraine came a more than disappointing twelfth, 10 places below where I had placed Svetlana Loboda, while Greece was seventh (I had them fourth). Blonde diva Malena Ernman finished 21st out of the 25 competitors, her Swedish blend of soaring pop opera not impressing many; surely the biggest injustice of the competition, but such is the erratic Eurovision voting.
In South Woodham Ferrers, we had Ukraine first, Norway second, Estonia third (we weren’t so off the mark with that one – Urban Symphony came sixth), and Iceland and Sweden fourth and fifth respectively. The UK coming fifth was a pleasant surprise, and Jade Ewen did sing the big song very well (even though it wasn’t the right one), her respectable finishing place finally giving this country a least a shred of credibility. We had her down as seventh.
Any surprises? Azerbaijan coming third was the big one, especially as we had them 21st. Bosnia did well, too, coming ninth, ten places higher than our nineteenth. But above everything, 2009 was the year that the ‘song’ was put back into the Eurovision Song Contest. Listening to the official CDs, there are very few songs which manage to hold off the ‘skip’ button, surely a sign of this year’s show being one of the most memorable (along with the $30m LED screen stage, and the accurate and honest Graham Norton UK commentary).
It was almost as memorable as enjoying the festivities at Mark’s. After the fat lady (Malta’s Chiara) had sung signaling that it was all over, we had a good old sing-along to our favourites once more, before skipping through a few of the 2006 entries. Degrading into watching comical old 1980s TV footage (including some of Bill), just after 01h00 Nik and I said our goodbyes and headed home. The journey was even memorable, too, after the exhaust fell off the car, scraping along the road and attracting glances and shouts from passing drivers. A non-forgetful night in more ways than one; we can’t wait for Oslo.
Tags: Culture, Eurovision, Music