As with my post a couple of evenings ago on the 1st Semi-Final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest from Moscow, this post will be re-published after each country's contestant has performed and this evening I'll also be trying to post regular updates on my Twitter page as well. The official Eurovision website is here and you can download a scorecard for this evening's semi-final through the link here (a link to download the scorecard for the final will appear there in due course, too.).
Contestants this evening, and my thoughts on their efforts are as follows:
1 - Croatia
Ljepa Tena (Beautiful Tena)
- not bad ballad. Male singer, good-looking with good voice, female backing. Black-clad and booted. Might do well.
2 - Ireland
Et Cetera
- Female singing group. Boppy Europop, quite good, but a bit old-fashined. Doubt if it will do well enough to get through to final.
3 - Latvia
Probka (Traffic Jam)
- What a tuneless racket. If this gets thru to the final, I will finally despair that I've really lost it! Competent performance with awful material, I suppose.
4 - Serbia
Cipela (Shoe)
- Comedy troupe, bizarre song (apparently supposed to be funny) - very eccentric. Can this really do well enough to get to final? Dance troupe is amusing and accordion is a nice touch. Lead singer has sort of gravelly-voice and shock of dyed-blond air with dark roots. Truly eccentric altogether.
5 - Poland
I don't wanna leave
- Pretty female singer with decent strong voice singing in English, voice a little off-key at times. Not too bad I suppose, but I doubt if this ballad is right for 2009.
6 - Norway
Fairytale
- Young male violinist who also is the singer. Nice-looking young man and his voice is rather good. Singing in English. A sort of ballad with violin interludes and a dance/acrobatic troupe. Words a bit strange from someone so young, but could do well because it is a simple tune with easy words. Likely to get to final, I think.
7 - Cyprus
Firefly
- Young very pretty woman with nice voice (breathy but true if a little shaky at times) singing a quirky tune in English. Could get to final - if she can coontrol her voice, which is getting shakier by the second. Maybe not - her voice is really falling apart now. What a shame!
8 - Slovakia
Let tmou (Fly through darkness)
- male/female duo singing in Slovak(?). Sounds like a ballad, OK - but not my thing.
9 - Denmark
Believe again
- Ronan Keating lookalike singing (if I heard Paddy O'Connell correctly) singing a song by him. it's really a very nice ballad and as the singer is very attractive could do well with yoounger females (and gays of ocurse!). Should get to final, I think, if there is any justice.
10 - Slovenia
Love Symphony
- rather a dramatic orchestral introduction; violins, oboes, a sort of balkan gypsy song, tuneful and nice, sung not in English. Decent female singer we hardly have seen yet - she is a rather attractive blond. Not a bad effort.
11 - Hungary
Dance with me
- very sexy male singer with equally-attractive female back-up, very trendily dressed. Nice sexy song. Think it will do very well - could be a clubbing song for the summer?
12 - Azerbaijan
Always
- Male/female duo singing lively ballad in English. Both are quite nice-looking in a central-Asian way, trendily dressed. Not bad at all. (Twitter seems to have locked up - I can't post or get the site to refresh - maybe overloaded?
13 - Greece
This is our night
- Sexy slim white-clad man singing a boppy bit of Europop in English with female backing. He can visit me anytime! Might do well - definitely a sexy song with appropriately sexy dance-routine.
14 - Lithuania
Love
- Male singer playiing piano. Also another male and two female backing singers. A romantic ballad, quite lively, though, and quite a nice tune. Will it get thru to final, though? Sung in English and another language, presumably Lithuanian?
15 - Moldova
Hora din Moldova
- lively ballad with female singer and male dancing backers. Sung in Moldovan(?) Not bad!
16 - Albania
Carry me in your dreams
- Nice boppy tune,, she's a pretty girl, but dressed in something like a little girl would wear for a party frock. Rather a weird green-masked/clad spiderman type of backing dancer and two other almost vampire-like fellows. Not a bad tune though, sung in English and very competently performed. Will probably get thru to final.
Twitter is still on the blink! All I get is my homepage intermittently and messages that it is overloaded.
17 - Ukraine
Be my Valentine! (Anti-Crisis Girl)
- She's a looker, good voice, singing a sort of rock ballad in English. Quite erotic, with the gladiator-like bare-chested malle dancers accompanying her. A good routine. Should do well, I suspect. There are some good songs tonight, but not as good as the 1st semi-final on Tuesday, in my view.
18 - Estonia
Rändajad
- Lovely, pretty black-haired woman with a great voice singing a dramatic ballad with a definite beat to it. I like it, even if I don't understand it. I think this is a quality song and is being very well-performed. Should certainly get to final.
19 - The Netherlands
Shine
- a rather dated effort. Europop of yesteryear, with glittery-suiited rather past-it looking men and some eccentrically-dressed women. 80s disco music. Will it get the nostalgia vote? Happy and boppy ditty. Maybe deserves to get to the final for being determinedly cheerful.
Update on Spanish TV
- the channel that should have been broadcasting this live carried on broadcasting a live tennis match instead and has only in the last 10 or 15 minutes gone over to broadcasting this, presumably a time-delayed recording, so we won't be voting in Spain for quite a while I suspect. I have no idea how this works, for the Spanish votes to be counted.
Voting
- none in Spain???? It should have been on TVE2 earlier (from 9pm CET), but they continued with a live tennis match until after 10pm so we are only now (as I type this at 11pm) on number 13 - Greece. Unless it was on another TV channel I don't get, but I do get most of the channels on digital TV so have no idea what happened.
2nd Semi-final Qualifiers
As they're being voted through:
Azerbaijan
Croatia
Ukraine
Lithuania
Albania
Moldova
Denmark
Estonia
Norway
Greece
I'm pleased that none of the real 'duds' got through tonight. I'm sorry, however, that Hungary didn't make it as I thought it was a very good effort and after Greece (and Germany of course!) it was amongst the best for 'male totty', as well as being a pretty good song I thought.
PS/ A reminder of who qualified in the 1st semi-final on Tuesday (in alphabetic order this time):
Armenia
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Finland
Iceland
Israel
Malta
Portugal
Romania
Sweden
Turkey
- plus the 5 pre-qualified countries who will be in the final, comprising the 'big 4' because of their major financial contribution to funding the whole event, plus of course the winner last year and the host of this year's competition, Russia, all in alphabetic order):
France
Germany
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
- that's it from me for Eurovision tonight (probably - lol)!
Agreeing with you so far!
ReplyDeleteI think Greece is in with a very good chance of winning.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Greek fellow is certainly a winner with me! Nice song, too.
ReplyDeleteenglish version of Slovak song:
ReplyDeletehttp://david-850.blogspot.com/2009/05/eurosong-let-tmou-v-anglictine.html
maybe you didn´t like it because you did´t understand...hope you´ll enjoy..
Hi Nicka12
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to the Slovak song sung in English. Yes, I like it slightly better in this version (it also seemed better-performed than in the 2nd semi-final), but although it's a nice ballad it's still not really my thing. Unfortunately that seemed to be the opinion of the voting audience, too.
Personally as an English-speaker I think it's a shame that so many countries feel they have to do their songs in English - even the French last year did this, amazingly.
Thanks for sending me the link Nicka12 - it's always good to hear music. Now in about an hour I'll be settling down to enjoy the final - I hope you get a chance to enjoy it too.
Best regards and thanks for visiting.
Bill