(Quick
note: This is a cross-post with my awesome Caitlin at Drawnward.com,
who has done undeservedly beautiful drawings of some of the event’s finest
moments. There’s also a gift to you in the form of a recipe you do not want to
live another day without. The full write-up is here, but the drawings and
recipe can only be found there. Head over there to check them out, and then
read everything else she’s ever written. Totally worth it.)
HALLOO
RIGA! Welcome to the annual Eurovision recap, coming to you this time from
beautiful downtown Malmö, Sweden. Please
don’t eat the horses.
I
know that many of you are new to Eurovision, and I’m honoured to have the
chance to lead you through this scary world of shiny pants and wind machines.
With luck, we’ll all come out the other side – a little sadder, perhaps; a
little more afraid of the future of this poor world; but wiser and more in
touch with the darkest, most sequined corners of our tired souls. Strap in,
nibble a lingonberry or two, and join this year’s commentary team, in order of appearance:
• Colleen, my lovely fiancée.
She was sorely disappointed in Trader Joe’s twist-and-pop biscuits. ‘They’re no
Pillsbury,’ she hissed, and tossed them aside.
• Karen, a.k.a. Flattie
Galore. This year it was her turn to bring the pizza rolls. There’s still a bag
left in our freezer, waiting for the night when I’m all alone and feeling
*really* bad about myself.
• Kari, Karen’s girlfriend.
Kari provided homemade guacamole and the most earnestly upbeat attitude I have
ever seen applied to insensible European pop music. She sang along. This is unprecedented. (Eurovision rookie)
• Alison The Chef. You could
tell she’s the food professional, because she brought fancy imported honey
mustard for her pigs-in-a-blanket. She also brought an Entenmann’s Louisiana crunch
cake. Don’t try this at home, kids.
• Jen, who is always called by
her first and last name and it’s driving me crazy to single-name her right now.
She is gloriously tall and brought wine that outclassed everything else about
the evening by roughly 48 billion per cent. (Eurovision rookie)
• Erin and Jay: Erin is
Colleen’s colleague, and Jay is her lovely husband. Erin has Eurovision hair: it
cries for a large fan and a spotlight. Jay buys our dog get-well presents.
Together they brought an impressive salami-and-cream-cheese concoction, chased
by a tube of cookie dough. (Eurovision rookies)
• Amy, who is another
first-and-last-namer. This is making me long for the anonymity of my own tiny
blog. She brought some very lovely toffee-and-macadamia-nut cookies, as well as
a tray of corn bread that might not have left her lap at any point in the
evening. I appreciate her devotion to the theme.
• Caitlin: You might not think
you need me to introduce you to her, but let me just say this: I have known the
girl since I was three months old, but until she made me a tater-tot burrito? I
didn’t know her at all.
• Leslie: Colleen’s former
workmate, South Shore badass, and so committed to the hedonistic splendour of
the night that she didn’t make it through her first sentence before applying
herself to a bottle of pre-mixed margarita that she pulled out of her purse.
This is all true. (Eurovision rookie, not that you’d know it from that move)
Oh, and I should introduce
myself too: I’m Elena. I brought the weird plague that is Eurovision
Fever
home to Boston with me after many years’ exposure in Australia. Like all
viruses, it is constantly seeking new hosts. Tell my friends I’m sorry.
To
start the evening, Colleen, Karen, Kari, Alison, Jen, Erin, Jay and I watched
last year’s winner, Norway’s
Loreen, singing ‘Euphoria’. This was the song that prompted last year’s
guest commenter Megan to murmur, ‘my life will never be the same after
tonight’.
Jay: So wait, she’s representing her country?
Elena: Yes, and think about what that means.
We
followed this with a quick Greatest Hits, consisting of Turkey 2012:
Jen: I’m wearing those exact pants right now.
They’re a slim-fit Capri.
…Spain 2008, as requested
by the newly-arrived Amy:
Jen: That’s the drag king I always see in Jamaica
Plain!
Alison: Isn’t Spain a first-world country?
Erin: This is where Psy came from.
…and,
of course, Serbia 2010:
Colleen: That’s a ladyman!
Erin: Are you sure that’s not just a lady?
We
then watched the
introduction to the first of this year’s semi-finals while we waited for
the archive of the final to be posted. Mind you, I would have insisted on
watching it anyway, because it was incredible. The beginning is actually quite
good: we skip among the participating nations, all performing
traditional-to-their-cultures-versions of ‘Euphoria’. Nifty idea, and pretty
well executed. It was after we entered the stadium that things took a dark turn
– both literally (the room was lit like the Phantom of the Opera’s sex dungeon)
and figuratively:
Karen: Oh god, that kid is going to kill you.
Amy: He looks like he has boobs.
Jen: Why do they all have bouffants?
Colleen and Elena: CREEPY LADY BEHIND TINY PHILIP
SEYMOUR HOFFMAN!
And
then, finally, it was time for the main event. Eurovision Grand Final, Malmö
2013: we’re ready, bitches. Do your worst.
Everything
starts out mildly enough, as we follow a caterpillar on his journey through the
Eurovision countries, on his way to becoming the famous Eurovision ButterflyTM
(Flags Of All Nations Wings sold separately).
Erin: Aw, he’s in transition!
Karen: Like those transgendered children we saw
earlier!
Amy: He’s a hairy little bugger.
Erin: Well, he’s European.
When
his cocoon bursts (all: OH!), we fly along into the stadium to watch the
performers strut down the catwalk. Upskirting: Sweden’s National Pastime!
Karen: I feel like we’re watching the Opening
Ceremonies of the Olympics.
Elena: But much, much gayer.
Amy: Yeah. They thought we needed a gay Olympics.
They were wrong.
Karen: I swear I saw Nick Lachey walk by.
And
then it’s time to meet our host: the one, the only… Petra Mede. My minimal
research indicates that she’s Sweden’s Julia Zemiro, which will make sense only
to the Australians in the audience.
Anyone watching her try to land a joke may be surprised to learn that
she’s officially a comedian, but to be fair, I can’t imagine that an arena full
of screaming drunken Eurovision devotees is anyone’s ideal audience – apart,
obviously, from the Eurovision performers, but that a side of their characters
that is best ignored, or possibly medicated.
Jen: We are literally watching the Hunger
Games. And she is wearing a wizard coat.
Colleen: A Pepto
Bismol wizard coat.
Amy: For a lot of clothing, there’s not much
coverage.
Colleen: That’s an aggressive satin.
I
have since tried to find a clip of Ms. Mede pronouncing her name and was
tragically let down by the Internet. I wish I could share it with you because
she wrung 47 syllables from those 9 letters and I’m still fascinated by it. If
someone does come across one and feels like investing (wasting) their time and
developing a ringtone, hit me up in the comments and I’ll give you my
first-born.
In
the meantime, the performances await, and our majestic Swedish Vergil leads us
first, as she must, straight to Hell.
France
kicks the night off with an entirely competent performance that is utterly
unsuited for Eurovision. This woman belongs on an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, not on
a stage famous for Abba and Lucite
pianos. No amount of black rubber fringe can hide that.
Colleen: Hello, Courtney Love. Jesus.
Karen: No, she’s not skinny enough to be on crack.
And here’s a tip: don’t use backlighting if you have arm fur.
Amy: I can see the shadows of your back-up singers.
You’re not fooling us. We can see
you’re not alone.
Karen: Do you think she opted not to have the
Eurovision Fan? Because she doesn’t have the Eurovision Fan.
Amy: But she did touch herself on stage.
Jen: With shaking hands.
Interstitial
Instead
of the usual look-how-pretty-our-country-is video clips, this year’s
interstitials are background pieces on the upcoming contestants. It’s a
heartwarming glimpse into the private lives of the young men and women about to
bare their souls on an international stage.
Colleen: ‘I’m pretending to be straight in front of
my parents!’
You
know how there’s a stereotype about Eastern Europe being stuck,
pop-culture-wise, in the ‘80s? And you know how good and sensible people are
supposed to be in the business of breaking down stereotypes? Well, let’s just
say that good and sensible people shouldn’t watch Andrius Pojavis and leave it
at that. He also has a raging case of the CrazyEyes and is an early leader in
the ‘learned my song phonetically’ stakes.
Andrius: ‘I have to tell you something’
Colleen: Oh good! Lay it on me!
Karen: ‘I went to the store… they were out. of.
crackers…’
Jen: ‘My eyebrows can catch snowflakes.’
Alison: I can see him homeless in Central Square.
Amy: DON’T LIFT YOUR ARMS AGAIN. YOUR SHIRT IS SO
SHORT.
Karen: I think what he wanted to tell her was that
he’s numb from the waist down.
Elena: ‘Because of my shoes’?!
Karen: Yeah, they’re so heavy he can’t move.
Interstitial
Colleen: What happened to all the relaxing moments
we got last year?
Aliona
Moon delivers the first serious Eurovision crazycakes of the night, complete
with lightning effects, Personality Hair, and a dress that grows up out of the
stage like the tree in ‘The Nutcracker’. And if that doesn’t fill you up, we
can add a steaming side of catsuited contortionists who are but one roll of
toilet paper away from the full Mummenschanz.
Elena: Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh no.
Colleen: Oh fuck yes, Eurovision. You are
DELIVERING.
Colleen and Karen: IT’S LA ROUX!
Erin: How is her dress expanding?
Colleen: I don’t know. How is her dress on fire?!
An
open memo to the Republican National Convention:
Dear
Sirs,
If
you are looking for a way to set the cause of same-sex marriage back by 1.2
billion years, please contact Ms K. Siegfrieds, who I think could give you some
ideas. As long as you’re not allergic to crushed velvet.
Hugs
and kisses,
Elena
Karen: Elena, mark it right now: this is getting my
vote.
Amy: If you can’t dance, march!
Amy: So, is she saying she changed her name before she got married to entice the
person?
Elena: Are you asking me to apply logic to this?
Amy: …Yes.
Interstitial
Karen: I’m enjoying these little breaks.
Erin: You kind of need them to recover.
Karen: Except I feel like she’s about to explain the
benefits of Kashi Go Lean to me.
Spain
opened with a lone bagpiper, and that was quite nice. As soon as the singer
chimed in, though, it all went rapidly downhill. Here’s a tip: sometimes, doing
something that no one else has ever done makes you innovative and exciting. And
other times, it makes you try to sing along with a bagpipe.
I
strongly urge you to check the guitarist’s face at 1:06. It’s moments like this
that make live performance entirely worthwhile.
Jen: It was so cute until she couldn’t sing.
Amy: Eurovision wind!
Jen: If you can’t sing, blow up your skirt!
Interstitial
It
was right about this time that Caitlin joined us, and asked the obvious
question:
Caitlin: So how are the interstitials this year?
Colleen: Kind of dull.
Caitlin: No running horses?
Colleen: No. It’s no Azerbaijan.
This
very special piece of work sparked an interesting conversation about
Eurovision’s weird back-up dancer policy. The story I’ve always heard is that
the dancers are provided and assigned to the performers by the host nation;
they do not come from the performers’ own countries, and therefore don’t get
much time to learn and perfect their choreography.
I’m
not sure why this is: it might be to ensure that everyone has equal opportunity
to put on a big production number, regardless of how much money their home
country has to put towards it; it might be to boost the host nation’s
all-important Dance Employment Quotient (or DEQ); it might just be a way to
make sure that none of the performances actually look polished, so as give the
rest of us something to giggle at.
I
couldn’t find confirmation of this policy online, so it might be a pack of
lies. But who needs confirmation when you have Belgium as evidence?
Colleen: They’re dancing to a different song!
Caitlin: ‘We’re going to give you Robert
Palmer’s dancers.’
Elena: Oh, we just had the Dubstep Drop.
Amy: Did they? Or did the dancers just start dancing
as if they did?
Colleen
and I got a preview of this song earlier in the day when we were dry-running
the tech by testing the streams of the semi-finals. (We’re nothing if not
professionals over here.) The most memorable thing about the performance was
that they started her lit in black-and-white, then dropped in the colour right
before the first chorus. They did exactly the same in the final, which might
not come as a shock but which definitely didn’t do her any favours, at least in
Colleen’s mind. Also not doing her any favours was the 12,000 yards of gauzy
curtain she was sporting as a dress. Birgit: You are young. You are beautiful.
You are on Eurovision, for fuck’s sake. Make with the gams already, damn.
Colleen: This girl is hot as shit, but they
keep starting her in black-and-white.
Jen: She is not that hot.
Colleen: She is in colour!
Now
here’s a young lady who got the memo about costuming. And prop usage. And
back-up dancers. And and and.
Amy: Oh man. When you come out of a disco ball….
Colleen: It’s the Belarusian Shakira!
There
may have been a misunderstanding elsewhere, though, as it seems like she was performing the dance steps for
the first time ever. Her back-up dancers seemed way more across the moves than
she did, which is a shame because I have a strong suspicion that they were
trying to create a ‘Macarena’-style dance craze; instead, it just kind of looks
like she’s tipping over a lot. But then, maybe this sort of thing plays back
home. I don’t know how they do in Belarus.
Alison: So who provided those men?
Elena: Sweden provided those men. Those men are
courtesy of Malmö.
Amy: And all of them hiding behind the singers! I
guess that’s all Swedish dancers can manage.
Karen: The four elements of EuroVision: fire, water,
wind, and lasers.
Interstitial
Jen: He likes guitars and picnics.
Jason
Mraz has a lot to answer for. And his hat appears to be making a cameo on
Gianluca’s guitarist.
Colleen: Wow. You are gayer than this room, sir.
Erin: His eyebrows look like exclamation marks.
Amy: I love that this guy thought his lyrics were so
good they should be projected behind him.
Elena: It’s a Manic Pixie Dream Girl love song.
Elena: It’s a Manic Pixie Dream Girl love song.
Amy: But when does the dubstep come in?
Elena: What’s with the crotch of his pants, by the
way?
Alison [concerned]: Something’s not right.
I
feel like someone watched a lot of Kelly Clarkson’s awkward early performances
– back before they gave her fun songs to sing and clothes that weren’t designed
and sized for a seven-year-old – and thought, ‘You know what was missing here?
Giant glowing orbs. BOOM.’
Colleen: So you’re 19, but you sound like you’re 90.
There is a dichotomy here.
Jen: Their outfits are so almost good.
Karen: Props that she just showed up and sang.
Amy: No she didn’t. She put bubbles all over the
stage.
Jen: She likes orbs. She’s not the first. She won’t
be the last.
Elena: Her back-up singers are from IKEA.
Colleen: They are! They’re made of particle board!
Jen: They were shipped in 78 pieces, half of which
were missing….
This
young lady created a small storm of controversy in our living room:
Kari: It’s Jessica Simpson!
Colleen: No, it’s Faith Hill!
Karen: She’s a little Carrie Underwood….
Jen: No, she’s what’s-her-name, from ‘Nashville’ and
‘Friday Night Lights’
Amy and Caitlin [with matching blue steel glares]:
SHE IS NO TAMI TAYLOR.
The
take-aways from this are 1) that all blonde white women look the same to us,
and 2) everybody better step the fuck off
Connie Britton.
Amy: She dropped the dubstep in the intro. That was
unexpected.
Amy: I hope to god she doesn’t try to walk down
those stairs. That is not going to end well.
Alison: If there are stairs, she’s walking down ‘em.
Amy: Once again they’re keeping the back-up singers
in the dark. There are some amazing things happening back there, but we’re not
allowed to see them. It’s like a government conspiracy.
Every
year there are a few ‘what is this world coming to?’ ballads mixed in amongst
the lasers. In that spirit I present Dorians, in all their denim splendour.
Karen:
He’s wearing the Canadian Tuxedo!
Amy: His eyebrows match his facial hair in an
unbecoming way.
Elena: So much fire!
Caitlin: YES.
Intermission
We
rejoin our fearless leader, the inimitable Petra Mede:
Amy: Oh, she’s back!
Alison: I was starting to miss her.
Elena: To be fair, there’s only one of her and she
has to manage all of that dress as well. She doesn’t have much free time.
Amy: But don’t you think the hair counterbalances
the dress?
And
then came the Lynda
Woodruff bit. Baffling. Completely and utterly baffling. What I think is happening is that we’re being
taken on a tour of Sweden by a comedy British stereotype. What might actually
be happening is that we’re being taken on a tour of Sweden by a slightly
damaged real British person and we’re being asked to laugh at her reduced level
of function. Either way, it was utterly unfunny and more than a little
uncomfortable.
Elena: Are we thinking that’s a satire?
Jen: The eyeshadow says yes… the clipboard says no.
Interstitial
Jen: Oh wow. This is serious.
Amy: That’s not going to help her voice.
Jen: She’s got a little man in her. I can appreciate
that.
Caitlin: I heard some stuff about this one. I heard
it’s all about death and wanting to kill yourself and stuff.
Colleen: I want to kill myself.
Caitlin: Not yet you don’t.
Caitlin
wasn’t wrong. The chorus refers to birds falling out of the rooftops like
raindrops. And yet, Anouk spent the entire time smiling benignly like the Dalai
Lama.
Colleen: It’s Fiona Apple!
Karen: So that’s what she’s been doing all this
time.
I
don’t have a whole lot to add to this, so instead I’m going to send you on a
five-minute tangent to the
funniest story about birds falling from the sky that I’ve ever heard. Go
ahead, I’ll wait.
Welcome
back! And let’s all thank Anouk for being so dull that I was inspired/forced to
share that with you.
Karen: She’s hot.
Colleen: No she’s not.
Kari: Whatever, if she worked in your office you’d
totally do her.
Amy: No you wouldn’t, because she’d still be talking
about her feelings.
Karen: THAT’S A DUSTER! SOMEONE IN THE CROWD HAS A
GERMAN FLAG DUSTER!
Hoo
boy.
I
seriously don’t have the words for this. Crazy operatic delivery, dubstep
crashes, naked tableau dancers, impenetrable lyrics… I mean, the first words
are ‘Love is so blind/Like a diamond in the light’. What the fuck am I supposed
to do with that?
I
am therefore handing the reins over to John O’Driscoll of RTÉ (Ireland) news,
who was on location:
How to describe it? A hellish Hieronymus Bosch
tableau, choreographed by Count from Sesame Street and sung with the falsetto
delicacy of un-anesthetised surgery. It's probably how Al-Qaeda imagines the
West. It'll probably win.
As
Cezar himself put it, ‘Thank you. You are my soul.’
Amy: MAN IN A VOLCANO!
Jay: This makes it all worthwhile.
Colleen: There is a lot of penis here.
Jen: Are they penises? I thought they were tampons.
Colleen: Romania is coming out of the closet. As a
nation. Right now.
Amy: That is not a man.
Caitlin [satisfied]: This is what Eurovision is all
about.
Interstitial
Bonnie
Tyler. Bonnie. Freaking. Tyler., y’all.
The
room went crazy, with the requisite spontaneous group-sing of ‘Total Eclipse of
the Heart’ wafting over from my left. To my right, though, was favourite
exchange of the entire evening:
Alison [to Caitlin, quietly]: Is that really Bonnie
Tyler?
Caitlin: Yeah, it is.
[pause]
Alison [still quietly]: …No really, is it?
Caitlin: Yeah, it really is.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….
Amy: Why is her voice four octave lower than the guy
who just sang?
Elena: I’m not entirely sure she’s singing in
English.
[listens carefully]
Elena: Oh no, she is. She’s just had so much plastic
surgery that she can’t move her mouth right anymore.
Amy: You know, if they have all those lights on you
in HD, we’re going to be able to see
the camel toe.
This
song marked the arrival of the tater-tot burritos, and I’m sorry, but
everything else faded into the background. I know that there were lots of
comments about make-up, Nick Lachey, and low-slung crotches, but my main
association with Robyn and his aggressively minimalist earth-tones is a craving
for salt and carbs. Damn you, Caitlin.
I’m
a little disappointed that I already used my snore on Bonnie Tyler. At least
she had some stage presence, even if a lot of it was located in her camel toe.
This guy, the eponymous ByeAlex, could not have looked less interested in what
he was doing. Fortunately he was able to outsource his emotional connection to
the song to his boppy sidekicks, a Roxette-looking back-up singer and a white
male guitarist with Rihanna hair. This freed Alex up to undertake the role of
Hat Wearer-in-Chief, and also to politely mumble thanks before leaving the
stage. I’ve seen more vivacious performances in cadaver labs.
Elena: Oh, it’s the Zoomaster remix, y’all!
Amy: How do you live-perform a remix?
Jay: I liked the original better.
Alison: How did they make it to the finals?! They’re
not even interesting!
Amy: Alison, I think you were in the spirit before
and feeling their feelings. You need to give them time.
Jen: No, I think Alison’s in her gut. She knows
what’s working for her and what isn’t.
Interstitial
Elena: Oh, more 12-year-old girls. Awesome.
Once
again, I was spoiled on the winner; and once again, I was disappointed and
annoyed by the winner. In a year where we have Romania’s wild excesses, there
is no excuse for giving 12 points to another barefoot white girl with artfully
mussed hair. The most outrageous part of this performance was the uncomfortably
sexual way Emmelie looked at her flautist, but even that wasn’t upsetting
enough to rescue us from an overwhelming sense of ‘eh’.
Colleen: Oh, she’s so young… I feel gross.
Elena: What the hell is falling from the sky?
Caitlin: FIRE.
Elena: I should have known.
Amy: You’re fired.
Interstitial
Leslie
arrives.
Jen: Leslie, where have you been all my night?
Leslie: I was home twiddling my thumbs, because…
[pulls drink from purse and applies herself to it].
Colleen: ‘Sorry ladies, gotta get to my drunk.’
This
actually happened, you guys.
It’s
got to be a lonely life, being a Norse god past your prime. That’s the only
excuse I can come up with for Thor‘s chucking on an ill-fitting suit and
ballading us all into submission. Not even a thunderbolt in sight.
Some
amazing hand action, though. Very expressive.
Amy: I KNOW YOU HAVE BACK-UP SINGERS. JUST BRING
THEM OUT.
I think
young Farid has a good career in front of him: good-looking guy, pleasant
voice, solid stage presence. I can see him making a splash in the Azeri version
of Tiger Beat, and that’s more than
most of us can expect out of life. He may have to let the guy out of the box
eventually, though.
Colleen: Glass box + shiny suit? Promising!
Elena: What’s that guy doing in the box?
Caitlin: Winning.
Leslie: This is a metaphor. That’s his shadow. His
soul is in the box and he’s trying to get out.
Amy: …Thanks, Leslie.
Jay: I think that guy actually can’t breathe.
Colleen: Azerbaijan wants it back, baby!
Jay: Well, I didn’t see any horses, but….
Did
you know that there are Greek ska bands?
Me
neither.
Did
you know that at least one of them is really very good?
Me
neither!
And
did you know that this really very good Greek ska band would see a Eurovision
bid featuring skirts, glow-in-the-dark instruments, and a guest performance by
an aging man playing the world’s tiniest bouzouki as their logical next step?
No,
me neither. Not a clue. But then, who the fuck would see that coming? Good on
you Koza Mostra, for keeping us all on our toes.
Jen: ‘Alcohol is free! It’s free in Greece because
our economy is in the toilet!
Caitlin: Give Greece credit: they couldn’t possibly
afford to host, but they never throw the game.
Jen: I feel like this whole night is just the Jonas
Brothers playing every song from every country in the world.
I’m
sure you’re all familiar with the theory of Chekov’s gun: if you show a gun
in the first act of the play, it must be fired before the play ends because
otherwise you leave the audience hanging. This year’s entry from Ukraine
demonstrates the Eurovision corollary to this, which is that if you show the
audience an 18-foot-tall Viking-helmeted behemoth of a man carrying the tiny,
tiny singer girl onto the stage and then lumbering off into the dark, you need
to bring him back out for some kind of resolution later. Otherwise you leave
everyone wondering what the fuck that was even for, and also thinking about this.
Also
mysterious: was her dress tailored by blind people with hooks for hands? On a
stage full of insane costumes – including the goddamned Viking – Zlata stood out as being the worst-dressed. You could see
the pins, for fuck’s sake. I am sincerely bothered by this. Fifteen counties
didn’t even get the chance to perform at the finals, and Ukraine can’t manage a
run to the Malmö Contempo Casuals to find the poor girl a dress that fit? I’m
calling for an official inquiry.
Colleen: You’re hopping! It’s boring!
Jen: I don’t like her hand.
Leslie: Well, she can’t get off that rock, so
there’s not much else she can do.
Jen: She needs some Spanx. She needs to Spanx it.
Colleen: The straight man wants to know what Spanx
are.
Jay: I mean, I know what a control top is….
Interstitial
Jen: Casio makes a big show in this.
Amy: So does Hipster Hat.
Colleen: This is more of an ad for rohypnol.
Marco
Mengoli has watched a lot of ‘American Idol’. Marco Mengoli learned everything
he knows from watching ‘American Idol’. Marco Mengoli even appears to pronounce
his native Italian with an American accent, I suspect as a result of all that
‘American Idol’. We really need to do something about Marco Mengoli.
Colleen: What’s on his pants?
Karen: His penis.
Jen: That’s what we call ‘subliminal advertising’.
Interstitial
Amy: ‘Hey, take me sailing with you!’
Leslie: Oh, this is Norway?
Colleen and Elena: More like Snoreway!
Tits
and hips and lasers, all so Margaret Berger can feed us her love. I don’t know
what that’s supposed to mean but it sounds creepy as hell, and there’s all
kinds of hate-sex overtones in the lyrics. It’s not an awful song, but it
misses at what it’s trying to do. Manufactured blonde pop chicks shouldn’t be
attempting Aphex Twin, and they really shouldn’t be smiling blandly while they
do it.
Caitlin: They should have Frizz-Eased her.
Leslie: I’m sure they have smoothing serum in
Norway.
Amy: Hello shoulder pads!
Elena: Yeah, they’ve been really stingy with the
shoulder pads this year. The shoulder pads were a highlight of Baku. I miss
them.
And
now for the annual duet between a man and woman who lack any emotional
connection whatsoever. There is nothing more uncomfortable than watching people
like this touch each other. You can actually feel them pulling away from each other every time they get close.
Jen: They sleep in separate beds.
Fortunately
for Nodi and Sophie, though, it’s Eurovision: there’s NOTHING you can’t cover
with cheap special effects!
Leslie: Oh snap! Here comes the steam!
Jen: It’s like they’re ice dancing.
Leslie: …Into my heart.
It’s
a well-known bit of Eurovision lore that after their four wins in the 1990s,
Ireland decided that it could never again afford to host and has basically been
throwing the contest ever since. Don’t believe it? Consider this: a country
that prides itself on its traditions of music and storytelling has sent Jedward. Twice. And in 2008, they
went so far as to send a puppet named Dustin the Turkey. This
is no accident, you guys.
This
year, though, they seemed to be making a sincere effort. Ryan Dolan’s a
good-looking boy in the Eurovision way (lacquered hair, spray-tanned, lots of
teeth), and it’s a big production number with tribal-tatted dancers brandishing
bodhráns, massive kettle drums, and a big, chunky, reach-for-the-lasers
bassline. They had lots of positive buzz, they had lots of fire, they even had
the highly-prized final slot.
And
they came last. 26th out of 26.
This
was frankly shocking. I don’t have any serious national affiliations – as far
as I’m concerned, Eurovision is always the winner on the day – but having Irish
and Albanian grandparents means that I do tend to barrack a bit harder for
those countries. I knew Ireland wasn’t going to win, but I figured they’d
finish well. I was, and remain, surprisingly cranky about how poorly they
placed.
Leslie: They speak English in Ireland, no?
Elena: Oh, they’re singing in English.
Leslie: They… are?
Erin: Did he oil himself, or is that somebody’s job?
Jen: ‘Look at me: I’m playing the big drum!’
Jay: ‘I’m the Big Drum Guy!’
Introduction to the voting
Petra
takes the stage once again to lead us through the voting process. And once
again, it’s her outfit that matters most to us.
Elena: She’s wearing pants under that dress, yo.
Jen: I’m telling you, she’s wearing a businessy
wizard’s cloak.
Erin: Well, it is
double-breasted.
Loreen!
Last
year’s winner, Loreen, returns to perform a medley of her songs ‘We Got the
Power’, ‘My Heart Is Refusing Me’, and the 2012 winner, ‘Euphoria’. It’s
honestly pretty badass and I would lose it to this in a club, but the
Eurovision-on-the-barricades, ’Les Miz’-in-coveralls bushwa was unnecessary.
Also, her back-up dancers spend a lot of time doing that little
hop-while-spinning-your-hand-over-your-head move that will be familiar to
anyone who’s seen MDMA in action. Unacceptable. You’re paying choreographers,
Loreen. Make them work for their money.
Elena: Do you know how many turkeys died for that
dress?
Jen: She got some money over the last year, but no
one touched her with a brush. Not once.
Now
this is where Ms. Mede earned her
money. ‘Our people are cold but our elks are hot’?! Sweden. My love. You had me
at ‘elks’.
I
don’t think I’ve ever seen a host nation so brilliantly pillory both itself and
the whole business of Eurovision: ‘By winning this contest you get the
chance/To host a show you can’t afford/Then sell your country through song and
dance’. Fucking amazing. And despite how much glowing press this song got, the
video is nowhere to be found on the official Eurovision site. Funny that.
The
link I chose includes the full lyrics, and I strongly encourage you to read
along. She says ‘titties’ and refers to the super-dykey soccer team handling
their balls. She name-checks lingonberries and talks about the national
propensity toward lactose intolerance. It’s spectacular. It would have been
causing coronaries throughout Eurovision officialdom.
If
the actual performances were this good, the show would be no fun to watch.
DENMARK:
Announcement of the winner and encore
performace
We
skipped through the hours of results (even though I do delight in the annual
Festival of Awkwardness that is 26 time-delay-riddled conversations between the
on-stage hosts and the voting nations’ sanctioned representatives) and went
straight to the announcement and the winner’s encore. The reactions at our
house were delayed – no one remembered what Denmark had done – and then
vehemently opposed once the penny dropped.
Jen: Oh my god, it’s these motherfuckers?
Colleen: SKIN FLUTE! SKIN FLUTE!
Colleen: I think she’s overwhelmed. She’s, like, 13.
Jen: No, she’s like, ‘I only bumped enough coke for
one performance. I’m really down right now. Somebody get me some shoes.’
We
were wildly unsatisfied with the result, and decided we needed a
palate-cleanser of the most uplifting Eurovision entry in history: Russia’s
adorable Babushki,
from 2012:
Leslie: Next thing they’ll do a remix with Li’l
Wayne.
…And
that was it. I think that this year was more of a slow burn than most; when we
were watching it a lot of us were saying it seemed kind of slow, but on
reflection and re-watch there was a lot of memorably mental bullshit: Robert
Palmer’s dancers, birds falling from the sky, giant Eastern bloc Vikings.
Margaret Berger feeding us her love and Greek men in utili-kilts plying us with
free alcohol. And Romania, who prompted this snippet:
Erin: What country was the Satan and the vagina?
Caitlin: See, that is why Eurovision is awesome: you
can have conversations like this.
So
once again, I thank you, Eurovision. Even when you’re comparatively sane,
you’re nuts by any normal standard. Don’t go changin’, and we’ll see you in
Denmark in 2014. As Erin said, with a contented sigh, ‘We’re glad this
happened.’
