NATIONAL FINALS 2021: 25 MOMENTS TO TREASURE

There can be an awful lot of negativity surrounding the Contest, especially over the last week. There were, however, many positive things that made these past few months a fantastic time to be a Eurofan. So as we head into the final weekend of songs, here’s a wee jaunt down memory lane…

1. The fact it happened at all. Seems a bit of an obvious one to start, but it’s true. Given the last twelve months and everything that’s happened we could’ve very easily had no Contest or no national finals whatsoever. But we did. The broadcasters have worked so hard in such trying circumstances and for that, we should be incredibly grateful.

2. Mixed Up Everything at Festivali i Këngës. There was nothing about these lads that wasn’t utterly charming. Their story can be found in this fantastic interview with the folks over at Aussievision. Fair play to them for braving an open air performance in the Albanian winter wearing only dinner jackets, bow ties and cargo shorts. Hardy souls.

3. The release of Monument. We’ll never forget the excitement of the reveal, Keiino in the chat speaking with fans, the realisation that they were coming back to Eurovision with a potential winner. Nothing could go wrong…

4. Performance of Black Spikes. Despite the Lithuanian selection not being particularly competitive (more on that later) we were still treated to this delightfully dark three minutes in the first heat. Just a shame it went no further.

5. I Love My Bear. It didn’t quite hit the heights of 1000 or Playa but Twosome still managed to bring much needed fun to the early days of Pabandom iš Naujo.

6. Raylee’s staging. Tell you what, you can’t ever say she doesn’t fully commit. Sure, we had plenty of 80s inspired entries this year, but only Raylee followed through with the staging too. Even if it did have some…unfortunate consequences.

7. Eden’s facial expression. A meme was born.

8. Bagpipes at Eurovision…sort of! It would seem us Scots have got a better chance of making it to Eurovision representing France, than we do the UK. Nice to see a bit more exposure for the national instrument though.

9. Vidbir 2021, in a way. Only Ukraine could make an internal selection so needlessly complicated.

10. Lena Philipsson & Pernilla Walhlgren. Two legends, two perfect Melfest hosts.

11. Royane’s Circus. Possibly the hottest mess of the season. It makes onto the list purely based on this screenshot.

12. Rooping Away With it… That public vote score. You’ve got to feel sorry for the other finalists but this was a thoroughly deserved landslide. Nearly six times the votes of all the other acts combined. A pretty convincing vote of confidence if ever there was one.

13. This GIF:

14. Everything Nina Kraljic did, not everything she said. OK, so her opinions on the impact of 5G networks and the results of Dora were really rather questionable, but you can’t deny that on the night she was a one woman iconic reaction machine.

15. THAT high note! 2:16. Ouch.

16. Christer’s jackets. Melfest 2021 has proved to be something of a farewell tour for Christ Bjorkman, as he steps away from the Swedish show after tonight’s final. As the host of all the shows this year has has treated us to the finest selection of jackets this side of Stockholm.

17. REDEL: Single handedly keeping Estonia weird.

18. Amadeus & Fiorello’s relationship. Eurovision’s Italian Dads may not have quite clicked as Snremo hosts in 2020, but they hit upon the telly magic this year. At times it felt like they were the only ones making all 368 hours of the broadcast worth watching.

19. Italian flower delivery method. It may have only lasted one night but the flower trolley made quite the impact, even getting it’s own dedicated Twitter account. Farewell old friend, we hardly knew ye.

20. Rema rama ding dong. Simply, a perfect three minutes.

21. This still. Fiorello dressed as a sexy crow, audience full of balloons. Because why not?

22. Whatever the f**k that was in Moldova Russia. I’m not going through all that again, here’s my review from the night itself. *Shudders*.

23. The opening to the Festival da Canção final. Set to their 1981 entry, Carlos Paião’s Playback, the hosts Vasco Palmeirim, Inês Lopes Gonçalves & the delightful Filomena Cautela took full advantage of the deserted RTP studios. Even in another language it landed plenty of belly laughs courtesy of the comedic timings of the the three hosts. Best intro of the season.  

24. Sunday 7th March 2021. Senhit Sunday. From rumour to leak to snippet to reveal. Just a perfect day to be a Eurofan.

25. Russian Telly on a Monday afternoon. A grim Soviet era film, more Kirkorov self aggrandisement, the news reader standing in a field of CG tulips. Yeah…even by Contest standards, that was one of the weirder ones.

And there we have it. With a few more songs and one more final to go we very nearly have our full lineup. Although we’ve had fewer national finals this year it’s still been bloody good fun, the perfect antidote for these final months of the pandemic. Next stop Rotterdam…in a way.