I’ll be honest with you dear reader, until very recently I was struggling to get fully on board the 2022 vibe train. I missed Festivali i Këngës over the festive period, I found the preliminary rounds of Eseti Lual uninspiring and so far both the Norwegian & Lithuanian selections have been sub-par compared to their recent efforts. It took until last weekend for my excitement to properly kick into gear.
All it took was the potent mixture of Moldovan madness & Benidorm-based batshitery to get the Contest vibes flowing once more. There’s something about spending an afternoon watching plucky amateurs ambling on and off a Moldovan studio floor that just feels incredibly comfortable. Follow that up with a dramatic national final resulting in a Twitter storm and suddenly it all starts to feel incredibly familiar. A perfect warm-up for the onslaught of what’s to come…
February means we’re getting into the proper business end of this national final season. Over these next 28 days, six ongoing selections will reach their conclusion, eight one-shot selections will take place, a further five will get underway with two of those also coming to end. Thats as well as any internally selected entries dropping during this period. Safe to say, there’s quite a lot to keep track of. And tonight we kick off with the daddy of them all. (And yes, I know it’s not a national final but you get the point.)
February begins with a bang as its first five nights will be filled with the pinnacle of the Italian showbusiness year, the one and only Sanremo. The Italian music competition, filled with all its own delightful idiosyncracies will return, once again helmed by Amadeus & Fiorello. It’s worth tuning in alone for the sheer glee of watching two old pals tit about for hours on end, night after night.
As if the treats of Sanremo weren’t enough we have, in no particular order:
- A stellar lineup in the ever improving Finnish selection, UMK
- Sweden’s Melfest under new management
- One of the best Supernova’s in recent memory
- The return of an Irish national final on the Late Late Show (ironic given it’ll finish several hours before that night’s Sanremo)
- Whatever the hell that logic puzzle is that San Marino is claiming to be a national final.
You just know this month is when all the drama, all the nonsense and all the social media meltdowns are gonna come think and fast. Hold on folks, it’s going to be one hell of a ride!
Pif Paf Blog 