A Covid-hit, deferred New Year’s party meant I missed our first round of national final shows last weekend. So last night I settled down, two laptops and a TV ready to go for my first night of multi screen madness. Some quality, some shocks & surprises, but all pure entertainment.
In a bizarre turn of events, my own pre-show personal pick of the six acts in Norway’s MGP actually made it through. Gåte’s enchanted forest set to music and the country inspired Judge Tenderly of Me are both classy additions to the final. Although the latter making it through may have been something of a surprise. Then there’s My AI. I love the studio version of this track, it’s a true nonsensical delight. However, on the night the vocals were rough to say the least.
At least when Gaute was parading himself as a yellow space wolf there was no question in the vocal. However, Erika Norwich’s performance lived up to her footballing namesake. When you’re yearning for Ben from A1 to return you know you’re through the looking glass. Whilst this is still fun and it is still nonsense I don’t think Super Rob will be troubling the superfinal in a few weeks’ time. In contrast, after last night I’m certain Gåte will. Just WOW.
The preliminary round of Estonia’s Eesti Laul whittled fifteen down to five. These five will meet the five automatic qualifiers in next month’s final. When I first threw myself into national finals, Estonia had the reputation of being the cool ones. Not afraid to embrace the weird. Now having made the final with some soft Americana in 2022 and an (admittedly well performed) by the numbers ballad in 2023, Estonia have lost their edge.
So many songs last night were “nice” or “fine” or “decent” but very few elicited a strong emotion. The only one that really stood out was 5miinust and Puuluup’s catchily titled (Nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi. This was the first song of the night and it really peaked right out of the gate. The staging may have been a tad basic but one feels this kind of infectious fun will only improve on the bigger stage. Go on Estonia, go weird this time…
Sticking with the Baltic region Lithuania’s selection continued with little outstanding quality to speak of. We did, however, see a return for the singer who represented Lithuania the last time the Contest was in Malmö. in 2013 Andrius Pojavis treated us to a ditty all about his shoes, one of which was called love and the other, (s)pain. A decade has clearly matured him as an artists as this time he was tackling some hard hitting, serious subject matter. Hugs.
Sarcasm and snark aside, I genuinely love his song from 2013 and was willing his entry, Sing Me a Hug to be at least half decent. Sadly, this was not to be. What was outstanding was his outfit. Like Dwight from The Office he is clearly the only adult in a kid’s karate class based on his chosen attire. Naturally for such an outfit the man was barefoot. So we never even got to see “love”, never mind “Spain”. Every choice bold, every choice wrong.
As if three national finals wasn’t enough Slovenia’s Raiven debuted her song Veronika, a Eurovision entry that has all the potential to do very well indeed. The song itself contains all the contingent parts that will allow Raiven to show the truly beguiling performer she is. Judging by the official video this is only going to be enhanced by fairly arresting staging.
I wouldn’t say we have a true contender for the win yet, but I do believe that Raiven has a good chance of securing Slovenia’s best ever position in May. She has the song, the voice, and the stage presence. Quality performance overall.
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