As the excitement built up, there were rumours of a huge landslide of votes towards a specific country, and as usual Scandinavia usually anticiapates the winner, and sure enough were right again… On to the show!
Azerbaijan – Safura
❗ Personal Favourite
Tonight’s performance of Safura was much better than the semi-final. Her voice seemed a little more comfortable, and a little more diva-with-a-punch, but more importantly I think that she didn’t look like she was all drugged up. Her eyes were a little more “normal” this evening and made the empathetic song and fantastically lyricised song, much more effective. It doesn’t hurt that she’s a looker, also! I will continue to adore this song for years to come, and may even do a performance of it myself on a special occasion!
Spain – Daniel Diges
I’ve gotta say, based on past years entries by Span, I wasn’t expecting something decent but this turned out a lot better. It’s still short of a favourite for me, because I’m biased towards Mediterranean countries, but damn can that guy sing! The performance was done twice as there was a famous person that interrupted the show; but check out Daniel’s professionalism without even taking much notice or it not affecting his singing. Something tells me it was planned..
Norway – Didrik Solli-Tangen
❗ Personal Favourite
This song is without a doubt, unarguably my anthem henceforth. This song speaks to me on such an intimate and horribly deep level. Norway really sent something special this year, and despite a clearly nervous Didrik and his quavering voice towards the beginning, this epic Gosh Groban-brotherish song makes me hair on the back of my neck raise up. It doesn’t hurt that it was written by a favourite composer of mine, incidentally a Swede: Fredrik Kempe! I will sing this song at the wedding that I’ll never have, I swear it henceforth!
Moldova – SunStroke Project and Olia Tira
❗ Personal Favourite
I’ve said it before; the hip thrusting Moldovan saxophone player on screen is sexy. These singers are having a lot of fun and it’s very clear. That guy’s voice is still unexpected for me, but I find myself jumping all over the place for this. It’s just that awesome, and fared decently!
Cyprus – Jon Lilygreen and The Islanders
I heard this guy was Welsh and all hope for this song was washed down the drain. It doesn’t help that he keeps trying to expose his naked body in the previews, and then compounded with his Welshness and the fat background singer and it’s a disaster. He’s painfully boyband and has that dreamy look about him, but it doesn’t work for me! The guy with the guitar only works under certain circumstances for me, and the one that worked was later in the show… 😉
Bosnia & Herzegovina – Vukain Brajić
This song really grew on me this second time around. I’m not a huge fan of rock music, but he’s just very entertaining to watch, and Bosnia & Herzegovina seem to really throw their best acts in into the mix every year! A red jacket, and a faux-hock really seem to work. When the Thunder and Lightening come, we will be saved, or something… I don’t get the reference of melting ice, but it’s okay because they are foreign.
Belgium – Tom Dice
❗ Personal Favourite
The dice were thrown, and Flemish Belgians threw their contender in with ernest desire to win the competition. Whether this song will have ever one is up for debate, but it’s the feel-good favourite of the year and it’s so charming that we all just want to go up to the guy and hug him because he’s so painfully adorable! It was a great contender with it’s simplicity and it’s charm, and to a certain extent all of Europe agrees with me.
Serbia – Milan Stanković
❗ Personal Favourite
I still maintain my current view that this guy is painfully ambiguous, but I can’t deny that he’s a great singer, and he’s having a hell of a time on stage (something I neglected to mention in my semi-final analysis). I’m still disturbed by hearing “puta” a lot, but I’m sure it has a pure vision and meaning in Serbian. Since this competition, on a personal note, I’ve heard some music by Milan and it’s good shit. He’s a porcelain performer, but in all my critique I have yet to mention that if his skin is natural, I’m so jealous that I’ll turn green with envy!
Belarus – 3+2 feat. Robert Wells
❗ Personal Favourite
As horrible as the singer’s English is, it didn’t improve in the least since the semi-finals; in fact it got even worse but I still like butterflies. Anyone that puts wings on and is pretty goes over well with me. I still don’t get why Robert Wells is on stage, and where he comes into the mix. Has his career in Sweden really gone so far downhill that he had to venture to Belarus? Weird… At least they didn’t come last!
Ireland – Niamh Kavanagh
❗ Personal Favourite
I like the song, it was a bore on stage, she sang better this time around and didn’t sound sick, but really the recording is better. There isn’t enough in this performance to comment on, apart from the purple dress irritated me more each time I saw it. Maybe it’s because she’s ginger?
Greece – Giorgos Alkaios and Friends
❗ Personal Favourite
I’m still disturbed from this performance. I still vehemently are against the southern culture of ‘closeness’ but this song turns me on. Half naked dancers singing about lord knows what, and thrusting their bodies all around and grunting.. what’s not to like? I’m not entirely sure that Giorgos’ decision to wear white was good thing or not… it’s never been a slimming colour for anyone!
United Kingdom – Josh Dubovie
How could things go so wrong after a decent run last year? First of all this guy’s surname puts the whole show off for me. Dubovie seems to be a misspelling to me, but it’s just that he’s British. I mean he’s cute to look at, a below-decent singer, but this song isn’t really a song. The whole length of the song I struggled to follow a melody or recognize it by anything. It’s just so bland it hurts; plus the background singers were making it even worse. What was happening on stage by the way? The last note of the song is so painfully out of key, it makes me cringe. No wonder it came dead last!
Georgia – Sopho Nizharadze
❗ Personal Favourite
I like this song but I loathe it’s visual representation. It’s too busy, it’s too dancy, it’s too everything. Why can’t it just have been something simple like the song kind of implies? Poor decision to dance it up, Georgia, but I still like the song so kudos for that! What’s the deal with all these people named Sopho?! Is it like one of those weird mormon “Elder” titles or something? lol1
Turkey – maNga
I noticed second time around with this song that the rockers are wearing eyeliner: that’s hot. A very well established Turkish rock group performing in Eurovision can only result in one thing: decent results, and as expected they did well. If it had less of a rap feeling, it would be better for me, but alas one can’t win them all. For all this time, I’ve been loving something else!
Albania – Juliana Pasha
❗ Personal Favourite
Go Albania Go! Take your bitchin’ English and seductively simple nature and rock us into the next decade?! We’ve been down, and something tells me that it’s getting better, so stick around! If it were about the things that I did, then the rest of the world wouldn’t understand me. Her lyrics are awesome, and they fit so well into everything. Purple bubbles also make me happy. Albania rocks my socks!
Iceland – Hera Björk
❗ Personal Favourite
I got a bitchin’ screencap for this one didn’t I? I love this song; it’s a gay anthem, and it’s message and tune will rock the Scandinavian discos forever and ever. I want to follow my emotions. It did decently well too, but something tells me that next year Iceland is going to thrown in something not so good into the mix. I mean, they nearly won last year, and then send a good song, but you can’t do well every every year, can you? Please please please don’t mess it up!
Ukraine – Alyosha
Go home, Ukraine. How you got through the semi-final is beyond me, and every time I see or hear this song I just shudder with disgust. Is there a melody, is there a point, is there anything other than a skanky looking Eastern European girl on stage? Her English isn’t so hot either…
France – Jessy Matador
❗ Personal Favourite
Shake yur booty, babies! France really went for it this year; with a good dancing, and hip artist that traditionally has sung very Congolese type dance songs. He had a really popular couple of albums in France, and his song here in Eurovision is actually something to vote for! It’s fun, it’s dancy, it’s decently and professionally put together. It’s tough to beat France’s entry last year with Patricia Kaas, but it was a decent throw into the mix! Allez la France!
Romania – Paula Seling and Ovi
❗ Personal Favourite
Keep on rockin’ Romania! Don’t disappoint me, because over the last years you’ve done awesomely. Eventually you’ll win with a truly outrageous song, I swear it! See-through pianos, and two great singers with great backing vocals all equal a fantatastic performance! Eat your heart out, Mariah Carey (who squeals and squeaks, but has nothin’ on Paula!)
Russia – Peter Nalitch and Friends
This song really grew on me but I still don’t get the card thing… I get that he’s in love and he’s praying sort of, but I don’t really get any of the other lyrics. When he speaks of embraces and then sings his little heart out I sort of sigh and develop a bro-crush, but that’s as far as it gets.. In the end I do like this song but it’s just short of a favourite.
Armenia – Eva Rivas
❗ Personal Favourite
Armenia offers up their apricot stone, and the gorgeous Eva Rivas dances around on stage and maintains a good singing voice. Armenia has some great artists, who evidently live in Russia, but still manage to represent their country well. I’ll keep on dancin’ to this one for a long time. Only further to this, I just wish her boobs weren’t falling out of her dress…
Germany – Lena
=> Winner
Well Germany finally won after years of fruitless attempts. It’s not the worst English singing, because the poor girl can speak English perfectly, but it’s just done in such a creative and strange way that makes us all question how well she can speak. It’s a simple song and performance and yay it won, but why does she appear so high and out of it each time she’s interviewed? I mean she’s like a teenager and she won, but I swear she was on drugs or at least seemed to be.
Portugal – Filipa Azevedo
This song still irriatates me, and the Portugese language hurts my ears. That’s all I have to say.
Israel – Harel Skaat
The draw seemed to really hurt my ears… He’s an ok singer, but I still contend that he’s singing out of tune 80% of the time.
Denmark – Chanée and N’evergreen
❗ Personal Favourite
The ‘normal’ run of the songs turn out with this classic schlager song: Tack Danmark! The windblowers were a bit much, but since the existence of Carola, you can’t get through a schlager song without massive amounts of wind. It’s a feel good favourite, and my God it did surprisingly well. Who knew that could happen!?
What a fantastically amazing show this one. I swear it was by far the best Final I’ve seen in awhile; congrats Norway on that. Special thanks go to our lovely hosts, who not only can speak English well, but can make jokes, and be cute all at the same time. Thanks Erik Solbakken, Haddy N’jie, and Nadia Hasnaoui for a fantastic job; truly top notch!
Now what about the show during the voting tabulations? This year it was by far the most amusing and most fun: a flashmob across Europe lead by Madcon! Cities all across Europe participated in the flashmob, and families in Europe opened their homes to the competition and their celebrations. Special mention go to the flashmob dancers in:
The fans in Oslo, Norway Live! (pictured)
The kids in Reykjavík, Iceland (pictured)
The awesome fans in Ljubljana, Slovenia (pictured)
The dancers (led by the awesome black girl!) in Gothenburn, Sweden (pictured)
The awesomly dedicated dancers in Vilnius, Lithuania (pictured)
The huge crowd in Düsseldorf, Germany (pictured)
The most co-ordinated flashmob dancers in Dublin, Ireland (pictured)
The overcroweded party in Malta
The cute Azerbaijani family
The dancing Russian dog and friends
The French old lady who falls down
The overweigh Swiss man dancing
The guy yelling Opa! in Albania
The Armenian balloon party
The (straight?) Latvian hockey players (that’s hot!)
The Croatian footie fans
The Slovakian dacing dog and hot family
Verka Serdushka and old lady in the Ukraine
The Crown Princess of Norway et. al.
The sexy dancers from Hamburg, and HUGE crowd there (pictured)
The cute white Bulgarian doggie
The golden labrador in Bosnia & Herzegovina (and friends)
The awesome guy dancing in North Sea (pictured)
What a fantastic show… Until next year in Düsseldorf!