EUROVISION SONGFEST!

Last night was the unmissable musical night of nights when 27 nations, of 40 entrants, compete in the famed Song Contest final (60^th Anniversary, no less). To qualify, the nation has to be a customer of the European Broadcasting Union, which takes in all of Europe but also embraces Mediterranean littoral countries like Israel and far-flung former Soviet countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. This year a wild card was issued to the Australians, apparently avid fans of Eurovision, who could watch breathlessly on their Sunday morning Fosters beer-swill (9 hours ahead of this year’s hosts, Vienna).

The 2015 Eurovision Logo

The Euro-Songfest is rather looked down upon by the intelligentsia as camp, kitsch and ineffably bland, but it is great fun; I suppose I have been watching it for most of its 60 years and accordingly have to endure the epithet of “twat”, so freely dispensed to viewers by our superior denigrators. The Contest does have its baroque side, I admit, and those hoping for 25 minutes of sublime baroque music following the Eurovision signature tune (Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Marche en rondo from his Te Deum) are to be disappointed. But Conchita Wurst, the Austrian bearded transvestite, last year’s winner and a ravishing hostess tonight, looked fetchingly baroque first in her purple-spangled trouser-suit, later in a svelte green frock and flashing mascara eyes – not at all like any Wurst I had encountered hitherto.

Britain’s chances of a win were slim indeed. The jaunty song Still in Love with You performed by lively Electro Velvet was just not likely to appeal to the national juries, who currently prefer dramatic and “anthemic” fare. Moreover, the Eurovision juries have formed blocs, the Scandinavians and Baltics, the old Soviets and the Balkan states, who tend to vote for each other. Greece and Cyprus normally exchange 12 points each and this whole system now leaves friendless Britain and France without a prayer. Ireland sometimes does Britain a favour, but sadly Ireland itself (remember the golden age of Dana and Johnny Logan?) was eliminated in the semis.

The bookies, those wise prophets, fancied Sweden, Russia, Italy and Australia and I personally put my little mite via PaddyPower on Russia, whose A Million Voices, belted out by toothsome Polina Gagarina sounded like a Eurovision cert to me, if the juries could draw a discreet veil over Ukraine and Crimea. Political feeling does play a subconscious role and some in my family hoped that Greece, whose song was not too bad, would pick up sympathy votes after her brutal Eurozone bullying.

In the event, Greece polled rather feebly, but ignominiously bringing up the rear were the UK (5 votes) France (3) and Germany and Austria (the dreaded nul points), which speaks volumes of the disdain of much of Europe for her rich North-Western members. The winner was Sweden, whose song, Heroes, was rather poor but whose act was reinforced a trifle unfairly by some clever special effects. My favoured Russia was second and Italy, with a rousing rip-off of The 3 Tenors and Andrea Bocelli, a distant third.

Triumphant Mans Zelmerlow of Sweden with simpering Conchita

Most of the songs were pretty dreary with a surfeit of soulfulness; for example my normally keenly alert wife was lulled into a profound slumber during the first 14 numbers, despite the Austrians’ baby grand piano bursting into flames, and was not much revived by the second 13. The audience was noisy, cheering every turn and frenetically flag-waving – they were either well-drilled, well-paid or well-oiled. All but 5 of the 27 songs were sung with American-English lyrics, probably ill-understood by their singers, though no doubt prudent commercially. The French, Spanish and Italian entrants naturally sang well in their native language as did a bald-headed Romanian warbler and a slightly shaggy Montenegrin named Knez, said to be big in Podgorica.

Did the Contest advance the Brotherhood of Man? The theme of the year was “building bridges” and I suppose the reverence accorded to bearded Conchita and the news on the night that devout Ireland, once a by-word for a reactionary society, had voted strongly in favour of gay marriage in her referendum, pointed to some sort of progress. Certainly the world has much changed since the first Eurovision in 1955 and though the bloc system was much in evidence, a noisy night in Vienna is much preferable to “All quiet on the Western Front”.

SMD

24.05.15

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2015