Wings Over Scotland

Long-time WoSblog viewers will already be aware that I’ve embraced my gay side when it comes to Eurovision now, thanks to the simple expedient of entering into the spirit and watching it with other people. (If everyone else is even briefly out of the room for some reason I get very twitchy.)

But for those of you still struggling, here are this year’s highlights, with the minimum of campness and the maximum of ROCK!

(NB “Maximum” does not necessarily mean “a lot”.)

Firstly, the intro sequence. Normally this would be last year’s victor singing their winning song, but this year’s German hosts took it in a slightly different direction with this storming, roof-raising big-band version. Can you imagine Graham Norton and Fearne Cotton tearing the place up like this, complete with decent comic timing and some pretty competent guitar-playing and drumming, and doing it all in a foreign language? GO ON, TRY.

I will literally fight anyone who says that’s anything but awesome.

In the contest proper, the Moldovan entry got all the phone votes from the house I watched the show in. Not for being “wacky” (Norton sneered at it tiresomely, as he does at anything that isn’t wet stereotypical pop fluff) but for being a cracking tune, in keeping with Eurovision tradition, and for appearing to actually enjoy themselves. Bonus points for the monocle, obv.

Near-neighbours Georgia, meanwhile, went with a huge, juddering behemoth of emo-goth that (ill-advised Euro-rap section aside) you could entirely plausibly imagine Curve having penned back in the 90s. For some reason they chose to do this while apparently dressed as Xbox 360s.

If there were actual Fraggles in real life, they would undoubtedly be Jedward. The comical discrepancy between the cool, stylish Mad World-esque backdrop and the hyper-excited bouncing Sunny D casualties in front of it was the most striking aspect of the performance, but it’s unarguably a toe-twitching stadium tune with splendidly nonsensical lyrics and all the nuanced subtlety of an 18-wheeler running over a hedgehog.

The eventual winner, from Azerbaijan of all places, was quite bland but polished Euro-pop that does grow on you a bit with repeated listens (while actually watching we were all baffled as the votes stacked up, because we couldn’t remember a thing about it). The girl singer is also pretty foxy, and we really liked the way they made it “rain” with the lights.

And speaking of effects, you can’t help but admire the sheer galactic scale of Eurovision nowadays. No longer held in some anonymous generic concert hall somewhere, it’s been transformed in the last few years into a frankly incredible spectacle. Nobody tapped into that feeling quite like the Greek entrants (featuring Stereo Mike, no less), who came out with a stupendously thunderous neo-Aryan piece of Strength Through Mental that, had it gone on 20 seconds longer, would probably have resulted in the entire stadium upping and spontaneously invading Poland.

And even the UK’s 2011 effort sounded quite pleasingly like a slowed-down track from an early Ridge Racer:

You should watch the Eurovision Song Contest, viewers. Even though most of the songs are rubbish, it’s an extraordinary bit of mega-theatre combined with international political intrigue. Just don’t get caught doing it on your own.