[LMBTO] Their Tenth, My First - Eurovision In Concert 2018...

We have reached the third part of my Amsterdam mini-break - after Amsterdam Calling and attending a very successful press event, Saturday evening saw me watching the main reason for me being in The Netherlands in the first place:

It was going to be a very exciting evening and quite a long one too!  My 'Eurovision partner in crime' Joanne was there too, as were many of her associates that had stood by the stage door getting autographs and selfies during my time in the press centre.  When inside and sitting down on the closest seats possible to the stage, I found that my view was this:
A far, far bigger arena than the Café de Paris or even the Melkweg but that will prime me hopefully for the big event in Lisbon in less than two weeks time.  Initially I was a little concerned about how big the acts would appear at this distance, given that I was effectively sacrificing a closer view for comfort (standing for Amsterdam Calling and the press event was taking its toll by this stage) but I needn't have worried as that screen was a godsend, all being made clear when Maxine & Franklin Brown, The Netherlands Eurovision act from 1996 and our warm-up act for the evening, performed their songs:
Great camerawork meant that we would all see the artists well enough as we would do sitting at any gig with screens, in most cases even better.  The whole purpose of being there is to experience the show, the atmosphere and of course being able to say that I'd been to a Eurovision In Concert.  Nice to be able to drink alcohol too.  Being a normal concert venue meant that the special effects were limited a bit - there were big bubbles with some acts (see later with Laura Rizzotto's performance), confetti:
And streamers, although whoever set that up really needs a better aim!  So that's the background to the venue, onto the show - much as with my London Eurovision Party review and my experience at Amsterdam Calling, I have set up another YouTube playlist here.  This includes all the acts in their running order - thanks to ESCKaz and especially Eurovisionary who had some really excellent 4K videos, the future of Eurovision videos!  Enjoy the show - there are some great performances here:



What was missed from these videos is that not only was Edsilia Rombley an amazing singer, she was also a very funny host alongside Cornald Maas.  There was one one major disadvantage of being seated - my excellent phone camera has one slight drawback in that it is not designed to produce top quality images at distance and so most of the pictures I got from the gig weren't good enough on the whole to warrant being here.  Having said that, the Eurovisionary videos make all of that immaterial but I wanted to flag up some of the acts on the bill as they had some special significance with me at least.

The first one of those was Eugent Bushpepa singing "Mall":
See what I mean about the back screen aiding the picture quality on these long shots?  This was Eugent's first pre-Party and he was one of the acts that I was most looking forward to seeing and hearing live.  Was I impressed?  Of course I was - I already knew that he could perform live, having watched all of FiK, but to have the same power and pitch, the same intensity and emotional delivery come at me here?  Possibly the standout moment of this gig for me and I even managed to see him later at the After-Party:
It would be a major tragedy for "Mall" not to reach the Final this year as I think that 200 million people deserve to watch this man in action and listen to one of the most intriguing songs that has been at Eurovision for many a long year.

I had a real purple patch as far as acts were concerned during this part of the Concert as my absolute favourite this year, the lady who I had met and hugged at the press event earlier that day, was on next:
Yep, resplendent in a very shiny gold dress and her characteristic splash of red, this time her boots, was the wonderful Laura Rizzotto - her appearance provided the prompt for the first use of the bubble machine that evening!  I have to say that this was, for me, the best vocal performance from her at the pre-Parties, which bodes well for Eurovision where the sound will be of an even better standard.  She was absolutely superb and I couldn't have asked for any more connection or emotional delivery than what she gave here.  I did film her performance myself, more to demonstrate that the 4K setting on my phone did work:



I am really looking forward to seeing her in Lisbon - hopefully performances like that will send her flying into the Final...

My next highpoint of the evening came for what would be considered an unexpected source - AWS:
Now the performance itself is what we have seen before at A Dal and elsewhere but there was something about this that made it a unique one - if you've watched the playlist above, you'll know what happens - otherwise have a look at my video of their act on the night:



Let's all play "Where's Örs?".  Where did he go?  Down with the front row of the fans that's where and someone had the brains to focus mainly on him during their footage:



Unfortunately there are some very high pitched screams to contend with and I am not talking about the lead singer of AWS!  It was quite funny at the end of this to see the sudden realisation of Örs wondering how was he going to get out of there.  Will he do something similar in Lisbon?  How about crowd surfing?  This band will definitely be one of the entertainers this year at Eurovision and I suspect that a lot of fans have a sneaking regard for this sort of showmanship.  He was another one partying late into the night upstairs - not sure if it made him a little bit grumpy:
The final major highlight for me in Amsterdam?  The hardest worked 2018 artist of the night - SuRie:

So not content with singing "Storm" and doing a better job of the performance than in London (in my opinion), she bailed out Madame Monsieur by singing the lead instead of the sick Émilie - admittedly it was the English version but she did a damn fine job:



SuRie ensured that we still got to hear a version of the French song and probably moved to the top of most fan's 'like list' for helping out everyone in such a way.  I'm sure that we will see and hear a lot more of her over the coming years when it comes to Eurovision, whatever the result of the UK on May 12th...

Other quick pointers about some of the other acts on the playlist:

• RTP and the EBU must be praying for DoReDos to make the Final AND draw 'First Half' so that they can be the Final's opening act, as they are born to play that role!  They have done that twice during the pre-Party season and they are flawless, slick and most importantly fun!  I am still amazed by how many hairstyles Marina can cope with;
• Respect due to Jessika for looking at the sound team when they started playing "Nobody But You" again and just telling them straight that they had the wrong music!  I would have loved to see her sing that though;
• The sound team had a bad patch in that they barely gave Marija from Eye Cue enough time to get onstage before starting the music for "Lost And Found", although she dealt with it superbly well and gave a great performance with a dress that would be a far better bet for Lisbon than a fluorescent pink leotard;
• Ieva Zasimauskaitė still gives me goosebumps with "When We're Old" and she has become the darling of the fan circuit during these pre-Parties.  Deciding to have the last verse in Lithuanian is a masterstroke and she will not be without friends in the Altice Arena - hopefully that will translate to votes in her SF and a pass to the Final;
• It was good to hear MÉLOVIN at his one and only pre-Lisbon live appearance - loads of on stage charisma and he was clearly enjoying himself.  Nice burgundy suit too - he will be one to watch in Lisbon;
• Sevak Khanagyan is one of the best male vocalists this year and finally get to see him sing "Qami" live was a real privilege, especially to see that song build and build until he gave that amazingly powerful climax.  If there can be something brilliant about the staging then Armenia will be looking at another Final appearance;
• Sennek gave her best live performance so far here in Amsterdam - I was starting to worry about her live vocals with this song but in a decent venue with good sound production, she nailed it shut and gave a really engaging staging, connecting with all the fans.  No problems for Lisbon;
• Now what can I say about Netta?  She said right at the start of "Toy" that this was just a 'teaser' as far as staging is concerned, which is good as she really was going through the motions on that score.  She really got the looper and vocals sorted live though and there will always be a certain part of the fandom for whom she is this year's winner already.  Her charisma and stagecraft are unquestionable but we will have to wait until the rehearsals next week to see if the staging takes her from 'favourite' to 'winner';
• Much the same could be said about Saara Aalto, giving yet another flawless vocal performance with a slightly reworked and longer version of "Monsters" but apart from a black PVC catsuit and knee highs, we still have no clue as to what she will have with her on that ESC stage;
• The other artist who had their one and only outing at the EiC was Waylon, singing on home turf.  He didn't have to show that he could sing live as we have all seen that he can but what he was able to show was that he had the same old charismatic spark that he had in 2014 - I think that we'll be getting a real authentic band performance from him and his support musicians in Lisbon and that it will be a performance to watch;
• It was great to see this lady, Thorunn Erna Clausen, share the stage with Ari Ólafsson, accompanying him on the piano and supplying backing vocals as she had done in Iceland.  I got to chat with her briefly at the After Party and she is obviously very proud of what he has accomplished with her song.  Good luck to them in Lisbon - he has been one of the stars of the pre-Party circuit:

So my first ever Eurovision In Concert gig had finished with a standing ovation for all concerned as the artists came onto the stage one last time - I did have the added pleasure of going upstairs and attending the After-Party too!  You've seen the results of some of my meetings with the singers who came along too - lots of alcohol was necked and dancing to be done, mainly to Joan Franka's band who were providing the entertainment for most of the night.  I did speak briefly to the 'big boss man', Jon Ola Sand, too...