The pinnacle of my time in Lisbon...
The Jury and Televised Final at the Altice Arena?
or
Getting to meet my favourite 2018 artist for the second time?
The first, I knew that I was going to experience. The second, up to 2pm on Jury Final day (Friday May 11th), I had no idea was going to happen. Someone who has become a favourite social media 'mutual' over the past year,
Sasha Lynch, flagged up the following as soon as she saw it, knowing that we had briefly commiserated with each over their favourite being knocked out the night before (
Vanja was her beau):
I thought about not going, seeing I had the Jury Final to get to, but as the taxi service had always got me to anywhere within Lisbon on time and I knew that seeing anything well at the Altice Arena standing was unlikely unless I was there four hours beforehand, I decided to go to the Eurovillage and meet up with
Laura, this time in the sun and the warmth, and
also not at midnight! I wasn't the only one to turn up, there were lots of Spaniards that she had charmed during her time in Madrid and Lisbon:
She looked incredibly relaxed and happy to chat with everyone, a good night's sleep possibly putting what had happened the previous evening into perspective. She played her new song "Bonjour" for us that were there at the start and chatted with everyone, giving everyone the chance to have pictures taken with her and also sign whatever bits of card or paper they had to hand:
Her last vlog in Lisbon outlines her meetings before and during the Meet & Greet, showing how much love her new found fans had for her and also that she appreciated the support (even from oldies like me). I was absolutely dumbstruck when I heard what she said about me at 3:39 - I hadn't taken it in there and then, as the evening was becoming a real blur. Her sister was there too and she was a delight as well - I am sure that she gave
Laura a huge boost being around during the SF2 shows:
If I had not had a prior engagement, I would have spent more time down there but I had to say my goodbyes to her, pleased that she seemed fine despite not being able to sing again that night or the next. I made my move to the Jury Final, dressed in a new t-shirt:
It was the one of the six that brought the most looks and comment from every person who saw it - starting with the Portuguese guy on the Metro who was staring intently at it and then proceeded to chat in his native tongue to me, despite me not really knowing what he was saying, then two Norwegian fans at the Hot Dog stand in the Eurovillage who religiously found each of their winners, through to several Australians and two Swedes that I found myself with that night! The ticket for the Jury show had been bought from another fan who had upgraded to seating:
Allowing me to drift into the Arena with fifteen minutes to spare! I was considering wandering around and taking pictures all over the Arena floor, seeing that I was on my own but I found a reasonable space to watch and listen from. A fair way from the stage but as I had seen all of the acts reasonably close up before, even the Direct Finalists, I wasn't that upset that I had rows and rows of heads in front of me:
I was quite close to the man-made security guard corridor that ran from the stage to the Green Room as all the Finalists were introduced to the crowd.
Madame Monsieur and the Danish guys were the most visible to me (okay, my camera held aloft), along with half, of
Mikolas' head:
And this was an arms aloft view of the stage - nice orange glow of the Serbian Six! You've already seen these guys in a
previous post, my new Swedish friends that I latched myself onto at the venue, along with a load of Australians, from whom the lovely
Rebecka got her inflatable kangaroo, apparently one that was going to be given to
Jessica Mauboy as she went to the Green Room but it just missed her grasp. Both were very smartly dressed, especially
Philip, who had a bow tie on - made me look like a total slob!
And this was the buzz of being at the Jury Final in the standing section - it wasn't to get a great view or to have superb sound quality because if you want that, you stay in your own front room. This was all about, as the Irish would say, the craic of being there in the Altice Arena, being with fellow fans who love the Contest, getting the buzz as each song was played, singing along to all of the songs (apparently according to one blonde Swede, I have quite a decent voice), feeling the heat of the pyros, the smell of the smoke and the stickiness of the floor as the evening went on...
That is what being at the biggest gig I have ever attended is all about!
I just couldn't be bothered to take any more pictures at the Jury Final as I knew from Jury SF2 that not being at stage front meant that my mobile camera, excellent though it is, could not cope with zoom and sharpness. The most memorable points from that show were being first to hear
Salvador Sobral sing again live (and look a damn sight healthier than he did in Kyiv) and also the hilarity of staying until the bitter end, watching Estonia win the pretend vote and making the production representative go on stage and try to sing opera! I also had fun with a group of six Australiaphiles (all who had worked together Down Under) who showed me how almost all men have no clue how to walk in heels and how the woman who wanted to rest her feet from having them on then regretted her male friend tottering around on them across the Altice Arena floor, especially as it was now covered in plastic shards and a layer of Super Bock. We were removed by a line of security guards at the end of the night and vanished by taxi to the Incognito Bar until the early hours,
where a waving Japanese cat on a shelf should have given me that all important clue as to who was going to win Eurovision 2018...
There you go - my last ticket of the 2018 season but hopefully not my last ever Eurovision show live! Much the same view as the other televised shows but with yet another t-shirt, this time the burgundy official Eurovision top:
So I was at my first ever Final - what was going to happen? Who was going to win? Was it going to be something that I'd remember for the rest of my life? Here's the show from start to finish but there is a proviso - one of those performances on this EBU official version is from the night before:
The Eurovision Final on May 12th 2018 will indeed stick in my memory for my whole life but unfortunately not in the way that I will have ever imagined or wanted it to. I am going to focus on initially what made this Eurovision Song Contest, for me, at least:
The Year Of The Attack
Now if you had just watched the YouTube footage above alone, you would not have a clue what I was talking about, given the total absence of official acknowledgement by the hosts, the EBU or RTP on the night. At least BBC Eurovision have kept their footage with Graham Norton commentating up for evermore:
SuRie looked amazing in her white trouser suit and you could hear the entire crowd singing along with "Storm", no matter what nationality was there. It swelled our UK hearts with pride to hear her sing that well and also with how she coped with the incident, the attack that happened. Granted that it was only for a matter of seconds but the fact that anyone could get on the stage, physically assault the artist performing and it take more time for anyone to actually intervene? Given how ridiculous some of the security personnel were about stopping things like flags coming into the Arena at the beginning of the week and how many armed policemen there were everywhere around the venue, it seemed bizarre that the one aspect of security that is the most important of all, artist safety, was found lacking. How on earth could anyone get on that stage WITH A BACKPACK? He could have had anything in there and anything on him that could have been used as a weapon - luckily all that
SuRie suffered was a bruised wrist and a major interruption to her 'three minutes of glory' but it could have been so much worse. I have to say that from the back of the Arena that even I saw it - I just so happened to divert my gaze from the big screen to the stage and saw the moron and security grappling with him and wondered what the hell was happening! I could not believe it and I was fuming, absolutely apoplectic with rage and unfortunately for those around me, I was ranting on and off for the rest of the evening.
SuRie defiantly continued to sing the song to the bitter end, despite the major interruption, and it was amazing how she picked up the thread of the music seamlessly:
What this did do however was allow the EBU and RTP to almost gloss the whole incident over on the night and from their history. The EBU will say that they did announce it on Twitter:
Which was reported by Graham Norton during the BBC coverage but was it mentioned by the other 42 commentators? Many fans at the Arena and Eurovillage watching didn't see the incident at all and I suspect that millions of tv viewers didn't either - if they weren't glued to Twitter, which is like the green columns of numbers on 'The Matrix' at the best of times, they wouldn't know either. Where was at least the equivalent statement during the show? Getting one or two of the four hosts to read that exact statement out word for word at the end of the last performance by Italy, just to let the entire Eurovision watching audience know what had happened and why (for those of us who were really pissed off with the whole organisation by that time)
SuRie wasn't going to sing again? We would all then known why the UK was sticking with that one show, it would have reassured a lot of us and also made the EBU and RTP look better, at least as far as accountability was concerned. As far as this blog and blogger are concerned, this incident will NEVER be forgotten and if I have the opportunity to be press at next year's Contest, I will be asking the authorities in Israel for reassurances that nothing like this will happen on their watch. Having said that, I already know the answer to that one - no contracted security guys who just want their money and a quiet life there, I suspect we will have Israeli Internal Security and Mossad on site...
The one plus point to come out of this was the intensity and anger that
SuRie showed for that last minute of "Storm" and she blew everyone away in Lisbon and in the UK. It just added another layer of wonder to this queen of the stage and social media that she had suffered such an injustice and had totally turned it on its head to bring a personal triumph. The final placing was immaterial in the end, as our entry got hardly any marks for the Juries the night before and the incident on Saturday night wouldn't have changed those scores. We have now a new star of Eurovision - somebody that will be welcomed back to the main event whenever she wants and able to attend any fan events too...
Having got all that off my chest, I'll provide a summary of what I thought about the rest of the show - and it had started off so well...
We had some Fado to start with, sung by two singers that I recognised from
the pictures at the Museum! Who knew that a visit there would be so informative so quickly...
We had our four hosts again who stuck religiously to the script and would not deviate from it despite what happened at song number 9...
We learnt that people from Ukraine who rise out of a crypt on stage can also ride white chargers...they are also heavily penalised by juries! Maybe they wanted him to sing more clearly? The public loved the show though...
It was going to go one way or the other for Spain - either jurors and the public would believe in this love story the way the Spanish people had done or they wouldn't. Unfortunately nobody outside that nation seemed convinced...
Respect due to
Lea for NOT persisting with the 'oh no, why has the music stopped?' routine and swapping it to "let's stop the music and have a sing along". The novelty had all but vanished by the Final shows and nobody was interested enough to vote in huge numbers - still a great song to fit between two slowies though...
"Truly Scrumptious, you too are"...sorry, wrong show!
Ieva nailed her performance of "When We're Old" yet again and got that reassuring hug from hubby on the bridge - Lithuania definitely chose wisely this year...
As the televisual effects went this year, this was perhaps the most pointless. Having Mr Sampson come out of the screen like some sort of Messiah wasn't needed, definitely not as far as the juries were concerned, Austria getting all the professional plaudits and coming top of the charts halfway through. One of my top ten and an entry that was perhaps appreciated more by those older members of the fandom who love great vocals and a well written song, it didn't connect as well with the voters though - only Austria's third top 3 placing ever though...
This was the Estonian 'money shot', the image that I wanted to see, the swirl of colour at the end of "La Forza" a few seconds before the end of the song. No matter what opera and classical musical purists might say about her singing, I absolutely loved this and could have listened to her voice filling the Arena all night - a totally deserved 8th place for
Elina...
Now I heard some say that
Alexander looked a bit peaky and to be fair to them, he didn't look fully 100% on Final night and he didn't seem to sing with the same intensity and drive as he did at the Norwegian NF and in SF2. That might explain why Norway went from winning their SF to finishing a relatively lowly (for Mr Rybak) 15th...
And onto the host nation, drawn out at position eight several months ago. Could that alone explain why this ended up bottom of the Final board, totally undeservedly in my view? O Jardim was on before an interval but I couldn't fathom how this failed to capture the hearts of at least the viewing public - long gone are the days where the host regularly challenged for a home win but
Cláudia and Isaura did not deserve this...
We jump to song ten, having dealt with the song where you raise a glass to Terry Wogan at some length earlier. Serbia ended up 19th - not great but I think they, more than any other song, were affected by the stage invasion the song before. Everybody in the Arena were chatting/thinking/fuming about what had happened literally minutes before and the atmosphere didn't pick up until we hit the stomping Vikings...
Some artists got away with just making cakes and drinking wine during their postcards, poor
Michael went paragliding! I suppose that this gave him some sort of dynamism, not that he needed it - Germany got it all so right this year with artist, song and staging.
Michael nailed it when it mattered, utilising his delegation's 'V sign to no LCD' attitude and providing yet another surprise as to finishing position. Fourth place and only two points off a podium finish - a massive improvement for this nation after so many bottom fives in a row. Respect due to him - he proved me wrong with his emotional delivery and the superb and yet so simple visual show reinforcing the lyrics so perfectly...
Now this was one of the most pleasing aspects of Eurovision 2018 -
Eugent not only qualifying for the Final but also finishing 11th and receiving accolades across the fandom and professionals alike for his superlative vocals. The simple gig staging worked perfectly too and I was delighted that my third favourite this year did so well - an exercise and demonstration that FiK can produce an excellent Eurovision entry as long as you have an amazing singer with bags of stage presence and the edit on your song is seamless. Remember that "Mall" was 90 seconds too long before Christmas...
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As I said in my write-up for Jury SF2, the Eurovision fandom was starting to come into my way of thinking about "Mercy" - will the jurors and public actually understand the major USP of the song, its story about a refugee baby? Judging by its 13th place, the answer is no - the French delegation missed a trick that Italy and Germany took full advantage of with using portable and television technology to highlight the message of the song. Imagine a screen with pictures of Mercy on it or images from their official video or even some light imagery of the type seen during Lithuania's entry - we could have been looking at France being up there at the sharp end...
That is the smirk of an artist who was able to do the whole routine that they always wanted to do from day one of the Eurovision fortnight.
Mikolas nailed the staging in the Final and was even able to do his somersault - his relief and delight was palpable and he celebrated hard with his male dancers who also did a phenomenal job. One of the nice surprises of Eurovision 2018, Czechia have their best result by far - finishing 6th here might mean that the population of that nation might suddenly get interested in the process for 2019...
Another artist who produced the goods when it really mattered,
Rasmussen and his stompy friends produced a show that would have stood pride of place in any musical theatre production. The interaction between the five on stage, the story telling, the colours, the snow - it all came together to provide one of the visual spectacles in Lisbon. 9th was a great finish for Denmark this year and despite him never quite producing live vocals of the intensity and power of the studio version, I am certain that DR will be delighted with the Danish voters' choice this year...
One of the major shocks of Eurovision 2018 was the 20th placing for Australia. First time ever that they haven't been in the top ten and a drifting out from the top since 2016 - a lot had been placed on the shoulders of
Jessica in Lisbon, with her having to sing and dance alone on the Altice stage. Because of having to do everything and be the total focus of this performance, her vocals suffered badly especially on the Saturday night and her dancing was never the best. Why her delegation never shared the work with some dancers around her and let her just sing, I don't know - back to the drawing board for her nation, unless this was the last time at Eurovision proper with Asia a likelihood now...
It was good to eventually see the first minute of "Monsters" and that rotating phase, proving that
Saara can produce perfect vocals whatever orientation she is! It was all very dark there though, her black dress against black and white? It was a great show but still so OTT and there were better acts out there in Lisbon. The flares all came out at the right time and her flying backwards was a masterstroke - her Eurovision journey is now over, another tick box for her but she has so much more going on now that this is just another step. Second from bottom though...
Johnny, Vladimir and JJ all being moody and magnificent with that 'Dallas' tv panelling but as there was no intimacy with the performance, 14th was about right for
Equinox to finish. In the big scheme of things, this is still one of Bulgaria's better finishes but after a 4th and runner up spot, this was a bit of a disappointment for all concerned - those who said that "Bones" was too dark, too intense an experience for Eurovision, were probably spot on. A great example of how varied the Contest is and how innovative some nations can be whilst getting an entry together but projects don't seem to come with wins...
Now I put this up for
DoReDos as I wondered if they had made an error with their staging - should it have been the blue suited guy nestling his lap up against the lady in the yellow dress? Having flagged that up on Twitter,
Andrew R.Hamilton put forward that in front of the screen was 'public' and behind might not only be 'behind closed doors' but also 'fantasy', what the guy in the red wanted to happen! My mind was blown - I sometimes think that my brain looks at things so literally that I miss so much! This worked as superbly well as it did in the SF and Moldova got yet another top ten, just. So well rehearsed, so colourful, so slick and it sounded pretty good too - one of the most memorable tracks this year and I am sure that Philip Kirkorov was delighted before returning to the Russian fold for 2019, as I am certain will happen...
After coming across as a smug prat during the 'Reaction Video' incident, my impressions of
Benjamin Ingrosso rose immeasurably over my time in Lisbon, partly after meeting him outside at Jury SF2 and also after the Final when he posted this Instagram post, with a nod and a wink to the paltry televote that he got! The lighting rig was still the star of this but even I was shocked how poorly Sweden did with the public - no idea why but I suspect that the Swedish delegation were actually quite pleased with a 7th placed finish, despite that jury-televote discrepancy. I am sure that this nation will be one of the movers and shakers in Israel...
There really wasn't much more that I could show about
AWS and their performance that hadn't already been said in the SF2 coverage - an identical band performance that used up huge amounts of special effects, had that contrived stage dive and appealed to quite a niche part of the market. Singing and finishing at 21st was probably a great result for Hungary and
AWS, given the shock of getting to Lisbon in the first place. A lot more fans have been forthcoming, exposure to new markets and potential new festivals to attend too - a very successful foray into the Contest for this band...
I've already provided
my congratulations for this lady - the Final performances were crucial and
Netta and Co gave her best vocal, the best interaction between all parties and the best overall staging of "Toy", exactly at the right time. In the end, what I thought would be a close Contest was anything but - not huge scores to win but a 93 point gap to second was a very comfortable margin and in the old days would have seen Israel safe at least three or four juries from the end, a likely victory obvious from halfway on. At least the current scoring does stretch the suspense all the way to the end now...
In the big scheme of things, I don't think that
Waylon really cared that he finished 18th this year. For all of the 'I'm only here to win' bravado, I think that age has replaced glory with commercial realism and playing his track from his new album to 186m potentially new fans was the big thing for him in the end. He was realistic to know that The Netherlands weren't going to win but getting them to the Final and having a decent entry to represent his nation was enough. Will The Netherlands continue being Eurovision's 'heart of Country & Western'? Let's see what 2019 brings...
Wherever
Ryan finished in the Final, he was exceeding all expectations by his nation, given that Ireland hadn't made Friday/Saturday night since 2013. He did even better than that, providing them with their best result since Jedward's 'Lipstick' and yet another viewing of the snow, the bench and the male dancers. It was all very lovely again and I'm a great fan of
Claire-Ann Varley on the piano, who complimented his voice superbly. Here's to a renaissance of the Irish Eurovision dream...
Well done to
Eleni and Cyprus - an outstanding fortnight for her nation and bursting into the top two in an amazing way. The best staged and choreographed entry by far for me this year, Fuego was a visual feast, a reminder of how spectacular a routine of singer and dancers perfectly in time can look. It was also the wonder of that rainbow coloured catsuit that caught my attention, moreso than
Eleni's svelt looks and smouldering sex appeal, which wasn't as full on as I thought that it would be. I think that like Kristian Kostov last year, Eurovision happened one week too soon for the runner up this year too - with more media coverage, we might have been going to Nicosia next year...
And so to song #26 and Italy did what they do most years, quietly and unassumingly finishing in a very respectable position on the scoreboard, relying mainly on the vocal prowess and stage magnetism of their act. The addition of the phrases on the tv screen was a creative masterstroke and it imparted enough to have an idea of what the song was about without the need to blitz the screen with all the lyrics in English. Very passionate, very visually pleasing - an Italian entry that I fell in love with. A mystery why the jurors had this so low as the performances seemed identical to me but I are sure that RAI were delighted with 5th...
And so the singing was all done, at least competitively - the hosts had changed but still no official announcement on the show about
SuRie and why she wasn't singing again. Your loss EBU and RTP, it just made you look as though you didn't give a damn...
It was a delight to see
Salvador Sobral sing two songs, including last year's winning song. He looked so much healthier after his major operation, great to see. It is obvious that he won't be assigning too much time now to Eurovision - it was just a happy coincidence for us that he sung in Kyiv...
The jury votes came and went - it was probably looking extremely rosy at this stage for Sweden, given how well they tended to do with public voting in the past. The surprise at this stage to some was Austria being at the top of the tree but for someone like myself where a great song/music/voice are utmost in my thoughts when liking an entry, I loved "Nobody But You" and would have been delighted to see it win. I was also really pleased for Germany and Albania with their placings at this stage. As for
SuRie, the song itself and not her was almost certainly the reason for such low jury marks...
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At the end of the night, staging and visual impact seemed to win out over voice and lyrics. Having said that, that's not entirely fair -
Netta has an amazing voice and she did show it off at times during "Toy" but it was about the overall package here. Her and her dancers' look, the interaction on stage between them, the pretend looper set-up, the use of the Maneki-neko behind her and the fluorescent kimono, the carefully judged split between her singing down the camera and working the crowd - it all worked brilliantly and in the end
there was only winner on the night, although I was still peeved by the whole stage invasion thing...
So my live show experience at my first Eurovision at the event itself had finished - we left the venue, assisting Nikke Allen, Bulgarian press photographer, back to her hotel nearby and then on back to ours, after chatting to some British fans in the taxi queue. What should have been an amazing finale to the whole week in Lisbon had, to be honest, been tainted slightly by what happened to my entry at about 9pm on 12th May. The ramifications of that may only come to light as the weeks and months over the summer pass by - as it was, Ellen and me walked away from the Tivoli Hotel in Lisbon (after seeing my favourite Spaniard Aitana leave for a night out) and we had a new winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, a nation to visit that the Contest hadn't been to for twenty years:
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My Lisbon experience was almost complete - we had a full day to be tourists on the Sunday as most of Europe flew away. There was some more exploration to do, the opportunity to see what happens to a Eurovision venue the day after it all finishes and some reflection on the week just gone to be had...
My First Eurovision Live was coming to an end!
