MONTAIGNE!
Colourful character visually and also performance wise on the "Eurovision: Australia Decides" stage earlier today, this lady took her nation's crown for 2020, following on from someone who clearly knows how to wear one:
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The wonderful Kate Miller-Heidke kicked off the show, together with a nine year old girl who helped her out with the first line or two of "Zero Gravity", Australia's 9th place in Tel Aviv, Kate going for the acoustic version and no pole! She was truly amazing as always and it was a fitting way to say goodbye to the Eurovision faithful who supported her throughout her twelve month journey to Israel. She eventually got everyone on side by last May but some of us saw that her song was going to 'do the business' from the first time we heard the song played - that would have been me, all the way back on 29th January 2019! Just to get a flavour of what had happened the night before in the Jury Final, SBS Australia sent their standard press release with a snapshot of all the acts:
The news from the crowd that night was that Vanessa Amorosi stood out and was the popular choice, with Casey Donovan and Jack Vidgen next - would this be how the jurors (two of which were Kate and one of our special guests, Måns Zelmerlöw) saw things too? We would only find out right at the end. Onto the acts and watching it showed that SBS had gone for things visually big time but the sound balance wasn't quite on point - anything loud was fine but quiet passages of singing were often hard to discern, which didn't help some artists in the televote Final. Having said that, it was a great show and the opener did what he was asked to do - get the crowd rocking...
iOTA - "Life"
Now this guy's standing will have only have increased after this performance - not the strongest vocal (which was a taste of things to come) but bags of stage presence and charisma, boundless energy that was transfered well to the crowd to get them worked up and those musicians hanging from the ceiling. iOTA was never in contention for the win and perhaps not being bottom was a decent result, but he had done what Paul Clarke had asked of him. From on of the most experienced acts in the list, we went to the least and this would have been Jordan-Ravi's first ever live tv performance...
Jordan-Ravi - "Pushing Stars"For a first timer, he had no visible nerves, he gave a decent performance but seemed to suffer from having quiet vocals - several fans like me were convinced that something was up with the sound mix at the venue, with the powerful phases of a song sounding okay but the softer parts getting drowned out by the music. That affected Jordan-Ravi more than most vocally - he gave a solid performance with no visible nerves, which I can imagine will give him that breakthrough moment for his career but no more as far as going to Eurovision was concerned - he was bottom with both jury and televote. Next up was what I felt was the best sounding studio track of all ten Australian entries - could this be transferred to the live stage? Not quite...
Jaguar Jonze - "Rabbit Hole"
I will always believe that "Rabbit Hole" was the best sounding track that I played on my radio show from this NF line-up but the live didn't match that standard, in my opinion. I can see why this had its fans live but I felt that the staging was a 'game of two halves', intense and really innovative when the walls were up and giving the impression of a box, lost and messy when she was performing in the middle of the stage. Add to that the quiet issue from before and I think that this entry was never going to attain the levels that a lot of fans had Jaguar Jonze at. 6th overall was perhaps a little low but as she wasn't going to win, the main gain for her was exposure to a wider audience and getting her PTSD message across. For act number four, volume was not an issue but perhaps vocal control was...
Jack Vidgen - "I Am King I Am Queen"If Jack had provided us with the control and pure power of the studio version of this track then we might have been looking at him being in the top three of EAD 2020. As it was, there was too many vocal errors with his hitting the top notes, too much in the way of vocal gymnastics and not much to look at, all adding up to third from bottom. A real shame in a way, as this could have been a real contender and it is obvious from his career that he can do it vocally. We moved onto who really was one of the contenders - if she was already the winner of Friday night, would this be a coronation moment?
Vanessa Amorosi - "Lessons In Love"Interesting concept on stage, having Vanessa start off laying on the floor as though thrown from a car crash (leading to an almost 'foot in mouth' moment by Joel at the end of her song) and the performance factor of this entry was off the chart. Vanessa owned the stage, she connected with crowd and camera appropriately throughout and she looked amazing in her jumpsuit, wetted down by an ingenious bit of staging (you can see it online). Having said that, you sometimes need to have perfection to be the winner and Vanessa struggled at times with the high notes in "Lessons Of Love", something that at least one of the acts placed above her didn't do. A clear third for Vanessa - perhaps her experience might have been useful in Rotterdam but years in the business didn't help the next artist, nor did winning last year's Voice...
Diana Rouvas - "Can We Make Heaven"As expected, Diana was incredible - as you would expect of the winner of The Voice, she was note perfect, everything sung was on point and really put all the vocals before her in their place. That was the high point of this entry though - the song itself was really safe with little interest lyrically and of course singing perfectly tends to come at a cost visually. Diana was very static and she had nobody else on stage with her, so it was verging on boring. That probably explains the sixth place here in Australia and even, with hindsight, her place in the running order. After Vanessa's pop ballad and before some indigenous language...
Mitch Tambo - "Together"You know the adage "A picture paints a thousand words"? This vision was far, far better than how Mitch's performance looked to be honest - how "Together" was filmed did not do this justice at all. The bright backdrop was barely featured and the luminous tassles and trainers did not show up very well, leaving a very dark floor beneath Mitch who was alone for a fair amount of his routine. It didn't help that at the start of his song he seemed nervous and it all sounded a bit rough and ready - his vocals soon recovered but the chances of winning had already gone by then. Fifth place was a good finish though, given that Vanessaand the last three acts to go were going to end above him...
Casey Donovan - "Proud"![]()
Montaigne - "Don't Break Me"![]()
Didirri - "Raw Stuff"These are the exact words I said on my radio show about this entry:
"Now that is a song that you really listen to, almost hold your breath throughout and then let out a sigh at the end. Such a personal and emotional song that you feel a bit as though you are intruding on a private poem sung to the subject of his affections."
And that is how is felt watching him perform "Raw Stuff" but seeing him play the piano and show his emotions on screen took this to a whole new level. I now understood why Didirri had been put on last - it was because this was an extremely understated and yet emotionally powerful piece. The use of a split screen to show beautiful and yet stark countryside as he sung was a masterstroke, giving the viewer some nice imagery to look at whilst processing what is a very downbeat song and thereby making us listen without getting too depressed. I think that this guy will have benefited the most from having an entry in this NF and I am sure that many listeners will want to catch more of his material. Perhaps more importantly, fellow professionals in the jury and the show will now have been exposed to this performance and possibly want to utilise his talents. A very unexpected and deserved fourth place finish here...
Special Guest time - Him:And Her:And together:We did have the unexpected bombshell that Dami Im will be involved with the 2021 Australian selection process - whether that is as one of ten acts, as an internal selection with public voting for a song, as a songwriter, we don't know for sure. Not sure that the timing was the best but it will probably put Australia top of the bookies odds for 2021 until about this time next year! You know all their positions already but for completeness:The Jury votes and then the public with combined scores: So Montaigne took the title with "Don't Break Me" and will be going to Rotterdam. Her staging and vocals really needs tidying up but Australia have a couple of months to sort it all out - remember how Kate went from being atop a massively tall dress to swaying on a pole? It is possible that we won't see this staging the way it looked today again, if for no other reason that the Ahoy stage will be so much bigger:
I am confident that Australia will yet again retain their 100% Final qualification record with this entry - Montaigne is already prepared to do the unexpected with her staging and has a great voice that provides the right level of emotion needed to deliver this song to a bigger audience. She has even made sure she had the entry she wanted, as we found out in the winner's press conference that she was offered a place at EAD 2019 but wasn't happy with the song choice then. It is a contemporary pop anthem that does have an instantly catchy hook, which will make up for the fact that Montaigne won't stand out vocally the way that Kate Miller Heidke did in Tel Aviv, but opera always has a head start in that regard. Talking of heads, the succession took place during the closing credits of "Eurovision: Australia Decides"...The Crown changed to a Clown...
