The 'artist' that threatened to overwhelm all the Eurovision acts in Latvia, the Riga Beaver even has his own t-shirt! And I have one, although mine is filled out a bit more than the one modelled above (thanks to Kylie Wilson for the design on RedBubble Riga Beaver)! This character is just for 'Supernova' but Justs is for Eurovision too - I suspect that there will be more recognition of him as the Contest progresses...as long as Latvia don't have the Beaver giving out their jury scores!
Onto the next three NFs - this selection aren't too bad, generating 'okay', 'good' and 'very good' responses from me. This one will keep you guessing until the very end...
ISRAEL
Israel made the right choice this year with this powerful and yet soulful ballad, sung by this guy who has a superb voice. Hovi gives plenty of emotion in his delivery of this impassioned love song and the footage from the Israeli selection process and the first Pre-Party in Riga show that he has a real presence on stage:
I get the feeling that 'Made Of Stars' will be this year's "One Thing I Should Have Done" - all about the vocals and the passion portrayed by the singer. The Moscow Pre-Party gave a warning to the Israeli delegation that what the viewer and juror sees in Stockholm has to be cut down to only Hovi and nothing else, any on- or off- stage distractions will really detract from this beautiful entry. Having something like Sanna Nielsen's light cage or just a single spotlight on Hovi would make everyone watch him and only him, watch his face as he sings and really tune into the wonderful lyrics. We may then see a surprise top ten in the Final - anything staged more extravagantly and we might lose this man in the SF. 7.0
With a passing nod to the vocal style of Neil Hannon and The Divine Comedy, Jüri brings chic and coolness to Eurovision with a very laid-back and confident performance in Eesti Laul, a song that builds nicely and has a memorable chorus. ‘Play’ just lacks an immediate hook and a 'wow' moment that would definitely confirm a Final place and a possible top half finish – because of that, this could be one of the ‘better’ casualties in this year’s SFs. The Riga Pre-Party actually made me think that the chances of Estonia not qualifying this year are more likely, as the lack of an immediate impact with this song on a small venue lead to lots of chatting and noise off-stage and this would be majorly magnified in The Globen. As I mentioned in my review then (Riga Pre-Party), the audience did not really engage with Jüri's performance until some way into the song - the intelligent lyrics and his great voice will be meaningless if the crowd and viewers decide that 'Play' is their 'toilet break' song. At the moment, the 'memorability' of this song will be limited if he just repeats his NF staging, compounded by the false ending that isn't filled adequately. I really like this entry and its sophistication but there would have been two other entries in the Estonian NF that would have caught the imagination so much more:
POLAND
So much was said at the time about how much a shock it was that Margaret didn't make it to Eurovision for Poland with her Rihanna sound-a-like entry "Cool Me Down", but it is all now ancient history - Michal won and everyone was happy for him:
Okay, maybe not everyone, maybe just the very tall leggy brunette, Ola Gintrowska! The moral of this 'story' is if you have a 100% televote and one of the contestants came second in your version of X Factor and is therefore very popular, it was maybe not surprising that that contestant would win. Personally, I love 'Colour Of Your Life' and I think that Michal, the long-haired Polish ‘ringmaster’, could do a lot better in Stockholm than a lot of people think he will. He is a superb vocalist who puts huge amounts of emotion into his delivery of this stunning ballad, layered neatly over some hypnotic beats – this could be the surprise package of 2016. Not sure where he can go with the staging but his look in the NF may be enough to stand out anyway. A definite Finalist for me, based on the quality of the entry and the effect that the Polish diaspora will have on the televote at least, and I think that this will lead to at least a mid-table finish for Poland in the Final. 8.0
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Almost there for my reviews of the National Final 'qualifiers' - I'm going to tidy all the rest up in my next post on this subject, covering a returning artist (or two), something lifted from my mind as an idea for a musical, a performance that could either storm this year's Contest or bomb quite badly and an artist who didn't actually win but said yes when asked:
Three 'Greats', one 'Okay' and two 'Averages' next time...
You'll never guess which is which!