[LMBTO] Eurovision in Estonia - My Preparation for Eesti Laul...

I'll start this post off with a question...


I don't know about anyone else but I am, along with my ever suffering girlfriend.  We will be taking in the pleasures of Tallinn for a few days beforehand but the main reason for going was partly to do something special for my birthday (which coincides with the Final on March 4th) and partly to expand my Eurovision experiences by attending a 'foreign National Final', having only been to the UK one the last two years.  All tickets are purchased, hotel is booked and hopefully I will see some other fans there but all of my experience will appear in a future post.  What I wanted to do beforehand was have a quick look at the potential 'stars of our show', as certain Strictly hosts might say - in preference to any NFs or other SFs there may have been, I had a gander at the twenty acts who participated in the two Eesti Laul SFs.  What did I think of them and of the decisions made by the professional jurors and the Estonian public?  You know I can't resist putting my thoughts out there...

SF1 - February 11

Now that is a silhouette!  The producers got it spot on with which act they chose to kick off Eesti Laul 2017 - the delightful Elina Born dressed almost 'Lara Croft' stylee:



A lot different to "Goodbye To Yesterday" - Elina vamped this up to the max and sold the performance totally, so much so that she made it very difficult for the following nine acts to compete!  "In or Out" hooked me straight in - okay, I lie, the sight of Elina in her black leotard and the leg strap did that from the first second but the song itself has stuck in my head from the first bar even ten days later.  The sax/trumpet (?) parts almost gives this a jazz type feel and the piano/drum arrangements keep the pounding beat going - if I had any sort of critique about this then it would be that the first ten seconds are very quiet vocally but Ms.Born makes up for that throughout the rest of the song.  This worked superbly on this small staging - especially what may become an iconic vision of her sitting on a big letter 'O'!  Can you tell that I was impressed?  I am really looking forward to seeing Elina in Tallinn - surely she's one of the favourites there?  Of course she qualified!

Next up - Carl-Philip:



Always difficult to follow after such a barnstorming performance and this guy did his best, but when your backing singers outpower YOUR vocals, there's really no way back.  "Everything But You" was a pleasant enough pop song but it all got very repetitive, Carl-Philip didn't look that comfortable on the stage and there wasn't a huge amount visually to watch.  There wasn't enough there in this effort for me to see this get to the Final and as expected, he was one of the unlucky five to not make Saturday 4th March...

You thought that Tako from Georgia had 'big hair'?  She's got nothing on Laura Prits:



Unfortunately this was Estonian music does CBBeebies but her staring might have freaked out a child or two.  I was going to say 'kid' but this really was almost an insult to children everywhere, what with the attempt to being cool and all the bright clothing and bikes.  The audience in the studio were not impressed and hardly getting into this at all - I have no idea how Laura thought this would do well against many of the other entrants this year.  The volume she got into her hair was the most interesting thing about this show - if I wanted childlike singing and choreography, I would watch JESC (I'm not a fan of that either).

Now the next one, I really liked the musicianship and rhythm:



"Hurricane" might have been the title of this and the music did pound out its beat, keeping my interest throughout.  Unfortunately, apart from the humming parts of this which I really got into, the rest of the lyrical content was very, very basic and his intonation wasn't that great.  Add to that contemporary dancers that really didn't add anything to the song at all (regular readers know that this is one of my pet hates), along with Leemet's lack of stagecraft and I was not surprised to see this not qualifying.

What was a pleasant surprise was to see this next entry make it into the Final:


The oldest entrant this year, Ivo Linna gave us a very gentle piece of easy-listening that reminded me a bit of The Olsen Brothers for delivery of the message.  All in Estonian (which is nice), "Suur loterii" is an old style pop song that I could imagine doing well about twenty years ago at Eurovision, which to be fair matches the period of musical history he originally hails from, having represented Estonia in Oslo in 1996.  It does sound like it is the theme tune for a sitcom that hails from the 1970s but it is fun, he's obviously enjoying singing it and being up front on stage so I'm more than happy to see him sing in the Final.  "Variety is the spice of life" and all that - he made it through the 50/50 stage to be the one of the first four Finalists too...

Now as a Vanilla Ninja fan, I must admit that I was expecting something different from Lenna Kuurmaa:



I suppose you can't be a rocker all your life and this performance piece, for that is what "Slingshot" was, was a delight to watch and listen to.  I am sure that the more 'arty' types reading this will be able to tell me how the wearing of all black and contemporary dance fits with the lyrics and sentiment of this song but it was a very watchable staging, along with Leena singing wonderfully, given that she was also making purposeful moves throughout.  It was almost like 'rapid tai chi' and this ballad will fit in well in the running order of the Final - good to see my favourite artists appearing...

Now there was something "Island by The xx" to the music of this one by Karl-Kristjan & Whogaux featuring Maian:



Not the vocals but the music, especially the keyboard throughout, but that might just be me.  Now this, in the big scheme of things, could be quite an annoying vocal delivery as Maian comes across quite childlike and cutesy but combined with Karl-Kristjan this works wonderfully well.  A very listenable piece of electropop, it is endearing and very catchy too - as far as this selection goes, "Have You Now" might also be the most modern entry - whether the staging could be changed so the pair look at each other more is a point for debate, although they do 'get together' at the end and  of course, the dancers could be dropped!  They did it for me and for the Estonian voters, as they made it straight through to the Final...

Now I had high hopes for this one, being a Uni student in the early 1990s:



I have visions of a mix of Ian McCulloch (Echo and the Bunnymen) and Stuart Adamson (Big Country) starting off sober writing this and then getting really out of their heads on something as they got towards the end of the song!  If Janno Reim & Kosmos had made it to Kyiv, I could imagine all the Eurovision fanatics having tantrums that this was the next 'Midnight Gold', whilst Ewan Spence and Roy Delaney would be championing this for the entire time they were there.  I enjoyed this, the music really got me, as you could probably tell from my intro to this, whilst the vocals are definitely an acquired taste, Janno's voice producing what could be described as a soft rock yodel.  In a way it is a shame that this didn't make it to the Final, as it would have definitely added to the diversity of Eesti Laul and would have added yet another native tongue song to the mix...

From rockers tripping out to a very pretty "girl next door":



Ariadne got through via what would be the equivalent of the Repechage - the top of the televote amongst the remaining six acts after the top four were chosen.  Dressed down for the occasion, almost as though she was off afterwards with her best friends to the local mall, she looked like a girl who would live in your street, unassuming but pretty, obviously in this instance with an angelic voice.  "Feel Me Now" is a very simple song with a nice melody that does hang around in your head for a while afterwards - she sung it effortlessly but her inexperience showed a bit with the gripping tightly onto the mic stand and not really doing much other than standing there and singing.  Her beautiful smile did shine through though and I was not unhappy to see that she had a second chance to show herself off on 4th March...

Maybe even the song and really formulaic choreography too!  The rather poor backdrop graphics that he was interacting with was so "20th Century" as well, so "Supernatural" didn't have much going for it, in my opinion - he might as well gone the whole hog and have the two male dancers dressed as ghosts!  His singing was good but the lyrics were so basic and may have done okay in a Eurovision past or even a old edition of Melodifestivalen but 2017?  The musical hook was there but that was about it for me - compared to what had gone before it, this entry was never going to qualify.

All in all, a class watch for me and a very, VERY encouraging start to Eesti Laul, suggesting that the Final would be a stormer.  Would SF2 be as good?  You bet it was!

The big act from SF2 was the lady above, Kerli and she gave one of the visually most spectacular shows of the night, even though she had been given the poor second slot to sing from.  As for who was up first, we had a returnee from last year, trying to go one better than before:

Singing about 'Supersonic' no more, we find Laura and Koit Toome singing an upbeat pop duet , getting a bit Shakespearian on us all!   They are both brilliant vocally and this sounds so dramatic, the song so huge, the lyrics so listenable that if this was audio only I would be saying that this would be a likely winner of Eesti Laul.  What lets this entry down at the moment is the visuals, the absolute lack of chemistry between the two of them and the fact that neither of them have much clue as to what to do when they aren't singing.  Laura and Koit really need to look at each other more, to flirt more, to make this a believable partnership because at the moment it looks like two soloists singing on the same stage - if their presentation is like this on March 4th, there will be yet another disappointing finish for Laura and the missed opportunity of a second Eurovision showing for Koit.  Something to work on in a way - better that it is the staging that needs tweaking, rather than the vocals, which are perfect.

Next up was Estonia's 'alternative sweetheart', the 'Goddess of Nature', Kerli:



Her Wiki entry states that she has lots of Björk influences throughout her work - you ain't kidding!  It is so bugging me what the chorus especially sounds like from the Icelandic singer's back catalogue but I am sure I will awake one night with the answer.  She has a great voice that has its own little idiosyncrasies but her outstanding stage show is what takes this entry from excellent to phenomenal.  Even on such a small stage, so much has been packed into the show to keep the eyes entertained as much as the ears.  Kerli herself draws the eye of many a viewer purely with the minimal dress she has on, with what she does have glittering and sailing in the studio's lights and wind machine.  The four dancers actually add to the mood of the song and the pretend drumming is quite cool, rather than potentially looking ridiculous.  The lyrics sound basic but Kerli engaged me throughout - with this staging probably being expanded for the Final, I can see her being a major contender for that place to Kyiv...

After such an alternative show, we jump back to something a bit more traditional and yet up to date at the same time:


Daniel Levi, yet another Eesti Laul regular, gave us a modern pop love song.  Loving the light show, almost "Entrapment" like but that was the extent of the staging - Daniel sings, lasers flicker.  His voice is very smooth but the song itself was very non-descript, quite mediocre lyrically and I could see why this wasn't a jury favourite, thereby requiring the backing of the 100% televote to get him through to the Final.  All very slick, all very stylish but not a lot of substance - I think that Daniel will add something to the Final but I cannot see "All I Need" doing much whilst there.

Next up was yet another pop song but more upbeat this time:



Liis Lemsalu, dressed as though she was going on a first date, exuded lots of confidence and looked like she was having fun lots of fun singing "Keep Running".  Unfortunately to my ears, compared to almost every other act at Eesti Laul this year, she sounded quite weak vocally, almost bordering on being off key at several times during this song.   Maybe it was her singing style that made me think that, as Estonians everywhere must have loved her to put her through automatically to the Final.   Maybe the uptempo dance nature of this track made it more memorable than some of the others in this SF?  The song is quite joyous though and combined with the choreographed waving of fluorescent tubes by the crowd visually memorable.  Not sure about the simulated lasso moves though, Liis...

From an entry that I felt was only just deserving of a place in the Final to one that I knew had absolutely no chance:



Yep,  Hip Hop, that genre that always works so well at Eurovision every year!  I suppose this was in English and it was therefore understandable but maybe in this instance keeping to Estonian might have been a better decision.  Close To Infinity and Ian Karell did open the musical diversity envelope wide but this was a poor example of this genre, with even the gentle pop bits of "Sounds Like Home" and the chanting not doing it for me.  This is not a  song that bears repeating that often - when will rappers ever learn?  ESC and hip hop don't mix...

Another genre that sometimes struggles to be appreciated at Eurovision is folk music:



Estonian folk act Antsud gave us the most ingenious visual staging of the night, with a water curtain and some UV body art to keep me intrigued, as folk music combined effectively with the 21st Century.  No thick jumpers or fingers in the ear here - the band looked supremely smart, although perhaps too much like they were dressed to work at a hotel.  "Vihm", apparently about rain, is extremely memorable and almost the ultimate earworm but it was very, very repetitive, almost like a piece at a Tudor Royal Court that you'd have playing in the background whilst everyone was feasting on massive slabs of animal.  A delight to see such an entry in a Eurovision NF but another that was doomed to DNQ status at Eesti Laul...

Another mellow pop tune jumped us forward hundreds of years to the present day:


Almost Natural were the band and the sentiment was pleasant enough, the music very chilled and background.  Unfortunately "Electric" was not the strongest vocally, visually or lyrically - the explanation of what the lead singer had with his former beau went on and on and on, and not in a good way!  This could have been so much more with a different singer, maybe someone with a deeper voice, definitely someone with some onstage charisma but this was all very dull and not very memorable at all.  The look of the band didn't match the song and no surprises that it didn't make the Final.  Which for me is a good thing...

Thank goodness the Eesti Laul producers were on the ball and threw in this pop stomper next:



Rasmus Rändvee by name...no, that's it!  "This Love" went down well with the studio audience watching his performance and I can totally understand why - the pulsating thumping bassline throughout this, interspersed with the clap effect drumming, kept my interest going as well and Rasmus owned the stage, giving a superb one man show.  Loads of confidence and belief in what he was singing gives this song a decent outside chance of winning Eesti Laul - the lyrics and vocals back this up well.  If he can translate this to the Final, Elina and Kerli may have some competition...

Unlike this group - the 'comedy item' for this year's show?


Now I hate this sort of song - jazz funk and a pleasant vocal from the lead singer for Alvistar Funk Association does not save this from my ire of having some sort of geography lesson whilst listening to a song.  Why? WHY?  Of course it could all make perfect sense if I understood Estonian but as the only bits in English are the names of Eurovision nations, it all seems a bit cynical to me.  I got bored of this very quickly, to be frank with you all and "Make Love, Not War" has no redeeming qualities at all.  Thank goodness that the voting public and jurors saw things my way too - no need to hear it again...ever.

And so we passed into the last act of Eesti Laul to be seen and a very lovely experience it was too:



Visually at least, that is.  Angeelia is styled perfectly on the stage here, lots of smoke and lightly lit to make this appear ethereal but the song itself is quite weak in content and is so slow paced that I really lost interest in this entry long before the CGI running dogs appeared behind her and the spurious dancers who were rarely seen in the smoke anyway disappeared.  Angeelia really was trying her best to give this song any sort of life but the speed at which this whole performance dragged along really sounded the death knell for her chances to get to the Final...

As far as qualifiers are concerned, the only one over both SFs that I would have said barely warranted a place in the Final was Liis Lemsalu - I would have possibly prefered the ethnic folk of Antsud to have given a bit more entertainment there but I am splitting hairs, as I don't believe that either would provide more than filler on March 4th.

•  1. Liis Lemsalu – “Keep Running”
• 2. Koit Toome ja Laura – “Verona”
• 3. Whogaux & Karl-Kristjan feat. Maian – “Have You Now”
• 4. Lenna Kuurmaa – “Slingshot”
• 5. Daniel Levi – “All I Need”
• 6. Elina Born – “In or Out”
• 7. Ivo Linna – “Suur loterii”
• 8. Rasmus Rändvee – “This Love”
• 9. Ariadne – “Feel Me Now”
• 10. Kerli – “Spirit Animal”