The Second evening was much better, or I just got more excited. As opening act, there was a spectacular dancing performance by break dancer Redo who was so brilliant that I wouldn't even notice he was handicapped if friends didn't point at it - the guy was actually genuinely brilliant.
Than, of course, contestants started performing and strutting their stuff. I think this was just sensational, what fun to watch them all dressed up in costumes, trying their best to leave some mark in three minutes, watched by millions around the world. Contrary to my friends I didn't care for thumping dance anthems like "Adrenalina" (San Marino) even though they have special cameo by some famous DJ and it meant nothing to me. But its fine because we were all in good spirits and voting on our papers anyway. Estonia was fine, but it left no particular impression - maybe it one of those songs that slowly grows on you with time. Czech representative had absolutely nothing with Czech Republic, being half-black South African with a bleached blond hair - whatever - his song was silly, thumping pop fluff that I initially disliked but somehow later found better in live performance - its actually perfectly fine for jogging, for example. The Greek girl was beautiful but could not either sing nor dance, so WTF was she doing here. On the other hand, I love bombastic Austrian ballad "Amen" (that naturally had absolutely nothing to do with Austria, was sung by Asian man in English). For some reason my friends had high expectations for Poland, but I had not. Natalia Gordienko (Moldova) was another Kylie Mynogie clone and she was very effective as such - less vocally impressive in live performance than in a studio recording - although why would she continue and exactly same Croatian blonde not, I can't say.
My favourite Iceland was wonderfully goofy and I cheered for them. For me they are absolute favourites but I still must admit that The Black Mamba (Portugal) had a better overall song. What to say about the next several women from Balkan - both Albania and Serbia had representatives apparently looking as what they find very attractive back home. It is a particular idea of a very aggressive femininity that for some reason Eastern Europeans like, but I find it such a cliché that its almost laughable. Its always big hair, décolletage, heavy make up and wind machines all over the place - simultaneously playing on their sex appeal for all what is worth but in a songs claiming they are actually not like that. To me it all looks and sounds like Shakira all over again, therefore nothing new.
On the other hand, I was intrigued with contestant from Georgia. There was something about this guy (Tornike Kipiani) who was already selected for Eurovision 2020 - that made me feel protective about him - he was obviously completely out of his element in this circus with his sensitive, simplistic ballad and naturally he won no votes from anybody, but I kind of feel bad for him. I mean, with all these Balkan Amazons shaking all they got and other contestants being so attention grabbing, poor Kipiani just had no chance. Bulgarian representative clearly followed Billie Eilish and to me this is extremely annoying navel-gazing so I was a bit upset that she even qualified to go on in finale, but apparently young audience likes this kind of "poor me" stuff. The guys from Finland were anti-establishment rockers with aggressive sound and flipping a middle finger all the time, OK, we are so cool, look at us, we don't care for Eurovision. Like no one has ever done that before. Audience wild.
Towards the end, I was getting a bit tired. This is where Latvia had bad luck to perform when most of the audience was probably exhausted with so much ass wiggling and wind machines - there was nothing specifically wrong with neither the wailing blonde singer nor with her backing trio, but hearing for the hundred times lyrics like "I am woman, I am ruler" made me suddenly look for the snacks and drinks.
There is just so much domination I can take for one evening. A singer representing Switzerland was some very interesting young person with a magnificent, angelic voice - apparently Albanian background - it was very unusual, soaring ballad sung in French (thanks God, finally!) and he was genuinely great.
The last contestants were two colourful guys from Denmark who had completely reconstructed the sound, the look and the stage moves from 1980s so that was cute but naturally déjà vu for me, as I remember 1980s still very well.
Ten of these performers have passed the test and will perform tomorrow in a big finale.
I do must mention the interval act which had some spectacular dancing by classical ballet dancer, Ahmad Joudeh, and BMX rider Dez Maarsen. That was really, very, very good.
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