Eurovision Musings: 2011

A funny moment in my Eurovision past came from an American friend, who thought we actually took the contest seriously. I'd note that both Ireland and Moldova got good scores from the UK. After reading this post, I'll let you decide how seriously we take it.

Eurovision acts range from the slightly strange to, as my family would say, madder than a bag of ferrets. The ferret category this year was introduced by Ireland*. Jedward are identical twins, known for being contestants in X-Factor in the UK. They mainly got voted through X-Factor because they were funny. Eurovision was no exception. They brought the sparkly with their red glitter outfits and oversized shoulderpads. The act ended with a glittery explosion. I have to admit, their singing was better than usual, and they had something many acts lacked: energy.

At first, I thought they wouldn't have any competition, until Moldova. The band wore black conehats. The backing dancer was a white conehat-wearing fairy on a unicycle and playing a trumpet (trumpets were big this year). She was my personal favourite for completely out there backing dancers. Germany's silver fetish suit dancers were unintentionally funny, but not to the point of a conehat fairy.

The world needs more conehat fairies on unicycles

There were some speculative elements to a few of the acts. Estonia had this thing where she magics up a wand and brings the dancers to life. Her little girl costume made me think they were supposed to be toys. Denmark had one of those white balls from The Prisoner. No, I'm not kidding. Look**:

The ball waits

It's getting closer...

Oh no, it's almost got him! Run!

Bosnia had the ultimate geeky factor though, by having a geeky guy who wandered aimlessly around the stage during the performance. He whipped out a trumpet at one point (I said they were big this year), so he was apparently supposed to be there.

If you're thinking "was there anything actually good?", there were a few neat features. Ukraine had a sand painter, who made sand pictures live during the song. I have no memory of the song, but the painting was good. Everything else blurred into one somewhat. The UK song is a decent enough song, but the performance was pants. I mostly watched the show for the glitter and conehats. Next year, they need more comedy songs.

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* Ireland was winning every year for a little while. They started entering terrible songs. I get the impression they don't want to win. If it means more comedy songs, I'm all for that.

** I may have slightly altered the events surrounding the ball. Slightly.