Super Saturdays! (and Sundays)

We are well and truly slap bang in the middle of Super Saturday season, where countries participating in the Eurovision Song Contest of 2010 set about chosing their entries.

My first post detailed Albania's effort, first out of the bag on Boxing Day, Netherlands then revealed the song, if not the singer , and Switzerland handed us the bizarrely named "Il pleut de l'or" by Michael von der Heide on January 9th



Finland chose their entry on January 30th and have gone for a sort of traditional number, which is ...errr.... different to say the least



We then embarked on the first round of Super Saturdays last weekend on February 6th. The night was a Scandinavian Songfest, with the Norwegian final, Danish Final, Icelandic final and the first semi final of the massive Melodifestivalen in Sweden, which rivals any actual ESC in terms of popularity and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the Swedish broadcaster SVT refuses to release any content of any of the songs that go though, as they feel that this will give an unfair advantage to the songs in the earlier rounds over those appearing later. We had fun chasing clips around YouTube, only for them to be removed in around 10 mins!

I managed to get the Norwegian live streaming working for their national final, and although the picture was only 4 cms tall, I thoroughly enjoyed the show - had a feeling that the regional juries and the televote would go to My Heart Is Yours by Didrik Solli-Tangen. It's a show stopper of anthemic proportions, almost a mash-up of the rugby song "World In Union" and "You raise me up"




A quick search for appropriate links, and I was off to Copenhagen in time to see the nailbiting finale between Byan Rice with his song, Breathing - which we thought had it in the bag, and Chanee and N'Evergreen with "In a Moment like this" and almost fell off me chair when Chanee and N'Evergreen triumphed. It's a little twee, but a nice enough tune. One thing that's worth a mention is the Danes love of the wind machine - I was concerned poor Chanee would end up representing the UK as it seemed she'd be blown across the channel anytime soon.. check out the video



It was a more staid (and cheaper) affair in Iceland next. No surprises that the mighty Hera Bjork are representing them this year. She came so close in Denmark last year, losing out to a much lesser song in my opinion. She dusted herself off, sang backing vocals for Iceland's Johanna in the contest itself, and turned her back on Denmark to finally get the backing of the public and the ticket to Oslo with Iceland. "Je Ne Sais Quoi" is a big dancy number, with an even bigger key change - but Hera can handle it. She was a bit shouty on the night of the finals, if you get a chance to listen to the studio version, do - she's on top form and weeks of promo appearance should iron out any niggles in her live performance.



And then it was Sunday....

Cyprus have pulled a blinder this year, in my opinion. A lovely simple song sung by a good old Welsh boy! Jon Lilygreen is not a traditional pick for Cyprus, a nation which has been overlooked in recent years, but I love the song, and it's my favourite of the chosen few so far. What do you think?




And then we arrived at the farce that was the Netherlands picking the singer of their god-awful contribution, which I've linked to in my first blog. It was written by the man behind the Smurfs and it has all the trademarks of a big chunk of Edam and everything that is wrong about Eurovision in the modern times. Five singers gave their own spin on the song, and four judges and the audience each had one point to award to their favourite. The result was... a tie. In the event of a tie Father Abraham himself was to pick the singer that he wanted. But he decided he couldn't do that, for the longest time! He decided that he was going to flip a coin - imagine how the acts felt, all their hard work and chance to play to an audience of millions decided on the flip of a coin. At the very last moment, Father Abraham said "ooh, Seinicke" and with that, a 17 year old female with more than a passing resemblance to a 40+ year old Jayne McDonald won her place on Europe's biggest stage. It's awful - and if you want to see it for yourself, you can YouTube it ... it makes me ill and I don't want it on my laptop! :p


So that was last weekend, and with the EBU deadline for submission of songs landing on 22nd March, there are more Super Saturdays, Sundays and Fridays to come in the next month, shame I can't watch them all, but will be very interested in the following (and include the UK in this if they ever finally officially release a date *sighs*)

March
06 - Romania (final)
06 - Moldova (final)
06 - Croatia (final)
06 - Portugal (final)
07 - Belgium (presentation of the song)
07 - Russia (final)
07 - Ukraine (song presentation
10 - Belarus (deadline for announcing participant)
12 - Germany (final)
12 - Estonia (final)
12 - Greece (final)
13 - Sweden (final)
14 - Bosnia & Herzegovina (song presentation)

After these dates, we have a long two months build up to the start of the contest, with first rehearsals taking place on May 16th

Hopefully I will be able to blog all the entries, some I'll love, some I'll loathe ... but that's Eurovision!