What a brilliant show last night, as the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest reached its conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re off to Switzerland next year, after their well-deserved win. As with last year, the winning song was the favourite with the national juries but not the public televote. I don\u2019t have a problem with that (as I said on the blog last year), the combination gave Switzerland a clear win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Graham Norton said in his commentary, how Nemo managed to deliver that vocal whilst doing all the balancing and acrobatics was amazing. Vocal and core strength was a winning combination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SVT did another brilliant job curating the grand final. The presenters continued to shine (in the main), and there were brilliant interval acts once again. What has been noticeable is that SVT has celebrated Swedish music and in effect made a show for their domestic audience (much like at Melodifestivalen, obviously). Even the flag parade at the start was made bearable by a brilliant Swedish mixtape underscoring the arrival of the finalists on stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was delighted <\/em>to see Alcazar on stage \u2013 one of my favourite pop acts. I went to their farewell tour in G\u00f6teborg (Gothenburg) in 2018 \u2013 hopefully a reunion is on the cards. The swedes do like to take the micky out of themselves, and the way Petra dispatched Alcazar was hilarious. They are pop royalty in Sweden, but they didn\u2019t mind being the butt of the joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we were teased with Abba, and then we got the Abbatars. A nice touch, but not what we were all hoping for. Then again, them not appearing in the arena just adds to their mystique in some ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conchita, Carola and Charlotte did a nice cover of Waterloo<\/em>, without out-diva-ing each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mentioned booing on my last post, and there was some last night – most notably for Martin \u00d6sterdahl. He certainly wasn\u2019t comfortable with that, and his usual swagger when giving the \u2018good to go\u2019 green light was replaced by a rather hurried handover. Peeps not happy that The Netherlands were excluded. There will be ramifications for the EBU to deal with, and I am sure that will play out over the coming weeks and months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The musical homage to Martin from Sarah Dawn Finer\u2019s Lynda Woodruff was genius\u2026 \u2018when he licks his lips and says you\u2019re good to go\u2019. \ud83d\ude00 <\/p>\n\n\n\n The televoting sequence was certainly surprising and dramatic. Poor Olly Alexander getting the dreaded\u00a0nul points<\/em>\u00a0was devastating. I\u2019ve seen pictures of him today smiling and seemingly positive. The UK finished 18th<\/sup>, which was a marked improvement on last year, with a staging that was a bit provocative. Clearly the jockstraps were not to everyone\u2019s taste?!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Delighted that Ireland had such a good result. It really is an OMG performance. Hefty scores went to some countries \u2013 perhaps unsurprisingly. A few raised eyebrows about some of the douze points<\/em> from the juries. And didn\u2019t Joanna Lumley do an ab fab job delivering the UK jury vote. Patsy Stone vibes all the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I think the whole week has been absolutely fabulous. I like it when Sweden host as they know better than any country (I would say) what works and what to do. So much drama, but also lots of nostalgia to remind us why we love this Contest. Let\u2019s hope Switzerland do as well as Sweden next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I blog again next year, maybe you\u2019ll join me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hejd\u00e5 fr\u00e5n mig! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n\n\n\n (goodbye from me)<\/p>\n\n\n\n xx<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What a brilliant show last night, as the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest reached its conclusion. We\u2019re off to Switzerland next year, after their well-deserved win. As with last year, the winning song was the favourite with the national juries but not the public televote. I don\u2019t have a problem with that (as I said on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134595],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eurovision-2024"],"yoast_head":"\n