The final evening – awards of excellence

Jamala Andres Putting.jpg
Yaşlığıma toyalmadım! Repeat that three times. Pic by Andres Putting/EBU
Wow, that was a fantastic final night! Not only did we manage to get on TV twice, but it was also one of the best shows we have ever seen in front of a stage! And then Ukraine had us all fooled and went ahead and won the whole thing in the most exciting voting process ever!

We started wearing cotton again and struggle to not reach Post Eurovision Depression Syndrom yet, but it is kind of hard as we are already back in Norway and here they entered that days ago. Nonetheless. We have quite a few awards to hand out:

Best start of a final evening: The great Thomas G:Son himself, suddenly taking a seat by our dinner table in a friendly neighbourhood restaurant in Stockholm. He might of course have been waiting there for us to show up for days, but we choose to believe it was a coincidence, which is less embarrassing. He hinted at Ukraine winning and even made Schlagerboys like guitars, which now makes us think he has divine powers.

Worst we-really-will-do-anything-to-get-on-tv moment: Us cheering for the rubbish Austrian entry, as a camera man was preparing audience filming close by and we desperately needed to show our faces to our mums at home. We have no integrity left now, but then we didn’t have so much to begin with. And at least we also showed the Georgian flag to 200 million viewers.

justin
– Come on, man. I didn’t even get my own couch? Pic by Andres Putting/EBU
Most embarrassing moment part 1: Justin Timberlake in the greenroom, talking to the artists like he was their mentor when everyone knows Justin is nothing compared to those stars who had their own couches, like Francois and Douwe and Jamala. But could be he was just talking to the Lithuanian, of course, in which case he might have had a point.

Most embarrassing moment part 2: The Norwegian commentator Olav Viksmo Slettan, saying in the semi final that the Ukrainian song was too strange for the Eurovision audience. Maybe it’s time to award that man his pension now. There are other Norwegians who are more in touch with reality. This year we predicted the failed Spanish inquisition and Poland’s audience appeal, for instance.

Most enjoyable moment: Hungary’s Freddie, lifting up his shirt. That fellow really knows how to make use of his finest assets. More of that, please, Hungary.

Fil 15.05.2016, 19.19.22
Seems like NRK are having some problems translating this fine fellah’s self help stuff. But it would have been nice if Freddie invited us all to junior Eurovision in Malta, of course.
Worst missed opportunity: France’s Amir, who promised to bathe naked in Stockholm’s largest fountain if he won. Which he didn’t. And to think we already set up a live stream from that fountain. It even had a few viewers in China already, but the USA didn’t have the rights to show it, of course.

Worst morning after moment: When we realized we might never see Amir again. Experienced Eurovision bloggers as we are, we usually settle with waving goodbye to most artists the morning after, as deep down we know they are not our real friends, but mostly some random people from all over Europe working really hard to be mentioned on our cutting edge blog. But the thought of not encountering the French guy’s smile and loving personality on an everyday basis anymore is just too much for us to handle. He is our new Marco Mengoni, really. We are truly heartbroken, and we need to say this once more:

We love you to bits, Amir. We are sorry you didn’t win, but you will always be our winner and our favourite man. We will think of you every time we see a baguette.

Amir Thomas Hanses
This is what you could have seen in that fountain, peeps. Sans clothes. If you had only used your votes a little bit more wisely. Pic by Andres Putting/EBU
Most embarrassing OMG-we-know-even-less-about-politics-than-the-Armenian contestant-moment: When a gentleman approached us outside the arena and said a lot of stuff in Russian. We understood zero of that, as we only just initiated our conversion process to Crimean Tatarism. But we saw that he, unlike a certain Jon Ola, liked our Crimean Tatar flag, so we asked if we could take his picture, which we posted in social media as an example showing happy fans come in all ages. Luckily, our Russian expert commentator Sigurd came to our rescue and explained to us that the man actually was Mustafa Dzhemilev, a leader of the Crimean Tatar people, the former Nelson Mandela of Soviet and current member of the Ukrainian parliament, often mentioned as a possible candidate for the Nobel Peace Price. Oh, the things that happen in Eurovision. Note to self: Do a background check before asking someone to pose for your iPhone camera.

Fil 15.05.2016, 19.22.05
Possible peace price winner on the right, the Ukrainian embassador in Sweden next to him. And the clueless photographer would be yours truly.
Best bloke we never met, but made great use of: EBU photographer Andres Putting. He must have been working non-stop for two weeks as his fabulous pictures of absolutely everything that went on kept popping up all over EBU’s web page for us to use. We love you, Andres Putting. You are the hero of our times. But next time, make sure you also get a close-up when Freddie lifts his shirt.

Best people around: All the glorious, happy, dedicated fans that make this contest so much better than everything else. Football go home, you have nothing on Eurovision. Also we are thrilled GEE are encountering some fans of our own around the world. Our favourite readers this year are Conor from UK, Ingmar from Netherlands and Ali from Australia. You will be missed.

Fil 15.05.2016, 19.20.08.jpeg
When this bloke saw Astrid taking care of the elderly at the afterparty, he really really wanted to take a picture with her.
Most badass moment: One of the Georgian artists, being manhandled by no less than four security guards and thrown out of EuroClub. We’re not sure how he accomplished that, but it looked seriously cool and we’ll never forget the day we almost partied with some young Georgian lolitaz. They are true rock’n roll and we love them for it.

Best promise made that day: That would be Thomas G:Son again, promising us to write a song for Malta’s Daniel Testa next year. Mind you, that was around 5 in the morning and we were being rather persistent, but we’re going to do a close follow-up as those two are a killer combination that could mean Valetta 2018. And then you know whom to choose as your heads of delegation, Malta.

What we’ll miss the most in addition to Amir: Poland’s Michal Szpak. Doing this:

He needs to return to those press conferences every year. And so do we. We can’t wait to move the entire EuroClub to Crimea in 2017. Watch out for us. We don’t wanna put in.

Fil 15.05.2016, 19.20.46
– Excuse me for a minute, just dropped an ear ring on stage

5 comments

  1. “Oh… Sweet!!!” Girls!!! Haha, I’m so glad to meet you, despite of distance.. Better than his quote (I’ll make it my ringtone, EPIC!), it was the highest climber that Poland got in the score after televoting!

    1. Thanks for your lovely comment and for reading our blog! We will make sure to follow Michal’s career, knowing there are great things in store for him on his further journey beyond Eurovision. And perhaps he will return with an even better song in the future!

  2. What a great job, you’ ve done, ladies! I like your comments and of course – Daniel-Testa-fans, as we are… go G::sson go Daniel go! Such a great joy, to read your blog and look at the pics (hahaha the 5-second-Michal is big) 🙂

    1. Thank you, darling! We have the best readers, with best sense of humour and great taste in music. Stay tuned for more Eurovision craziness to come. We’ll be back!

Leave a Reply to goodeveningeurope Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.