One group of people walks among us without getting the attention they deserve. Without them, Eurovision would be a sad and lonely place. Without them, people outside of the press center gossip bubble would not know the meaning of half of the entries, not see half of the crazy details and not know who fights with who over what backstage. We are of course talking about the various countries’ commentators. This year, we decided to have a chat with a few of them.
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So the last couple of days have been crazy in Ukraine’s little corner of Eurovision. In case you were stuck in a different galaxy and didn’t hear the story already, here’s a quick recap for you – just hold your horses real tight:
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Finally! After months of TV time wasted on women clad in red and trapped in future New England, KGB spies pretending to be American suburbians and bodyguards sleeping with middle-aged, British MPs. After a long time with nothing else to fight about than whether Donald Trump was worse today than yesterday, whether Sweden is going to find a government in time for next Melodifestivalen and whether the EU is better off without Great Britain, just like the rest of us. After countless parties with polite conversations, careful mingling and not a sequin or toilet doll in sight, we hit Eurovision season.
Oh, how we welcome these days of pure joy, lilacs and laughter. How we long for dishy men in hotpants, bitchy boys from Sweden, instruments never seen outside of Eastern Europe and WTFs from Spain. How we cannot wait for the next attempt to conquer the world from Italy. And how we cannot wait to start satirizing about the people’s democratic republic of Israel! Continue reading
Earlier this year we hardly believed our slightly challenged ear drums: Hungary had picked a metal band to represent them in Eurovision? And they even had a key change?
Being from the country that invented metal, we needed a chat, of course. A sunny afternoon in Lisbon, we rushed out of being interviewed by some Norwegian media and they rushed out of hair and make-up ahead of the dress rehearsal and we managed to meet half way between the press center and the venue with a very stricked, armed Portuguese guard looking over our shoulders. Continue reading
Today, we visited a music school in Portugal, as we like to check out what the Eurovision artists of tomorrow are up to when we get to a new city. Turned out they got themselves a real good conductor in Lisbon’s music school Metropolitana. Watch the whole video here:
Getting an interview with Mikolas was a lesson in what can best be summed up with “that’s right, we got older and we haven’t done this for year”. We went straight to the interview rooms from the airport and signed up on a waiting list with a bossy guy that looked like Vladimir Putin’s life guard. There were loads of other fans pretending to be journalists there, waiting for their turn, and we took it for granted that they all were waiting for Mikolas. But as the excitement grew, everyone kept talking about Latvia and we felt slightly panicked. Luckily Czech Republic’s dishy head of press showed up to get us out the backdoor and save the situation, as talking to some Brazilian/Latvian chick about her spinal discs, camels and the content of her backpack could have been awkward. Continue reading
It’s not easy getting attention as a Eurovision artist this year. After all, we are in the country where everyone from renovation workers to police officers to the average shop keeper look like they are replaced by super models, and we’ll more than gladly accept a body search by security guards. But we still have a few nice guys on our hands and we feel the responsibility for awarding them for that, of course.
The jury has worked long and hard, binging on Chardonnay and trying not to drown in any #metoo sinking holes along the way. But eventually we made our list. And here be the points of the real housewives of Norway: Continue reading
Yay, we finally got Alexander Rybak onstage and the rest of the world caught up with our winning feeling! That guy is so fabulous we had to call our largest tabloid immediately and tell them a few words of truth. But we also noticed a few other things, of course: Continue reading
Yay, another day of rehearsals is finished. We needed some time to recover after seeing Austria in leather, but can now quietly have a glass of port knowing no more artists ended up in the hospital today. Guess Lisbon got thos safety guidlines in place almost in time. Continue reading
OMG, we’ve just lived through the first day of rehearsals in Lisbon and it was awful. Now, there’s a sentence we’d never thought we’d say.