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Post by theatreian on May 2, 2024 9:40:39 GMT
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Post by anthony40 on May 2, 2024 9:46:53 GMT
Come on Malta and Australia!
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 2, 2024 9:49:06 GMT
Come on Malta and Australia! No bias there at all eh anthony40? One of my favourite ever entries was a Maltese one. Little Child by Mary Spiteri. Fab belt at the end.
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Post by anthony40 on May 2, 2024 9:52:59 GMT
Come on Malta and Australia! No bias there at all eh anthony40 ? One of my favourite ever entries was a Maltese one. Little Child by Mary Spiteri. Fab belt at the end. Gotta stay true to the motherlands* BurlyBeaR! (He puffs out his chest and thumps his heart with pride!) *For those of you unaware, although I was born, raised and educated in Australia, my heritage is Maltese.
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Post by theatreian on May 3, 2024 9:51:51 GMT
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Post by stuartmcd on May 7, 2024 11:08:29 GMT
Who would have thought that the UK and Ireland would be sending the best staging this year? Pretty impressive from both
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Post by viserys on May 7, 2024 11:23:34 GMT
Would people be interested in a live chat for the finale on Saturday? My usual companions have flaked out this year and watching alone without snarking about the performances will be boring.
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Post by alece10 on May 7, 2024 15:00:29 GMT
Would people be interested in a live chat for the finale on Saturday? My usual companions have flaked out this year and watching alone without snarking about the performances will be boring. I'm in. I love a good old bitch about the performers and songs.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 7, 2024 19:47:11 GMT
We have a live chat function on the forum home page that I could switch on for Saturday’s final if you would like. After the event, when it’s switched off, the chat is lost. Let us know if you would like this to be enabled. Of course people can just “live chat” in the thread. Up to you
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Post by viserys on May 8, 2024 8:14:28 GMT
Yea, the live chat function was what I was thinking of, as it makes for quicker conversation.
But if people prefer to just chat in the thread, that's okay too.
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Post by theatreian on May 10, 2024 8:45:29 GMT
Anyone who has seen the semi finals may notice that the lack of jury votes this year has led to some of the really strong songs eg Belgium being eliminated at this stage. Also to note is the lack of live vocals in may of the performances. Backing tracks seem to have taken over and whereas the 6 allowed on stage as is still the case used to include backing vocalists this seems to have gone also as when you listed to some entries you can hear additional vocals when no one on stage is singing. Croatia is still the massive favourite although Israel has now jumped into 2nd favourite. eurovisionworld.com/odds/eurovision
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Post by jojo on May 10, 2024 10:11:55 GMT
The performance from Belgium wasn't great. The vocals seemed to be lost in the mix so I didn't get much in a way of melody, and what I did hear wasn't always (to my ears) quite in tune.
I didn't know they'd changed the rules on live singing. I know it's a song contest, not a singing contest, but for me it's at risk of veering a bit too much towards a staging contest. If they want to have a lot of dancers on stage they need to make sure the main singer can carry the song.
The UK song is growing on me, but I've been exposed to a clip of it nearly every time I've watched the BBC in recent weeks, so it's hard to tell if it will have the same impact abroad. Is Olly a big enough international star that he'd get played on international radio to build support? I've never rated him as a live vocalist, and unfortunately his semi-final performance didn't change my mind. I hope he can do a bit better for the final, and it's possible he'll pick up a respectable number of votes from people who don't care or notice the vocals.
I think we often do poorly at Eurovision because we don't respect it, and everyone knows it. Most years we don't put any effort into pretending we do. Sending a very weak vocalist is a problem. Arguably sending an established pop star shows a certain amount of respect, but I don't think it's enough to compensate.
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Post by alece10 on May 10, 2024 11:49:06 GMT
I think we take it more seriously now, probably since Sam Ryder came 2nd. The semis were always tucked away on BBC2 but now they are in BBC1. Also lots of related programmes on both TV and radio. We also did a brilliant job of hosting last year and (correct me if I'm wrong Eurovision experts) wasn't last year one of the fastest selling years for tickets? Even the rehearsals sold out which isn't always the case
It's just that Europe don't like us. 😞
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Post by crowblack on May 10, 2024 12:09:00 GMT
It's just that Europe don't like us. 😞 I don't think that's the case, more that we don't put forward strong acts: last year's was a bit grumpy sixth form school show c. 1996, surprisingly weak given she was on home turf.
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Post by mkb on May 10, 2024 12:43:19 GMT
Interesting to note that the presenters claimed that the country that most tickets were sold to was the UK, beating Sweden.
There is so much political voting, that voting based on song-writing talent is pretty much obscured. When not influenced by geo-politics, I expect the remainder of that self-selecting demographic who want to vote and are willing to pay for the privilege, have largely superficial reasons for preferring one act over another.
The way you vote, i.e. who's your favourite?, rather than awarding qualitative marks to each song, and the way they count them, i.e. awarding zero votes to any act not in a country's top ten, is all designed to heighten the disparities and not recognise who is actually any good.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 10, 2024 16:13:51 GMT
Sam Ryder would have won easily had the Ukraine not been at war. Europe will vote for us if we put the right song in, we just don’t do that usually. This years dross being a fine example.
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Post by scarletmood on May 10, 2024 17:10:00 GMT
The old certain countries not voting for each other or favouring another near neighbour has been part of Eurovision for as longs as I can remember. Also the choice of song has to appeal to a wide range of countrires and some are more socially conservative than others etc.
Good luck to Olly and I hope it goes off smoothly.
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Post by amyja89 on May 10, 2024 17:16:07 GMT
I fear his theming/choreography is going to be a little too ‘much’ for the conservative leaning nations. Eurovision loves camp, but not necessarily ‘gay’. :-(
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Post by BurlyBeaR on May 10, 2024 17:24:11 GMT
He’s gone flat out to make it about himself, his sexuality and his politics. The actual song seems to be the very last thing on the priority list. I hope it comes bottom.
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Post by shownut on May 11, 2024 12:37:41 GMT
Well, I hope nobody had Netherlands at the top of their list....
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Post by jojo on May 11, 2024 12:54:00 GMT
It's just that Europe don't like us. 😞 I don't think that's the case, more that we don't put forward strong acts: last year's was a bit grumpy sixth form school show c. 1996, surprisingly weak given she was on home turf. Agreed. IMO blaming it on other countries not liking us is a symptom of us not taking it seriously enough (as in our entry and the actual contest). We have this notion that because Britain produced the Beatles, Stones and Adele that other countries should defer to our superior musical tastes, and accept our entry is better, when most years it's very obviously not. Yes, there is a bit of politics with how much voters like other countries, but more realistically people vote for their neighbours because they have shared musical tastes and recognise the songs - and safe to say a lot of the time expats are voting for their own country. Countries with a lot of neighbours will do better out of it than an island nation. Good songs with good performances are able to buck the trend, or at least end up on the top half of the left hand side. I don't think Eurovision has an issue with acts that are obviously gay, but being obviously gay and/or camp doesn't negate the need for a good performance, and it's 2024. Simply being gay or camp isn't in itself novel or particularly interesting.
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Post by scarletmood on May 11, 2024 14:33:43 GMT
I watched the later 1970's Eurovisions as a child and got into it in the 1980's - Bucks Fizz win was a big moment and they became a mainstream band. Sally Ann Triplett from Bardo in 1982 became a West End leading lady - I didn't know then that she had been on the UK's 1980 entry too I knew her from Crackerjack.
As it was the 2nd British Pop invasion in the early to mid 1980's it always seemed that no successful UK mainstream act would enter and we watched Eurovision mainly for Terry Wogan's dry sarcasm. The 1997 win by Katrina and the Waves after a few years of going back to have one artist perform a choice of songs gave the show more interest again. With Dana International winning in 1998 in Birmingham and the rise in popularity in the size of Pride events around then. This seemed to be when the LGBT fan factor started to prop the contest up.
At B'ham Pride our former Eurovision entries were always popular bookings and the weekends often clashed so there would be Eurovision Parties at the Pride locations etc. The BBC still continue to televise it and I think that if it hadn't been for the large LGBT fanbase the Eurovision may have got moved to a none prime channel by now.
Will we win again, it seems unlikely maybe we need Russell T Davies to write the song for our next entry?
There seems to be chaos with acts being thrown out, all the protests about the Israel Gaza war, the event is in lockdown pretty much.
I see our friend Greta was there too.
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Post by hannechalk on May 11, 2024 15:01:15 GMT
Well, I hope nobody had Netherlands at the top of their list.... I've always looked forward to watching the final, but I'm not going to bother tonight. To disqualify someone without proper investigation is just wrong. They can scream 'It's not a political event' all they want, but it is. I'm not going to be drawn about the whole political discussion regarding Israel, but they have been goading people too. Joost Klein (Netherlands) declined to do a backstage video with Israel, so they very childishly made a video 'Joost wouldn't do a video with us, so here is one of our lovely dancers', whilst zooming into Joost minding his own business in the background. The fun has gone all out of it.
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Post by crowblack on May 11, 2024 15:32:24 GMT
To disqualify someone without proper investigation is just wrong. I doubt organisers would do this without a strong reason given the diplomatic and financial repercussions: the act in question reportedly threatened to assault someone.
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Post by theatrefan62 on May 11, 2024 15:34:22 GMT
He’s gone flat out to make it about himself, his sexuality and his politics. The actual song seems to be the very last thing on the priority list. I hope it comes bottom. Completely agree about this. And if there is one place where all that is old news and unoriginal, it's eurovision. I dont really see being overly sexual on stage as particularly advancing the gay cause either. The song is awful, and his talent doesn't match his ego. Based on what came out of Italy the other day it looks like Isreal winning is a foregone conclusion I think Sam Ryder proved with a good song and singer we can do well, in fact in a normalyear we would have won. Although we were in many Europe's good books over our support of Ukraine, so that probably helped a bit.
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Post by Matt on May 11, 2024 16:07:06 GMT
It must have been about 10-15 years since the last time I watched Eurovision. As a proud Brit originally from Croatia, I will be cheerring on Baby Lasagna. Olly... not so much. Terrible song!
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Post by moorhunhe on May 11, 2024 16:39:28 GMT
My homecountry couldn't even get through the semi finals, again, haha! (Belgium) Can't remember last time I actually liked one of our songs. I think it was Loïc quite a few years ago.
The songs irritate me to no end the past 10 years at least, and the singing is for 90% awful I feel. I moan about it every year, but I still watch it every year, just "because" lol.
I've not heard any of the songs, but I listened to the Dutch song this morning when I read about all the commotion. There's a story behind it which is really nice, and I have to admit, it kind of sticks :/
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Post by hannechalk on May 11, 2024 16:53:08 GMT
To disqualify someone without proper investigation is just wrong. I doubt organisers would do this without a strong reason given the diplomatic and financial repercussions: the act in question reportedly threatened to assault someone. According to the official statement of the Dutch broadcaster, Joost had repeatedly requested not to be filmed at a particular moment after his performance at rehearsal. The camerawoman kept following him regardless. He made a threatening movement at the camera, but did not come near nor touched the woman in question. I'm not saying he acted right, but disqualifying him when his own boundary was crossed seems like an overreaction.
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Post by crowblack on May 11, 2024 17:15:04 GMT
He made a threatening movement at the camera, but did not come near nor touched the woman in question. Which is horrible, and he deserves to be suspended for that. He's an adult professional representing his country. Imagine if that was a politician backstage at Question Time making a threatening gesture at anyone, especially when it's a male to a woman. It would be instantly career-ending behaviour and no-one would be arguing in his favour. His behaviour at a press conference was odd too. Maybe he's high, but that's no excuse either.
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Post by ncbears on May 11, 2024 18:40:48 GMT
I wonder why the Dutch couldn't have substituted in a different singer than Klein for the Grand Finale. Looking at the Jury Final performance, it doesn't seem like Klein is that intergral to the song - and it is, supposedly, a song contest and not a performance contest. Any West End understudy could step in and do better! (in my opinion)
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