As the contest approaches its zenith on Saturday night, we thought that we wouldn't do a full resume of all the songs as we feel that everyone on the bloggisphere is analysing each note and each stanza of every song and every aspect of staging ... we could go on! So... we thought we would share with you our experience of what it was like in the arena from the build up to the contest itself and afterwards. However, first of all we want to revisit our semi 1 predictions from Monday and see how we fared .... remember, our predictions were not necessarily our favourites but were based on who we thought would qualify having seen the semi 1 dress rehearsal.
We scored a respectable 7 out of 10.... we had predicted Norway, Turkey and Albania (they didn't) and we did not predict Lithuania, Switzerland and Iceland (they did!) ... Not bad at all and we don't think that many would have got 10 out of 10 as Lithuania was a bit of a surprise to say the least!
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
Tam and Drew went to the Press centre early, in kilts as you can see from the photo above, in order to soak up the pre-contest atmosphere. Drew just wants to point out that his kilt is a CORNISH kilt as he is Cornish ... it is not Scottish but try explaining that to anyone east of Cornwall!! At the end of the night though Drew just agreed with anyone who thought he was from Scotland as he couldn't be bothered with explaining!!
The Eurovision arena, aka The Esprit Arena normally, is actually Dussledorf's football and track stadium and has been especially adapted for Eurovision as you saw on tv last night. The photo above shows just how big the arena is from the outside.
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
Doors opened at 6pm - 3 hours before the show started!! This gives the fans an ideal opportunity to gather, drink, interact and be merry as you can see from the above photos.... there are food and drink stalls all over the place as well as merchandise shops which Drew eagerly wants to visit and Tam thinks he will come away with everything in the shop and exceed his British Airways Kilo allowance!!
As you can see, there is very much a real carnival atmosphere with all shapes, sizes and costumes. The Norwegians were in good form prior to the contest but we wonder how they're feeling now. In fact, after the show, Drew witnessed a poor Norwegian lad crying and being consoled by his friend ... awwwww, we felt for him!! Bizarrely, Australian eurovision fans were well represented and in the press conference afterwards there were two Australian press representatives who asked questions! Kilts do strange things to people and Drew found this out when he was accosted by a feather boa clad Maltese guy with a huge feather which he put up Drew's kilt!! Give Drew his dues, he didn't flinch!
Everyone was encouraged to go into the arena about an hour before in order to get seated and to allow the fabulous warm act to get everyone in an even more frenzied state of excitement which we think was achieved and we hope it came across on the tv!
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
The above batch of photos hopefully convey the electric atmosphere in the arena in the few minutes before the contest starting and the enormity of the arena itself from the inside. The warm-up guy did his job very well as by the time the contest started, the frenzied crowd were making so much noise that you have to be in the hall to experience and that the TV just cannot pick up! At times the crowd decibels were astounding, especially when a favourite came on stage. Goodness knows what the noise levels will be like on the Final night as the arena was not full capacity as it was only a semi final....
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
The above photo was taken at the exact moment when those infamous and traditional words loved by Eurovision fans the world over were uttered ..... 'Good Evening Europe ....'
As we said earlier in the blog, we are not going to analyse every song again but here are some of our highlights ....
Stella Mwangi for Norway .... well, what can we say! The minute she came on stage the whole place erupted with screams and cheers and woops, ... everyone stood up and the whole arena, yes really... the WHOLE arena ... was doing the Haba Haba dance with Stella and singing along .... how did she not qualify?
OMG... the Albania stage act... we felt the heat from the flames which shot up into the air from our seats 19 rows back so god knows what the people in the front rows must have felt!!
We remember Switzerland getting a huge cheer and applause from the audience when she came on stage and Eurovision seems to have taken Paradise Oskar to their hearts as he also got a huge welcome from the excited crowd.
We want to mention the Georgian entry as we do like this but the audience seemed to be underwhelmed and muted and we thought that this would not bode well for tv viewers watching ... however we have learned a very important eurovision lesson that songs that go down fabulously well in the hall don't necessarily do likewise on tv and vice-versa.....
The Icelandic boys got a huge welcome applause from the crowd which may reflect the fact that they are lovely guys who seem to have made many friends in Dusseldorf since arriving. strangely, we didn't see many Icelandic flags or supporters prior to the contest but afterwards when they qualified, there were Icelandic fans and flags seemingly everywhere and even more bizarrely, it seemed that every corner we turned, the Icelandic Singers were there being hotly pursued by TV cameras and fans!! Our friend Nikki has been an Icelandic supporter from day one and the guys from the band have gotten to know her quite well. So, when we bumped into them on our way out of the arena, they rushed over to Nikke and were all hugging her and everyone seemed to be screaming and crying and it was all very emotional. Drew and Tam even got in on the act and also shook their hands and gave the guys congratulatory hugs .... aww, the life of a eurovision fan!
We knew Hungary was a fan favourite but despite that we were still surprised when Kati appeared on stage and the hall erupted into a high energy dance frenzy. This was another song that absolutely nobody sat down to... kati even commented in her press conference that she was amazed at the noise that greeted her.
Another memory that stood out was every time the hosts went through the Big 5 countries, it was quite noticeable that the UK and Germany got the largest crowd reactions in the arena.
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| From Drew & Tam at Semi-Final 1, 10th May |
After the contest, all successful contestants make their way to the Press conference centre where they are asked questions by respective national and other press, ... and most importantly pick their draw for their place in the final by a lucky dip draw..... above is Evalina picking out hers and she seemed disappointed that she drew position number 4.... her face visibly fell ... on the contrary Nina from Serbia beamed a smile when she chose number 24..... Paradise Oskar from Finland looked a bit shell shocked that he will be opening the contest!
Ok... aaannnnd the merry go round begins all over again today with the semi 2 dress rehearsal this afternoon...
Watch this space as we will up date you after the rehearsal with our semi 2 predictions and hope we can do better than our 7/10 for semi 1.....