Eurovision - Australia Decides Washup
Well that turned out a little better than expected.
Last nights Eurovision - Australia Decides could have been complete car crash telly, but there were only a few bum-notes and they were hard to hear with the screaming crowd. I would have loved to have been a part of said screaming crowd, but alas I was instead watching it on a TV in Perth, 5.5 hours flight from the Arena on the Gold Coast.
Enough about me though, I would not want to sound like Joel Creasey. One of the only two issues with the broadcast was Joel. He talks too much and sadly he also thinks he is funny. He is almost alone in that feeling (his mother probably thinks he is funny too). Please avoid having Joel host next year, if we do this again. Also If we have another Australia Decides, please fix the crowd mic. at times the crowd completely drowned the sound of the vocals. I know SBS wanted it to sound like a massive packed arena of excited fans (though the ticket sale were sluggish and many seats were likely given away) but it actually sounded more like an Australian Idol show with a couple hundred people there because of the mic situation. more mics further from fans rather than one close up in 2020 please.
There is so little to criticise though and so much to praise. The vocals were all good, most of the songs did not come out too bad (though some had naff lyrics) and the top three were the same top three most people expected so there was little surprise. The judges and the public agreed on this top three which was probably the biggest surprise. Why the judges for 290 points to play with and the public 295 though will forever be a mystery.
The final places were:
10: Ella Hooper - Data Dust
9: (Wildcard) Leea Nanos - Set Me Free
8: Tania Doko - Piece of Me
7: Mark Vincent - This Is Not the End
6: Aydan Calafiore - Dust
5: Alfie Arcuri - To Myself
Fourth and an honourable mention goes to Courtney Act who, at song 5 gave us he first real Eurovision Performance of the night. One of two acts (the other being Mark Vincent) who got the same amount of points from the jury as the public.
Shepperd were third. Take nothing from them, it was a good performance of a pop song. This is SBS though and not X-Factor so pure pop, which dominated the 10 songs, was going to struggle a little. They were only 7 points off the pace after the judges score, but finished on the same points (87) as the winner got from the public alone.
Who knew of Electric Fields two months ago. This song was always going to go down well with the SBS audience, and it got almost 24% of the total televote. starting off at second on the night, they finished second. They could have on and should have won except there was one song that was more 'Eurovision'. I applaud Electric Fields and I would love to see more of them
Kate Miller-Heidke. What more can be said. She may be stunned she is going to Eurovision, but who did she think was going to win, seriously. This song was everything Eurovision. It was pop, dance and opera. The performance was dark and artsy as well as simple and easy to frame. The crowd loved it because they love Eurovision and they wanted a Eurovision song and that is exactly what they got. After the announcement of her win, I was explaining that I still think this song is a piss-take, and as soon as I explained this, Kate did a double fist pump that said more 'yay...' than 'YAY!!', but we got something exciting and different which is the reason many Australian Eurovision fans have been calling for Kate to be our representative for years. Almost 29.5% of the public vote showed she got Eurovision right for us.
So now we are sending Queen Kate to Tel Aviv after which we can start the plans for 2020. We hope Electric Fields will be back to contest and, after her performance in the intermission, Dami Im should have another crack. Maybe SBS can invite a Western Australian act to Australia Decides next year, anyone other than Joel Creasey. Either way though we know we can trust this voting system to get us a leader.
Lead on Kate!