Eurovision liveblog 2012 part 4
Azerbaijan's entry this year is sung by a woman in blue feathers. God, the number of drawn-out heartbroken ballads this year is making me long for the Russian grannies. I think this woman reckons she's Sam Brown, but she's neither as vocally excellent nor as musically interesting. Second worst song of the evening. In rubbish English. And out of tune on the big notes.
Now we have Romania, who have never won the competition. Mandinga will be performing Zaleilah for us, and it starts with a moonwalking bagpipe player and some crazy drumming,. It's a classic Eurovision dance number sung by a fairly attractive woman in a tiny red dress backed up by some crazy dudes shouting "hey hey hey!" a lot. I quite like it, especially as there's been a profound lack of these this year. Now they're farting fire. In an unusual break from tradition, Zaleilah is mostly performed in Spanish. Weird.
On screen now is an Azerbaijani ballet (nice extensions, messy jump) and coming up is Denmark, represented by a woman playing great rock drums and a cute blonde singing like vintage-era Alanis Morisette. It's all a bit indie, a bit hipster, to attract many votes Euro-wide, but the sofa population is quite in favour. Soluna Samay are singing in English with occasional shouts of "Inshallah". Controversial!
Here come Greece, which has apparently stumped up the return air-fare for a trip to Baku for a woman to sing about being, or needing, an Aphrodisiac. Despite the Greek word in the title, it's all in English, and it's a bouncy Shakira-lite number with lots of balalikas and yet more bendy dancers. This could be the evening's tiniest costume, and the whole shebang is clearly aimed at the thigh-rubbing dirty old man end of the Euro market. So that'll be plenty of votes then. Not from us, though.
Now we have Romania, who have never won the competition. Mandinga will be performing Zaleilah for us, and it starts with a moonwalking bagpipe player and some crazy drumming,. It's a classic Eurovision dance number sung by a fairly attractive woman in a tiny red dress backed up by some crazy dudes shouting "hey hey hey!" a lot. I quite like it, especially as there's been a profound lack of these this year. Now they're farting fire. In an unusual break from tradition, Zaleilah is mostly performed in Spanish. Weird.
On screen now is an Azerbaijani ballet (nice extensions, messy jump) and coming up is Denmark, represented by a woman playing great rock drums and a cute blonde singing like vintage-era Alanis Morisette. It's all a bit indie, a bit hipster, to attract many votes Euro-wide, but the sofa population is quite in favour. Soluna Samay are singing in English with occasional shouts of "Inshallah". Controversial!
Here come Greece, which has apparently stumped up the return air-fare for a trip to Baku for a woman to sing about being, or needing, an Aphrodisiac. Despite the Greek word in the title, it's all in English, and it's a bouncy Shakira-lite number with lots of balalikas and yet more bendy dancers. This could be the evening's tiniest costume, and the whole shebang is clearly aimed at the thigh-rubbing dirty old man end of the Euro market. So that'll be plenty of votes then. Not from us, though.