Eurovision 2023

yep what a finale that was

want to see the following qualify
Finland, Israel, Moldova, Sweden, Croatia, Norway, Czechia, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia

finland, croatia and moldova my choice picks
my outfit for saturday mirrors netherlands' so them too

Croatia, Norway, Finland, Czechia, Serbia, Moldova... but a bunch of the other ones were really good too.

excellent results

Very very pleased with these results. Saturday is going to be immense.

Yep, semi 1 is absolutely the stronger of the two and got rid of a lot of chaff today (not all, Switzerland getting through is garbage). Semi 2 will be chaos but a couple of good acts in there that should go through, and given the relative strength of the autoqualifiers Saturday should indeed be a hell of a treat.

Was very glad Albania got through tonight, what a great performance.

Yeah Albania and Slovenia were my two levelled-up-in-performance choices, and well deserved from both. Some 'eh' numbers inevitably got through because the first semi was so stacked in comparison but otherwise everyone who I already wanted to go through in this semi -- Australia, Austria, Belgium -- did.

Oof, you liked Belgium? I hated that one!

I liked Georgia and it was a shame that they didn't get through, but honestly I need a few songs that I don't like otherwise the final will be too exhausting.

Lithuania my favourite of this crop, Albania having her mum and dad as backing singers was v cute

Oh Belgium wasn't spectacularly great -- very much a song that knows its market and a classic case of everything around the core performer doing the heavy lifting! -- but it was sweet enough in its own way.

Speaking of 'everything around' that's KINDA how I feel about Lithuania but the song does carry the performer well enough when it fully gets going.

I wouldn't've minded swapping out Armenia for Iceland, but at least Greece got the heave-ho.

Lithuania and Albania were the two I voted for, and for once I did ok on predictions: 9/10. The six that I really liked got through, and the three that I hated didn’t, so yay.

Man, Denmark really crashed and burned. No pun intended.

Lithuania is 22nd of 26 in tomorrow night's running order (Sweden and Finland are both performed a lot earlier), and the odds this morning were an astonishing 300/1. I have never placed an online bet before, but an each-way at these odds was screaming to be placed. It was our clear favourite last night, anyway.

Checking in here!

xp thanks for the tip, can confirm it's still 300-1 at ladbrokes

I’ve missed most of the semis this year, kind of into that stupid Austrian meme song. Will watch the final ofc

Checking ebay for that sweet Denmark outfit

Some mutterings of mine about some of my favorites.

my favourites tonight: Austria, Israel, Czechia, Portugal, Finland

Loreen winning will be pretty boring but I've long ago made my peace with not caring about the results

I've wound up convincing myself that Finland will win and being very excited for it. Usually I just assume that my favourites won't do well and am happy as long as they get a few points. I'm not even sure that Finland are my very favourite (I love a lot of tracks this year) but I feel like they totally deserve the win and I'll be gutted if they don't get it.

team finland too, croatia on penultimate will hopefully benefit them
will be quite funny as Europe will just be talking about that performance while the uk are on

Deservedly.

Half hour to the madness!

Personal favourites: Spain and France.
Top Ten prediction:
1 Finland
2 Israel (their position in the draw will give it a boost)
3 Sweden
4 Spain
5 Lithuania
6 Ukraine
7 Germany
8 Slovenia
9 UK
10 Albania
Last: Portugal just below Italy.
With a much stronger first half than second half, it’s quite an open competition this year. Were the draw reversed, the predictions would be very different.

the kate middleton eurovision cameo just go booed in liverpool. absolutely scenes

— William Rayfet Hunter (@willhunterr) May 13, 2023

VERKA

enjoyed the retro vibes of Portugal

Austria is going to be hard to top

Swiss lad reminded me of Rag'n'Bone Man, that's not a good thing

oh i like Serbia's movie theme thing tho

It's excellent.

Poland didn't have any killer moves.

ENEMY DEFEATED

generally a sign that something is interesting if G Norton is sniffy about it

dramaballad, classic France

Cannot remember anything good coming out of France Eurovision wise.

EXCUSE ME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZQjBCvFd9E

i admire and sometimes enjoy the predictability of their oeuvre

what does this Cyprus one sound like?

Yeah, that Tellier is good on a ten sec listen but it's not what France usually come out with xxp

kept hoping that Cyprus one was gonna erupt into beats but tragically no

That Tellier one didn’t win so France went “fuck it, back to the lads singing opera in Corsican it is so.”

it might have been a different story if either Joëlle Ursul’s “White and Black Blues" or Amina’s “C'est le dernier qui a parlé qui a raison" had won in 1990 or 1991 respectively instead of placing second.

having said that, I loved Bilal Hassani’s “Roi” in 2019:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw7WqoSHtgU

Ok Spain showing France how to do 1xnationalism

I love this apocalyptic flamenco thing from Spain.

ok Spain was good but never properly caught fire for me

France have entered loads of low-key good songs which have done nothing at all over the years.

Spain not my favourite in the end, yes, but this could win. The girl has chops

Junior Eurovision sucks

Missed it for once. Last year saw the demise of the usual whining about how everyone hates the British because

1. The Empire or sumthin'
2. Brexit
3. They're just jealous

So I wonder if it'll make a comeback in spite of Boris Johnson being canonised in Kyiv and the UK handing out missiles to the Ukraine like sweeties (and making sure everyone knows about it).

Why shouldn't the UK be handing out missiles to "the" Ukraine like sweeties?

take it to the rolling proxy wars thread

Finland was joyous - the true winner obv. The crowd shouting "cha cha cha" at random points throughout the night made it feel like a moment.

I wonder if there's any good writing about the effect of rules changes on songs and staging - e.g. those video effects that you can now do at the beginning, I don't think anyone really worked out how to make use of them; the introduction of prerecorded backing vocals seems to mean that the "six people on stage" budget is getting spent on dancers rather than singers hiding at the rear of the stage.

Good page for looking at stats: https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2023

There would have been plenty to complain about in a public-only vote too, but I'm still seething about Sweden beating Finland.

don't really remember the details of last year but wasn't it the public vote that gave Ukraine the Eurovision Being Invaded Is Bad award?

― contrapuntal aversion (Noodle Vague)

This was a good thing, not a bad thing.

'Stefania' being actually good helped a lot

Couldn't understand the love for the Israel and Italy entries.

Very slickly professional and competent-as-such enough to win a ton of jury votes, plus a little televote love. Unsurprising in the end.

I am absolutely not getting the love for Hannah Waddingham, at all. She was truly awful in every way.

She's getting the dads to watch it.

Speaking as a dad, I love her, but in my experience it is the mums who are her core constituency.

i liked her as a host, personally

Norton looked pretty grumpy a lot of the time but did laugh at his "it's juries, not Tinder" line.

Oh, Hannah Waddingham was the SHAME nun from Game of Thrones, knew there was something she was familiar from

yeah it took me a little while to realise that also

Guess you don't watch Ted Lasso, then?

Her mugging for the camera and "posh totty" persona just rubbed me up the wrong way completely. She reminded me of being 18 and meeting women who would say "oh I LOVE gay men let's be bffs!!!" because they expected us to be constantly quoting Mean Girls and singing Kylie

I am absolutely not getting the love for Hannah Waddingham, at all. She was truly awful in every way.

"COMING SOON - Online auction of Eurovision 2023 props and costumes"

https://auctions.ramco.uk/auctions/8565/ramco-11297