Oh yeah, personally I'm ok with MM's results. Not what most people expected obviously, but I could live with that. The staging was... there was no staging, let's be honest
And the outfits
I'm not responsible for them, please hold while I transfer your call to JP Gaultier.
Positive shocker for me was (oddly enough) Czech Republic. I'm not fond of the song, but I'm glad they did that well in the end. I don't understand why he wasn't supported by juries as much as Sweden was
Also Lithuania got a good result, I wanted Ieva to beat Ireland, which she did. So I'm happy with that.
Negative shocker: Austria first with juries. I knew this was a jury song more than anything, but first place was totally overrated imo. To me, it was one of the few songs of the evening that stood out the least. :? I'm also sad for Portugal, they didn't deserve to tank.
What about you?
JP Gaultier? Dear, you can hang up the phone. What an amateur! Even I could do better than this. Embarassing for Monsieur & Madame, but even bigger embarassment for Gaultier.
I hope he didn't tweet about it. Not something to be proud about...
I know, I am vicious now a bit
Czech Republic - sorry guys, but when I see Mikola, I think of Bel Ami porn. And that ass shake was really awkward in my opinion. But I agree with you, I felt some sort of justice for their 2016 entry, who got 0 points in final televote. But I guess Czech are slowly learning the business of ESC trade. Second qualification in 3 years! Nice.
Austria - radio friendly, I like it, but I totally agree with you. Def, overrated - like Sweden.
So, my positive and negative shockers were:
1) Ukraine tanking in jury votes.... Only 11 points in juries votes!!!!! What happened to friendly neighbourly votes that always pushed Ukraine in top10???? It appears that the current Ukrainian politics is taking its tool in ESC. Their hostile politics towards neighbours (and I am not talking only about Russia) is starting to show slowly. I find this information highly interesting.
2) Sweden bombarding in televote. I really do not like Benjamin nor his song. I find his lisp highly irritating. And as you have noted this year (FINALLY!) - he is the most glaring example of how jury voting and televoting are disconnected for several years now (Portugal last year is the sole exception, but if we ignore Portugal, we find many more awkward examples that suggest jury voting to be more biased than televote).
3) Greece not qualifying. This is still a shock for me, and I am still sorry for Switzerland. I think they should have qualified.
4) In finals, I am quite surprised how low some fan favorite songs have parked. E.g. Bulgaria (I still think they were great) and also France.
5) This year's ESC edition is definitively a wake-up call for Wiwibloggs and some other ESC-fan bloggers. They really overestimate their own influence and (above all) their own musical tastes. Wylon slapped them already at the conference for 2nd semifinal qualifiers, and they made a number of erroneous predictions. In fact, I believe they are the main drive behind the betting odds, which maybe got the winner right this year (but not the last week, as Netta was slowly falling), but many other things were totally wrong with betting odds.
Those are some of the few things that come to my mind. More will follow I guess
I hoped she would at least avoid the bottom 5, but oh well.
I'm still glad she was there to party tonight.
