Over the past 10 days, the official Eurovision Song Contest YouTube account, finally decided to share the pre-recorded live on tape recordings little by little.
Unfortunately, we have learned that a lot of broadcasters opted to not share their pre-recording tapes, and will leave a lot of fans imagining, what it would’ve or could’ve been like for some countries. On the other hand, it turned out that a lot of the live on tape recordings, where either a re-do of their national final performance OR a work in progress situation for the contest in Turin. Anyhow, let’s look at what is left and then, what we didn’t get.
Belgium: Jérémie Makiese – Miss You
This young talented singer/goalkeeper was the very first act to be announced for Turin back in 2021, but was one of the very last to reveal his song for the contest. Jérémie was selected internally by the Walloon broadcaster to represent Belgium.
As we can only compare it with the Turin performance, we can see it was something that was a work in progress situation once again. Jérémie was even being a bit adventurous with his voice for the live on tape performance, as he performed a bit of the chorus with his deeper voice. He would also have seemed more focused on his vocals, as he barely interact with the dancers nor takes part in the dancing with them, few interactions, but very minimal.
The dance routine was also very different than what we ended up seeing, and even the wall of lights that enclosed Jérémie on the tape recoding was also removed for his Turin performance.
France: Alvan & Ahez – Fulenn
We finally advance to the BIG 5 territory, which is the five pre-qualifed nations of the year 2022. France get’s the honor of being the first one, as they were the first pre-qualified nation to perform in the final. Alvan & Ahez won the national final in France, in order to represent the country in Turin.
By mentioning that they won the national final, the expectation is already, that it would copy that performance, and that’s indeed what we see. In the end, it was even the same performance that we saw in Turin. If it worked in France, then surely it would work in Turin… that was sadly not the case.
The group did seem to get a lot of criticism over their vocal performance from when they won, until the final performance in Turin, which is probably the only questionable thing about this live on tape recording.
Germany: Malik Harris – Rockstars
Next on the list, we find Germany and Malik Harris who won the national final, by the VERY optimistic name Germany 12 Points. This is how he became the German hope of the year 2022, but sadly as we all know, the heartfelt performance was just not enough.
As pointed out already, he won the national final and therefor we also got another replica of a national final performance for this live on tape recording. All that is removed, is the crowd shots, since the live on tape performance is in an empty arena/studio.
A lot remained the same for Turin, as the performance just focused on Malik, his instruments and his emotional song. The only really noticeable thing that probably was missing in the live on tape recording, compared to both his national final and Turin performance, would be his supportive message to Ukraine.
Spain: Chanel – SloMo
Next up and possibly the very last live on tape for this year, comes from Spain. The country has suffered from poor results lately, after years of different formats, so this year, the country returned to a full out national final named Benidorm Fest, in which Chanel emerged as the winner.
As it has been the case with the other pre-qualified countries so far, we get another copy of the national final performance for the live on tape recording. Chanel shows that she’s a lady that can perform, since the live on tape recording and national final performance is pretty much the same, only makes one think how much she’s worked on her choreography.
Unfortunately, it means that we also hear the same version of the song in these two performances. In Turin, an altered version, specifically made for the contest was used. The choreography was also slightly changed in Turin, so we can only be thankful that Chanel‘s hard work didn’t go to waste.
What did we miss?
The only time that the pattern didn’t go right, was just now with Spain and Germany. For some reason, the German live on tape was released before the Spanish one. Other than that, much shows that this is it and this was the last batch of tapes we’ll get for this year. Unless the EBU has some extra from broadcasters who had a change of thoughts.
In the end, we didn’t get to see the live on tape recording from:
- Ukraine (exempted due to war)
- The Netherlands
- Moldova
- Norway
- Armenia* (video later removed)
- Azerbaijan
- Georgia
- Australia
- Cyprus
- Montenegro (Not on the official channel, but is public)
- Sweden
- Czech Republic
- Italy
- United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is technically the very last one on the list, but this would make them the sole release in case the EBU only do one last upload tomorrow OR decide to upload others that is missing as well.
If this is the end, which live on tape do #YOU think was best and what do #YOU think about so many missing live on tapes? Time to hear from #YOU on our forum HERE or on our social media pages and sites.
