2000 review from Catherine Baker (UK) [Marina] [Frank] [Ed]

It had to happen.

The year that Romania passed a near-copy of Britney Spears over for a man with a guitar; Croatia passed the most dynamic Latin song since 'Bandido' over for a man who looked worryingly like Doris Dragovic (one of many such in his country, it seems); Finland held one of the best finals of the year but managed to select the one song that nobody had even imagined could win it.

Add to that the infamous Inter-Scandinavian Treaty and you have everything you need for one of the most unexpected Eurovision events since Dana International went parrot-wrestling on a wet Saturday in Birmingham.

Before that, however, we had the small matter of a few songs to get through, something that presenters Anders Lundin and Kattis Ahlstrom clearly wanted to delay for as long as possible.  SVT had promised a slick and professional extravaganza, and that's what we got, at least until those two opened their mouths and began a comedy routine involving reading the programme upside down and greeting the viewers in everything from French to Croatian to Swahili.

Meanwhile, viewers were saying in everything from French to Croatian to Swahili, 'Get on with it, even Ping Pong must be better than this.'

And so they were, for the few seconds their introduction lasted and one could still harbour the illusion that this wouldn't be another embarrassing episode of 'Peace to all the World'.  All the advance publicity the group had received meant there was an extensive checklist of things to look out for if you got tired of watching the girl in the blue dress sing as if she'd rather be somewhere else:

The IBA had made such a fuss over this one that a cynic like myself might suppose they'd done it on purpose.  It worked for the Diva, after all.

The Netherlands had started out as my favourite before the contest, but Linda Wagenmakers had apparently 'got a cold', the preferred excuse of those delegations who realise the song hasn't a chance in hell of living up to the hype.   Her dress seemed to have been designed by someone who saw Lydia on a black and white TV, and its tail was half the size of the stage.  Surprise, surprise, off it came like Danijela and two dancers came out.  By the time they got their shirts off at the end, you hardly noticed.

Calling a song 'Don't play that song again' is a tempting of fate not to be attempted after the spectacular failure of 'No quiero escuchar', and it got the UK its worst plaving ever, on the one occasion they didn't deserve it.  Nicki French had a total of two dance moves, and a purple trousrer suit usually only worn to weddings by women d'un certain age.

How refreshing to discover that when everyone else was trying to be as American as possible, Estonia were still holding on to their national traditions: the traditional Estonian stetson hat was, as any fool should know, worn by traditional Estonian cowboys roping in traditional Estonian buffaloes.  No?  Ines was supposed to be Britney Spears, but instead answered the question of what if somebody assaulted 'One good reason' with a drum machine.

Very rarely do the French send an entry that actually sounds French, and if 'On aura le ciel' is anything to go by, that's because they know what happens if they do.  So instead of spending any more time on the song, a word about the set: there were five rectangular screens that moved around the stage, and a pair of lips - the contest logo - which changed colour depending on the flag.  The French lips were still a recognisable tricolour: you don't mess with that flag, or presumably Napoléon comes to get you.  Several other flags appeared on the lips as if someone had been stirring a pan of coloured water.

Romania was worse, and the nonsense lyrics weren't helped by the lead singer of Taxi imitating an Irish accent and sitting motionless on a bar stool.  To think Paula Seling's Britney-a-like could have been there instead, although perhaps another uptempo song in this lineup would just have split the votes up even further.

Claudette Pace's 'Desire' is one song that could have done beetter if so many of the best contestants hadn't been next to each other.  It's good to see Malta with something else than a slow ballad, but if you look at those lyrics, you'll see some things at least never change.

Norway were my pick to win, but it wasn't to be.  Not that a 1960s-style number whose title, 'My heart goes boom', must have come from the same hall of infamy as 'Ding dinge dong', is particularly modern, but rather them than the Olsen Brothers.  Charmed was a very appropriate name for the group, as with all that black and purple, and hair going in more directions than there are fjords in Norway, they did look rather like witches.

Surprise of the night was Russia.  Some intensive work must have been done on 'Solo', but if only it had included dispensing with the two men in mesh shirts doing slow-motion dancing behind Alsou.  Not that this could really have been a Russian entry, though, because her make-up hadn't been applied by someone using a gardening trowel.

You can see why Belgium would send a gospel entry: only divine intervention could rescue this one.  It was another schoolgirl for Belgium, this time one who'd been working on her Religious Studies lessons but had had better things to do than go to singing class.

When a song begins with people waving flags around in the dark you know you're in for some drama, which was woefully lacking from most of this year's songs.   So a verse in Italian and then we were off into classic Cypriot drum-banging territory, except I bet the Cypriots had never seen too many men in skirts before.

Since Cyprus was followed by Einar and Thelma from Iceland, they got to see another one very soon.  In fact, Einar must have come without a costume and had to borrow one from Selma Bjornsdottir.  He was also blond and had tattoos running up both arms.  Actually - was that Einar, or Melanie C?

Anders and Kattis introduced a medley of the tackiest ESC moments ever, as if to say 'Look how far we've come since the old days'.  Little did we know we were in for much worse.

Serafín Zubiri, though, was about as close to the old days as anyone would want to get. (Believe it or not, Spain had a Latin song in their final too.) The title of 'Colgado de un sueño' had been very loosely translated as 'Dancing on rainbows', which did conjure up an image of the Spanish delegation capering about on That Dress.

Before the contest the Olsen Brothers might as well have been called the Invisible Men, and if 'Fly on the wings of love' got mentioned at all it was as a probable for the bottom 3. That, however, was in its Danish version, where the corus came out as being about smoked salmon.  I seem to remember these men both sounded as if they had Irish accents too, though apparently they had a vocorder.  I suppose it's too late to ask for that 33% back?

The contingent of old grannies who trooped out to vote for the Danes in their thousands must have fallen off their rocking chairs when Germany's Stefan Raab came on, rapping in nonsense language and every so often lapsing into a broken English that even the author of 'I wanna to fly' would laugh at.  Not that Eurovision isn't crying out to be sent up, but how will it be taken seriously - the only way to get more Russias and less Denmarks in it - with songs like 'Wadde hadde dudde da'?

Nwither was I overly impressed by Stefan's command 'Watch this!' at which the backing singers took off their jackets and thrust out their chests, making the second striptease of the night.  All of a sudden they all want to be Croatian!

It was almost a relief to see Jane Bogaert sing a formulaic chanson for Switzerland.  It's been like this nearly every year since 1956, but big ballads like this are one of the things I used to watch ESC for.   If only she'd scream a bit more, or at least sing any given line on more than one note.

The Croatian final was another disappointment, although only relatively speaking: Severina's 'Daj mi, daj' could have walked away with the contest, but Goran Karan's 'Kada zaspu andjeli' despite being one of the worst songs in their final still outdid a lot of the winners from other countries.  All credit to the Croatians too for trying to liven it up a little with a dancer, though maybe it wasn't a good idea to tell the dancer this so late that in her rush to get out of bed and on stage she got tangled up in her bedsheets.  Needless to say, she whipped them off at the end to reveal herself in a white Danijela dress.  Raab would have a field day if he ever wanted to parody one of these.

The difference between Raab and Roger Pontare, of course, is that Pontare actually takes himself seriously.  I'm still puzzled by how he kept a straight face dressed up in that Native American outfit and with Biro drawn all over his forehead.  And by whether his guitarist was wearing a peacock suit, or whether I've just insulted an ethnic minority.  Nonetheless, it was one of the most powerful songs there, and no expense had been spared on the set, with pillars of flame shotting roofwards in the last chorus (I couldn't wait for them to catch the feathers).  Lots of votes from radio listeners, one suspects.

FYR Macedonia was more my kind of song. '100% te ljubam' was ENI by numbers right down to the outfits, and none of the girls could sing, but girlbands are always like that - if the girls could sing, they wouldn't be in girlbands.  XXL seemed a singularly inapposite name - was it ironic, or was it because they'll just think up any name that sounds remotely English without wondering what it means?  Insanely catchy, though: 'Sto posto te ljubam, sto post e da...'

By the 20th song anyone was going to be getting tired, and having to listen to Nina Aastrom didn't help.  Imagine Anna Eriksson here, or if you don't know the song imagine 'Once in a lifetime' in this position instead.   There's more than just 'A little bit' of Nina, too.

Debutants Latvia had to score some 40 points with 'My star' to come back next year, but now all they need to do to be assured of a place for the next 3 or 4 is turn up, say 'Hello, we're the Latvians' and go home back to Riga.  If singing rock in English works so well, then could Sixteen have....? But much as I'd have liked to think about Warsaw 1999 for three minutes, I knew people would want to read this review, and so I had to tear myself away and watch Brainstorm.  Lead singer Reynard looked as high in the sky as the star he was singing about.

Nothing as exciting from Turkey as their recent classics 'Dinle' or 'Don artik'.  'Yorgunum anla' offered a melodion, on the subject of which Wogan gabbled throughout the song (having previously added his vocal talents to Goran Karan's too).   Pinar Ayhan's white halter dress made her look like Tugba Onal getting married.

And so to Ireland, the title of whose song 'Millennium of love' contained the most frightening three words since 'Johnny Logan Again', especially when the video screens came up with candles on.  Eamonn Toal had blond hair that looked as if it wanted to escape down his back at any moment and start a singing career of its own.

Last of all the Austrians, whose Rounder Girls were by far the roundest of all of them, though not without competition.  Another gospel song, but if there was Anyone listening out there, S/He must have got so irritated by Belgium's warbling that They changed channels.  Or maybe they both had the wrong god and Pontare had got the right idea.

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