Who’s Winning?
No idea. The obvious answer for many is Sweden’s KAJ and the conventional wisdom is that it will storm the televote, pick up a decent jury vote, and that will be enough. Finland’s Erika Vikman is looking to take a similar path to find victory. On the other side of the table, both Austria and France will be looking to top the jury scores and hope the televote holds up so they can win in aggregate in the opposite path to the sauna and the microphone stand.
Yet there’s another way. It’s a longer shot, but second in the jury and third in the televote could be enough for the Netherlands to sneak through. It worked for Duncan Laurence, can it work for Claude?
Who’s Coming To The Party?
The last few months have seen a desire in the fanbase that goes beyond the twenty-six songs taking to the stage. Would they make an appearance? Having left Europe to become established in the US on the Talk Show circuit, would returning to the limelight last year offer a chance that the audience will see them? Was San Remo enough, or will there be another step in the Eurovision story?
Good news, everyone. Topo Gigio is in the show!
Did I spend enough time studying Duolingo beforehand?
Almost certainly not. Eurovision no longer has a rule requiring countries to perform in their own language. But this year, many countries have chosen to perform in a language that is not English. 20 of this year’s 26 finalist songs will feature languages other than English, the highest since the language rule was abolished in 1998. There will be five songs that feature French, two songs that feature German, two songs that feature Italian, and one song that features Italian as run through ChatGPT. Perhaps the most interesting language to appear tonight is the Gheg dialect of Albanian, which we will hear in the final song.
The 69th Eurovision Song Contest (heh-he)
All season, people have been making jokes about this year’s Eurovision really embodying the spirit of the 69th contest, with a ton of sexy content. And we’ve already discussed the entries of Finland’s Erika Vikman and Malta’s Miriana Conte, which are unabashed affirmations of confidence and pleasure. But there are other slightly more sanitized moments on stage tonight, like when Armenia’s Parg shows up shirtless on a treadmill, or when Latvia’s Tautumeitas wear skin-tight costumes that transform them into sexy swamp creatures.
Does Eurovision usually feature so many modes of transport?
No! It certainly doesn’t. Many of the postcards this evening will have our contestants on trains or trams, in a reflection of Swiss railway culture. And boats are central to two of the acts tonight – Iceland’s VAEB and Austria’s JJ – who experience storms on stage. The other act we can think of with an actual boat on stage was Cam Bonomo’s entry for Turkey in 2013.
Another recurring theme tonight is a tribute to electronics engineer Alan Blumlein, with both Italy’s Lucio Corsi and Germany’s Abor und Tynna hauling giant-sized speakers and amplifiers onto the stage. None of them go to 11, though.
Yeah Yeah Fire
The title of Albania’s song ‘Zjerm‘ means ‘fire’. It follows Germany’s ‘Feuer’ (1978) and Cyprus’s Fuego (2018) as one of very few words used as a title in multiple languages. Interestingly enough, what’s most prominent on the stage for Albania isn’t fire, but the contrast between the red of Beatrice (whose dress represents tongues of flame) and Kole’s black and white.
However, there is plenty of pyro in the show tonight, from the eye-brow singing burst of flame during show opener Norway to the many acts that will use a curtain of flame as a way to cap their performances.
Three’s A Party
There are a few trios in tonight’s contest, including the UK’s Remember Monday and Ukraine’s Ziferblat. But the trio that many are most excited to see is Sweden’s KAJ, who are bringing the sauna-inspired song Bara Bada Bastu. If they win tonight, they’ll be the first trio to win since Herreys (also from Sweden) in 1984.
When The Hell Just Happened?
A lot of people have been referring to the look of Remember Monday as ‘Bridgerton-inspired.’ Please stop. Bridgerton is set during the Regency era, when empire waist dresses were all the rage. The ladies of Remember Monday, on the other hand, are wearing deeply cinched corsets and frills that seem to be recalling the more ornate styles of the Georgian era. If you want to sum up Remember Monday’s act with a current cultural reference, a more apt one would be Saltburn, right?
What can we expect in the intervals?
What we can expect is a long night. An entertaining night, but a Eurovision that is expected to clock in at more than four hours.
The Reprising
Last year’s winner Nemo gets two moments this evening. They open the show in a gorgeous white gown, complete with their signature fuzzy hat, to perform a reprise of The Code. What’s more compelling is the moment later in the evening when Nemo performs their new song Unexplainable, a deeply personal exploration of their relationship with gender.
If The Code was a defiant embrace of a nonbinary identity, Unexplainable seems to be more about wrestling with the day-to-day implications of how that actually feels in a body. Just thinking back to Nemo’s performance right now is bringing tears to my eyes, because they themselves are so visibly emotional by what they are sharing with the world. Nemo is vulnerable and unguarded and beautiful tonight.
The Reminiscing
At the first semifinal, we had an introduction to Switzerland performed by hosts Hazel Brugger and Sandra Studer. Tonight, we have a tribute to Switzerland’s links to Eurovision, with performances from at least four of Switzerland’s acts, in addition to Nemo. These include Paola, who brought the song Cinéma in 1980, Luca Hanni, who brought the song She Got Me in 2019, and Gjon’s Tears, who performs Respondez-Moi, his 2021 entry. We also have a special musical performance from Peter, Marc and their families – that is, the Peter, Sue, and Marc who represented Switzerland a whopping FOUR times at Eurovision in the 1970s and 1980s.
As for performances from other Eurovision acts? Well….that’s up in the air. But we do also have a lovely video interview from Celine Dion where she discusses her memories of the night she won the contest.
The Rumble
We often say that there’s more than one way to win Eurovision, so we were delighted to see the EBU embrace this philosophy as well, They brought together two recent and beloved Eurovision acts – Käärijä and Baby Lasagna – to perform a rap battle of their hits Cha Cha Cha and Rim Tim Tagi Dim. It’s glorious to see them match each other’s energy as the beats get faster. The competition is resolved when they both start singing their new collaboration Eurodab. If Dance Dance Revolution machines were still in arcades, this song would be a shoe-in for them.