[78-L] Eurovision Finals

[Michael Biel]

Despite what I and others said about the Eurovision Song Contest, Leah
and I are watching (and recording) the finals right now, and had watched
and recorded the two semis, the opening ceremony, and several other
special programs for Russian Ostankino Channel 1 this week.  It is
unusual that these programs are not time shifted on the U.S. satellite
version of Ostankino, so we are seeing it live.  Of course we have a
pair of Russian language hosts which insist on talking in addition to
just translating.  You Brits have Graham Norton (taking over for Terry
Wogan, Leah tells me) so I wish I could get your feed instead of the
Russian feed.  For those of you outside Europe who don't have access to
any feed, there are a lot of U-Tube postings, some seem to come from
Finland with YLE bugs on the screen.  

The highlight for me so far was when they had the Alexanderovich Red
Army Chorus in the latter part of the first Semi-Finals doing a medley
of their "hits" but then they accompanied the "lesbian" girl duo
t.A.T.u. doing one of their hits "Not Gonna Get Us".  Hearing the big
burly ex-Soviets bellowing out "Not gonna get us" over and over was a
scream.  (I had missed by one week the outdoor Helsinki concert the
Chorus did with the Finnish retro-rock group Leningrad Cowboys, but I do
have the CD of the full concert and the DVD of the broadcast.  Go onto
U-Tube to hear them do "Sweet Home Alabama" there are multiple versions,
some also from later Russian indoors concerts.  If the Cowboys bow to
the chorus, you have the Helsinki concert that I missed.

Anyway, back to the Eurovision finals.  One thing I am confused about is
to whether the voting is for the SONG or the PERFORMER.  The Russian
entry "Mama" is finally on now and I really hope it wins.  We've been
hearing promos for it all week.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com