eurovision 2012 news: Belgium

Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts

Sunday, May 13, 2012

And Now We Know...(Day 1)

So as the sun sets over Paris [Only place I could think of where the sun might be setting right now]. But the day has come to an end and having looked at at least 100 photos of Eurovision Taxis as well as hours of rehearsal videos, we now know a lot more about Eurovision 2012. But in a nutshell what have we learned?

Based on everyone's blog posts we now know it is not very easy to get to Baku, especially if you travel through Istanbul.
Montenegro is as bad on stage as we first thought, however no one knew quite what to expect all the same.
Iceland and Romania are the big winners from today, they are now much more favoured to win in the betting odds and reports from Baku about them are impressive.
Greece has a very typical Eurovision entry. She is not able to sing it well enough live.
Latvia continues to divide people between lovers who think it is a marginal qualifier and haters who think it is still a very bad song still and she is a good vocalist.
Albania was as impressive as ever but I think it might be something that the ney sayers have to see live to believe. I really like this though.
According to my friend the ESCInsider Switzerland far better looking in real life. As a hetrosexual I have no opinion but as they say - know your target market. Their diction as also improved.
Iris from Belgium has a great pair of lungs. She really came up to the mark in rehearsals today.
Finally Finland have dropped the dancer which is a great move on their part in my opinion.

Up until now I have avoided making predictions but I think at this stage that Iceland and Romania are the definite qualifiers and Albania is a very likely qualifier. My guess is that there will be one qualifier from either Switzerland, Belgium or Finland and since the rehearsal I am inclined towards Belgium, but that's very difficult to call. I think that Greece is the only other possible contender but if the vocals don't improve it could go the way of Turkey last year.

If you missed our earlier posts they are here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Rehearsals: Day 1: Part 3 Switzerland - Finland

Rehearsals continued today in earnest and videos have now appeared for them all. But now onto the last three.

Switzerland - Rehearsal Video
Switzerland have come on in leaps and bounds since the national finals in December [then again they've had since December]. The staging is really well done, the vocals and more importantly diction have stepped up to the mark and the whole thing is looking rather polished. The general consensus is that this has indeed improved but no matter what I read today I still think that this just screams non-qualifier. I don't fully know why that is though.

Belgium - Rehearsal Video
Despite some peoples arguments this is a song I have a soft spot for. I think that this has really come up in the rehearsals. The staging of the whole song is wonderfully understated and I think that Iris has the voice to carry this song off. Interestingly there is a very little we learned today. The rehearsal has been very similar to the national final performance. Possibly the closest so far today.

Finland - Rehearsal Video
Finland were the last to take to the stage for rehearsals today. The song is vocally good but coming after Belgium this is a lot less dramatic. To be honest this song was one that I have really loved but today I felt that it stopped short of actually coming up to the mark. Many acts have impressed me today but Finland really has not. This might come up a bit in second rehearsals but at the moment I'm not feeling it.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Belgium Opts For A Simpler Song.

By the time you read this I will be gone..........to rural Ireland. So by one o'clock tomorrow I will hopefully have enough reviewing done that I have the blog backed up into next week but we shall see how it goes. So today I turn my attention to Belgium, who will be represented by Iris. In a very short, two song national final Belgium decided that Iris should go to Baku with the song Would You?

This is definitely an interesting song. While at times it might seem like a fairly boring and predictable song it is performed very well. The song unfortunately doesn't really build up to much but instead stays fairly static with a bridge in the middle where it goes all soft. Performance wise, Iris is actually able to do most things that you want in a song like this. However I really think that the dress makes her look like a 1950's school girl and I think if she wants to go for a final qualification she will have to be a little more edgy about the performance. This may mean that she has to add a couple of extra people to the stage, but that may not be a bad thing.

The song Would You? has received a mixed reaction from fans. I think that even though it is a simple [and I really mean simple] midtempo song, it does offer the listener a huge amount. Lyrically this may not be the most out there but as was pointed out by Miss Disco over on Eurotrash Freaks; Iris is only 16 yet she is singing about a very complex relationship. I think unless people were very nitpicky they would not pick up on that but you never know.

While this might not be out standing when you put it up alongside the likes of Nadine Beiler last year, it still is a reasonable song. More importantly it is in a semi-final of very up tempo songs with no one covering the conservative jury types. That's where a song like this is going to pick up votes from. However Belgium are in an unfortunate position of having very few neighbours in this semi-final so I think more likely than not they will not qualify.

Verdict: Personally I think that this is quite a good song but it has limitations and probably will not make the final. The biggest problem I found while writing this review was that there was nothing to write about, which for me means that it is boring - Anyhow I still think that it is a good song, simple yes, but in a way that doesn't always show up at Eurovision anymore.

Grade: B-

Monday, March 19, 2012

Eurovision Overload!

It seems that much has happened in Eurovision since I left on Friday and to be honest I'm hardly able to keep up with it all but here are my thoughts:

May as well start on a positive note. Azerbaijan have presented their Eurovision entry sung by Sabina. I really thing this is good. It might not win (it has an outside chance) but really it is quite nice. You can watch the video here.
The widely anticipated entry from the UK was released today, you can listen to it here. I will have much more on this in a later post.
As many videos arrive in we are seeing a couple of songs being tweaked a little bit. I don't really pay much attention to this as the changes are rarely noticeable. However Belarus have done a pretty big overhaul of their song which does help it a small little bit. You can hear there song here.
Albania have cut down their song to three minutes and presented it in a video that to be honest looks like is out of a horror film. I still think that it is a strong song. The video is here.
Belgium have presented their song Would You by Iris. It's a fairly basis ballad and I can't see it going to far but we'll see what juries do in semi-final 1. You can listen to the song here.

Finally I hope you all enjoyed St. Patrick's Day while some people decided to do some odd things (Green Ice Tea and Jedward?, seriously). I had a more traditional one involving buying 20kgs of seed potatoes.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Melodifestivalen Is Over. What Are We Waiting On?

Normally the end of Melodifestivalen usually occurs the Saturday before the HOD [Heads of Delegation] meeting. This year they decided to play with us fans a little and have it a week later. This means that there are a couple of songs missing still. So to round up what we're waiting on:

Montenegro - Song Presentation - Thursday 15th March 8:00pm CET.
Bosnia&Herzegovina - Song Presentation - Thursday 15th March 8:00pm CET.
San Marino - There is a variety of rumours coming from San Marino about who will represent them. The latest one is that local singer Valentina Monetta and will be written by Raleph Sigel. [We're not saying that it is correct.] We suspect we will get a confirmation either today or tomorrow.
Belgium - We patiently await the final national final of the year in Belgium. I'm not going to be watching it as it is St. Patrick's Day and I will be with my family but hopefully they will pick something good.
UK - The UK has caused many a fan to rip out a parts of their hair. But Engelbert Humperdinck's song will be revealed on the 19th March - the day of the deadline. That's cutting it fine.