An evening without Corona: douze points

I sat through the entire Eurovision Song Contest last night, which was unique. It looked fantastic, I can't say anything else, truly unparalleled. The entire presentation was impeccable except for a tiny slip of the tongue - but yes, the four 'inclusive' presenters chosen (as a white boomerman, I never felt under-represented) did everything live.

For the first time in a whole year, I felt that my tax money had been spent meaningfully

oh no - no corona for a while!

The Netherlands showed its best side from Ahoy with an amazing visual show, impeccable organization and a more than professional presentation. And with an audience, how important is that... If only theaters and concert halls would realize that it is not that difficult to make their halls virus-free or virus-poor! And if the rivm - hey, no corona for a while.

For the Netherlands, there was a decidedly inclusive entry, however hopeless in a program like this, although, you never know. In the total musical range of the evening, I found our African folk influences quite refreshing. It would probably have been very successful at an African Song Contest because it was also a great song and well performed; the European public is just not ready for this yet. People are mainly looking for it in their own culture, just like Jeangu Macrooy himself. Understandable. There is still a long way to go before everyone is at peace with that and hopefully it is not a road to uniformity in which everyone likes everything.

De "Nederlandse inzending", moet dat eigenlijk iets representeren? Of de gemiddelde Nederlander zich hiermee vertegenwoordigd voelt is allang geen issue meer, zou het niet moeten zijn of mag gewoon geen issue meer zijn. Ikzelf had in eerste instantie niet veel met deze vertegenwoordiging van Nederland (het leek mij meer iets voor Senegal of zo) maar juist daarom toch ook weer wel - natuurlijk juist wel, eigenlijk! Wees maar recalcitrant, schop het duffe zootje maar eens onder de kont. Laat maar zien dat hier alles kan en iedereen erbij hoort ondanks de beoogde apartheid die ons door de strot...! - oh nee, geen corona, sorry.

De avond eindigde hoopvol: een Italiaanse rockband met een nogal hysterische, maar super energieke act werd de winnaar. De muzikanten begrepen bovendien dat playbacken betekent dat je je gitaar goed aan het publiek moet laten zien en daar stoer uitdagend mee rond moet lopen, als een hond die net een nieuw bot veroverd heeft van het baasje: "Kijk, kijk, van mij, grrr". Het was verder niet zo'n bijzonder nummer. Ik zit niet goed in de pop-rock maar het klonk een beetje Lenny Kravitz/Living Colour. Of moet ik zeggen Jimi Hendrix/Grand Funk Railroad? Ik ga toch eens zoeken of er een live versie van is, dat zou zomaar erg opwindend kunnen zijn. Dit is namelijk wel echt een band (see their Wikipedia page) so who knows.

Zero points

Remarkable was the last place: UK with zero points. Neither jury nor audience gave points. Last time, the British accused Europe of a reckoning because of the Brexit, this time that conspiracy theory cannot stand. It was really a failure. The singer had no breath to sing properly, presumably because of his overweight. You have it again. Because of that British overweight, my thoughts wandered to what I would not be doing this evening. Fortunately, I was able to resist the temptation. It was therefore not equally clean everywhere due to a lack of breath support. The song was not much, but that applies to Italy just as much as to most other songs, including a lot of polished and bombastic disco stompers.

During the jury assessments, the leading position was alternately occupied by two French-language songs: France and Switzerland. Certainly not a disco.

Italy was somewhere in the right list. The public jury voted unanimously for Italian rock and BAM - Italy at 1 and there they stayed. The disco dancers were left behind.

Bright spots

For me, the following qualitative contenders stood out: Malta (power singer), France (intense chanson), Portugal (perhaps the nicest, but I don't like such a nasal singer, say Eros Ramazzotti squared), San Marino as well. Bookmakers favorite Switzerland had a good act, beautiful song, super designed but a slightly unstable voice. So we still ended up in the top 3.

Zelf heb ik er lol in dat er weer een stevig rocknummer wint. Net als toen met Lordi, dat was volkomen absurd maar wel lachen: een statement. Ik vond trouwens "Waterloo" destijds in de kern al een Status Quo nummer dat met een handig arrangement en leuke toetjes toegankelijk was gemaakt voor muzikale rolstoelers - ik was nog jong, het was 1974. Rock 'n roll is overal.

Rock 'n roll will never die!!!

Damiano David, singer Måneskin, after receiving 1st prize Eurovision Song Contest 2021

De Italianen mochten na twee jaar intensieve voorbereiding hun act dus nog een keer herhalen. "De jeugd heeft een statement gemaakt" zeiden de commentatoren maar

1. The youth does not watch TV, let alone Eurovision
2. this music is for 'youth' from the 60s or 80s. So I mean: people who were young at the time
3. As if hard rockers are watching the Eurovision Song Contest.

The fact that such a band wins now, in my opinion, mainly shows the poverty of the rest of the program.

The bankruptcy of the disco stamper

It is not easy to understand that countries keep sending in disco stompers. Probably because of the success of Beyoncé or something. Rather look at a phenomenon like Billie Eilish, if you are really considering involving the youth a little more.

And... what was next? It's all a matter of taste, of course, but some songs were drenched in quotes from previous winners or seemed like disguised remakes of them. They would just barely escape the plagiarism test. I always find the rhythmic uniformity very difficult to tolerate on these kinds of evenings, as well as the unanimity in tempo (something like 123 bpm or so, I haven't measured it). Harmonically, something nice happened in two or three of the 26 songs. Furthermore, of course, those beautiful CGI sets, lots of dancing, white teeth and long legs, but as a white boomer I will not comment further on the artist presentations. After all, there are limits to Dutch inclusivity, the posts have clearly been set. It's important to stay in there or I'll be out before I know it. About nothing.

Watch the Eurovision Song Contest in the Two-minute summary of the AD