Gay or European? The annual Festival of Kitch

This post is about Eurovision Song Contest. If you don't appreciate the ridiculousness, hilarity and excessive use of glitter in ESC, stop reading.

Eurovision week is over. Congratulations to this year's winner, Sweden's Loreen with her song 'Euphoria'! And speedy recovery to all ESC drinking game players. To be honest, I was quite surprised by Loreen's victory. Normally these conventionally good quality songs that will go on to play at clubs and radio, don't succeed that well in Eurovision. Euphoria has already topped the charts in Nordic countries and now will no doubt do just that also elsewhere.

On the day of the second semi-final, Thursday that is, Eric Saade started trending on Twitter as soon as Norway had performed. The similarities between Sweden's last year's performance and Norway's show this year were incredible. The guys look the same, the backup dancers look the same - if you ignore the gender upgrade - and the songs could be by the same artist. Norway came in last in the final with only 7 points.

As Norway's poor performance showed us, it's not a good idea to resemble another (famous) artist too much. Yet this mistake is made every year. This year Italy's artist was clearly channeling Amy Winehouse and Denmark's girl sounded a lot like Alanis Morissette. Denmark only scored points from six countries, coming to a total of 21 points, while Italy did considerably better with 101 points and 9th place.

I am sailing, across the stage

The gayest show this year was Turkey, no contest! Their leather wearing seaman and his batman-inspired backup dancers managed to be exceptionally camp, even by the Eurovision standards. And then their capes transformed into an outline of a boat and made me giggle uncontrollably. Most fun this year, however, was Malta's little foot dance! They also had a pretend-DJ on stage. 0:55 is when the fun begins.

The UK's Engelbert "The Hump" Humperdinck came second to last with only 12 points despite his huge global success and large fan base. The BBC offers this as explanation: "Historically no-one who has opened the contest has gone on to win, as viewers often tune in late and miss the early contenders." which is of course complete bollocks. While he came across as sympathetic and sweet, his song 'Love Will Set You Free' (yes, really) was utterly boring, as the title would have you think. In this freak circus such a ballad will go unnoticed, unless it's Ireland. And even they've had bad luck lately. Of course, they've also had a turkey.

Speaking of Ireland, I liked Jedward's 'Waterline' much better than 'Lipstick' last year. The audience, however, seemed to disagree. I don't blame them, the whole reason even I watch this show is for the WTF-reactions and the exciting shows these artists throw at us. Seeing the same performers year after year is dumb and boring.

Special mention goes to Georgia for providing the most ridiculous performance, in the true spirit of Eurovision Song Contest! I would have definitely wanted to see them in the final.

Another special mention to the Slovakian Eurovision Hair Metal band with shirtless lead man. That should be a genre; it's a classic Eurovision song disguised as hard rock/glam metal. Listen to it and you'll know what I mean (ignore the beginning, it gets more Eurovision-y come chorus). Belarus also had a Eurovision rock band with members who looked like they jumped on the stage straight from the TV show The Tribe. Yep, "Eurovision rock" needs to be a genre. Not limited to only bands who've been in ESC.

The BBC commentators made this year so much better for me (that's where the headline for this post came from). The Finnish commentators have some good jokes and say funny things but hold back much much more than the guys at BBC. It was a joy listening to them. I'm also extremely happy to have learned about the existence of Dr. Eurovision! Isn't it marvelous! Academic expert, has a PhD in Eurovision. I don't know if that's incredibly cool or just incredibly ridiculous. Or both. Awesome dude either way.

What were your favorite moments this year?

Bright lights and bright minds in Brighton

My camera is amazing

The Great Escape came and went. It was a really fun weekend and even though interesting comments and statements were rare and everything the panels discussed I already knew*, I did still learn. And it was nice to notice that I really do know something about what I'm doing and even the top players aren't that much more knowledgeable, they just have the years of experience and reputation behind them. The thing where you put the knowledge into action and make something of it. This was more of a trial run though and next year, if I go, I'll get much more out of it.

*For bands to be ready for a label they need to practice, write songs, play gigs and have a fan base. If they want to work with a brand they should do their research and find a brand with the right image. Oh, and bands are brands too. All fascinating bits of information if you've never really been near anything music industry related and are a bit simple and clueless, but pretty self-explanatory to everyone else.

Despite there being millions of gigs all through the weekend, we only saw a handful of them. Our own night took up all of Friday night and during the days we went to the conferences rather than watch some band we've never heard of. So we only pretty much had Thursday and Saturday nights to check out some live music.

On Thursday the highlight of the night was Kids In Glass Houses despite the front man's very geeky-in-an-uncool-way t-shirt. Come on, bands, look like a band! They had energy, they had attitude and they had catchy punk rock tunes. Their sound is quite American which for anyone who knows me is a sure sign that I'll like it. Very enjoyable to watch too. I really also liked the venue they were playing, Concorde 2. Magner's cider was only £3,80/pint which for a Finn is very impressive and exciting!

I'll just skip right to Saturday since I feel I've highlighted our bands' greatness enough already. I have nothing to add. They're great. They're always great. They even might have been a bit greater than before. And they look like bands. And they are: The Manic Shine, Violet Bones and iremembertapes.

Saturday we hunted down a band called Billy Vincent because someone knew someone who knew someone or something. They were instantly likable and their music made me happy. The last song really made the night. I'm a sucker for some violin and folky sounds, though, and may have let that affect my judgement. Not to mention that they looked good.

Such attractive lads

After that we headed down to a launderette with our new friends from The Icarus Youth to catch a band called The Computers. There we were climbing on washing machines and watching this amazing group of punkrock dudes ooze pure energy and thrills. They should, however, get some hairstylin' tips from Jedward; their cool rockabilly quiffs were pretty much ruined after 15 seconds into their set. That was very possibly the coolest gig I've ever been to!

YYYEEEEAAAAHHH!

Crammed in.

TGE

It's been a while, sorry. Nothing worth reporting has really happened. Still promoting, still updating contact lists, still designing newsletters, still sending those newsletters out.

But this Thursday we will grab our backpacks, take our eagerness to learn, aim our concentration towards the speakers and unleash the excitement at The Great Escape festival in Brighton! On Friday we're putting on our The Animal Farm showcase and the rest of the time we'll go from conference to conference, one gig to another and take in as much as we can. This year's theme is DIY which is quite fitting as that is how things are done at the Farm.

Our line up is:
19.00 - 19.30 The Rocket Dolls
19.45 - 20.15 Little Signals
20.30 - 21.00 Violet Bones
21.15 - 21.45 iremembertapes.
22.00 - 23.00 The Manic Shine

It's going to be fantastic! I will obviously give a full report next week of how amazing it was.

I found a website for a company called City Academy who have musical theatre classes and singing classes and dance classes and such. I really really want to go to a musical theatre class! The beginners classes that last 6-10 weeks are between £200-300 so a bit much for my finances. Maybe I should try one of those online money raising sites and have people fund me! If even a handful of people would pitch in, it would help tremendously. I'm thinking of doing it around my birthday so there's that going for me instead of just randomly asking people for money ;)

I also had a quick meeting on Skype with my academic instructor and it seems that I will eventually graduate (I knew that, now it's just more real). My thesis idea was approved at this time, but it is just a vague idea still and needs a lot of work. And academic backing. I need to hit the library and start researching. Oh dear, soon enough I will have a degree and have to let go of my student-ness and need to find a grown up job with a grown up salary and grown up responsibilities. Scary thought!

Here's a very awesome video from our very awesome The Manic Shine!