SF1

So,now I've calmed down a little bit after my double-sided excitement at getting all 10 qualifiers right AND my favourite boys from Bosnia getting through,I can write a bit about this evening.

Let's start with BiH though.It wasn't Davor's greatest vocal performance,but on the whole I thought it was great.I adore the military theme and they all looked fab in their outfits.And I still love the bit where they all stand together like revolutionaries about 2 and a half minutes in(well,they're "soldiers of love" according to Aleksander) with the flag and the wind machine.I hope the nerves don't get to Davor on Saturday.He's so confident in all the interviews I've seen,but they're one of the favourites (which still surprises me),so they must be feeling a bit of pressure.

Other musical highlights:

- La Voix was better than expected.After the rehearsals I'd written it off a bit,but it was OK.Malena seemed to enjoy it.
- Flor de Lis were great for Portugal.Now they really did enjoy it,that was obvious.And so they should have,it's a lovely song.The singer (can't remember her name :/) and the accordion player looked fabulous too.I want both of their outfits :)
- Andrea was super,it's a shame she didn't qualify.I loved her routine.So did my friend Emma back in Gillingham.So much so,she text me about it twice :)
- Waldo's People were good.Emphasis on the People rather than Waldo.But then you can't really have one without the other I suppose.Cool performance.
- Next Time from FYROM were better than I expected too.

General highlights:

- That stage is amazing.Elena from Romania's set was probably my favourite- the pink,flowery one.And Portugal's was cool too.
- Dimitry Shepelev
- Naff as it was,I loved the opening bit with the kids on the bird.The magic was kind of ruined though as soon as Andrey came on stage."HELLO EUROPE!!!!" That little girl will never hear again...
- Actually in some ways I did kind of like Andrey and Natalia.Mostly because they were so bad it was endearing I think.Especially the parking joke.
- The postcard bits.Although as Emma said- "why are they wearing countries on their heads?"
- The military band singing along to Tatu.It was so fabulous I have no more words to describe it :) Although I still prefer the Belarussian military band's version of Work Your Magic that they did at Eurofest last year.
- The Russian words/phrases before each song.Although it didn't go unnoticed that one of them was "skazka"- Fairytale.It's a fix- Norway will win!

General annoyances:

- Despite having the eurovision.tv stream on as well as the stream from a Belarussian TV channel on mute in the background in case of emergencies- the whole thing just stopped when Andorra came on and I didn't get either feed back until the end of Switzerland.Boo,they were one of my favourites too.
- Turkey qualifying because they're Turkey and it's written in the rules of ESC that they must qualify regardless of what pap they send.
- Armenia.Cool outfits,but that HAS to be the most annoying song in the world ever,surely?That chorus just gets me every time,I can't stand it.
- The fact that practically everything good was in tonight's show and we're left with all the chaff on Thursday.With the big exception of Zoli of course.Mmmm,Zoli...

Let's reconvene in 36-ish hours then shall we?