Liveblog: UK Eurovision, Your Country Needs You (ep 5)
It’s time for the grand final of the UK nationals to find out if Jade, Mark or The Twins will represent the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, on May 16th.
1955: Time to put the Eurovision Liveblog tools away – until May, until Moscow.
1954: I’m sure I’ll have a full blog post on this in a few hours or so. Stay on the site, watch me on Twitter, or just subscribe to the RSS Feed.
1953: Jade or Mark would have been my choice going into the show tonight. Hearing the song and seeing the performance, Jade made the best of a poor to average song, so on the night she was the right choice.
1949: And we’re sending… Jade to the Eurovision Song Contest 2008.
1948: Mark in third? Nuts.
1948: Here comes the results…
1947: “Eurovision” is currently the number ten trend on twitter. It’s gonna be mad there come May.
1945: This is how to do – a strong performer, a strong song, a huge fan base…
1944: Dima’s singing Believe.Dima! Dima!
1942: …and showing why they were eliminated. Although could anyone do better with My Time than what we saw tonight.
1941: The eliminated contestants are back, singing with Lulu and Relight my Fire.
1939: And Dima sings Andrew Lloyd Webbers song better than anyone else tonight. And improvs around it.
1938: Dima Bilan!
1937: Andrew Lloyd Webber juding all three now. Thinks he can do more with Mark, but is worried about his performance; The Twins can’t be improved (that’s a bad thing, but very subtly done); and thinks that Jade can be moulded the ebst. No favourites there, then.
1935: It’s been twenty minutes since the debut of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Eurovision song and the general reaction on twitter is (bar one) uniformly against the song, and wondering what Andrew Lloyd Webber was thinking.
1934: No surprises as Mark does his Me and Mrs Jones again.
1931: Jade gets to reprise with her Beyonce cover – and out come her legs for the Dad Vote ™.
1929: Time for the best song in previous years. The Twins do the Girls Aloud number that suits them.
1925: Ouch, it’s MP4 – the musical band of the House of Commons.
1922: Voting lines open – I think I’ll watch the Finish and Danish finals instead.
1920: My heart is pretty much sinking at the UK prospects for Eurovision.
1919: Jade’s went the powerful diva route, lots of over emphasis and working the camera. Given the song, she’s the only one that put in a performance that might work in the Olympic Stadium come May.
1916: Jade your one chance?> You’ve had three recording contracts in your life already… (discrete cough).
1915: The Twins went all angelic and backlit glowing white are going to get votes on looks. Mark relied too much on the song. Which way will Jade go?
1913: The Twins are doing a better performance of this song – performance I mean, because the song itself is going nowhere. And they’ve needed to put in a Boyzone get up from the stools moment.
1911: Twins crying again. The BBC editors doing their best.
1910: You see here’s the thing. On the night, you get three minutes – no repetition of the song to get the chance to have it hook in the brain. It may well be a song that grows on you but we don’t want a slow burning musical success, we need musical heroin.
1908: Actually the lyrics are a bit crap. Oh dear.
1907: Right, is that a Eurovision winning song? Err, not with Mark’s version no. Too much repetition, very little performance from Mark, he’s stuck behind the microphone. Ah he’s left it behind now.
1904: Here comes the UK Song for Europe! Three interpretations coming up from each act. Mark first, gives him a chance to stamp – I own this…
1901: Crowd giving little reaction to The Twins – they’re definitely behind Mark. I think the judges are going for Jade. Where will the public place their vote?
1900: To me that sounded flat, with little emotion. Very Karaoke standard. Andrew Lloyd Webber has put in a subtle dig, and isn’t giving any positive words. I think we can tell where his choice lies.
1856: Crowd think Mark then Jade. Judges think Jade then Mark. Where will The Twins fit in? They’re singing, err, something super modern. Sweet About Me by Gabriella Cilmi.
1855: Crowd going wild for Mark, more than Jade. Andrew Lloyd Webber just tempering Mark’s hopes – maybe priming the audience to steer them towards Jade? The crowd are not having any of it.
1853: Try A Little Tenderness from Mark. An old Otis Redding number and he’s really doing a show tunes number on it. This suits him very well and the vocal range on display is schweeeeet!
1850: “Voulez vous chantez avec moi?” Why are the BBC chaning the lyrics? Not surprising the panel are bigging up Jade. I wonder if they’ll do the same for Mark?
1848: It’s Lady Marmalade and poured into a catsuit – but it’s not really a song is it? More a good dance with shouty lyrics and some warbling. Not a good choice in my opinion for Jade. She needs more Diva than Dance.
1846: First up, Jade, who was saved last week and goes in as the third placed runner to all intents this week.
1845: While we can’t win the overall Eurovision Song Contest tonight, but we can loose it if we (as a country) choose incorrectly.
1843: Mark and Jade are handling Making Your Mind Up, but The Twins have a very frail singing voice on backing vocals.
1840: Three acts tonight, singing three songs. One is a repeat of a favourite song from previoous shows one is a new choice, and they will each sing their interpretation of the UK Eurovision song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Diane Warren – which took them two hours. Quality
1839: The big fear going into the show tonight is the UK public decide to put through a novelty act like Scooch instead of a true singer like Cyndi. This of course happened in the 2007 UK national Finals, and Scooch did really badly. Just like Ireland did with Dustin the Turkey in their public vote last year
1838: Total Wipeout comes to an end – the American version is so much better. How did the BBC get this one wrong?
1825: Before that of course you have to sit through Richard Hammond commentary vehicle Total Wipeout. It’s such a poor lead-in to the Eurovision show.
