We wuz robbed! #765 in an ongoing series...

Another fantabulosa time was had by all on Saturday, as the clans gathered from all over and descended on Dolores Delargo Towers for our Grand Eurovision party!

As usual, everyone pulled out all the stops on their costumes [everyone gets nominated a country for dressing-up/flag-waving, one for food and a third for booze]!

Of course, once the televisual feast began in earnest, all mayhem broke loose as usual - as we scored each of the twenty-five participating countries. Much shouting, jeering and cheering - especially for plucky little Olly!

There was some really weird stuff on offer - none more so than Ireland's Bambie Thug [a personal fave]!

There was also the usual profusion of gimmicky sets, unusual instruments, pyrotechnics, strobes, smoke machines, outlandish costumes and gyrating semi-naked male dancers (hurrah!). It wouldn't be Eurovision if you weren't completely boggled by it all...

Having tallied up all the booze-stained scoresheets, our gang's Top Five were as follows:

1. United Kingdom: Olly Alexander - Dizzy [...and we thought boxing was a butch sport?!]

2. Finland: Windows95man - No Rules! [or should that be "no pants"?]

3. Spain: Nebulossa - ZORRA [let's hear it for the boys!]

4. Switzerland: Nemo - The Code [how the hell did Nemo not fall off that spinning thing?]

5. Croatia: Baby Lasagna - Rim Tim Tagi Dim [possibly the "most Eurovision" song title of the lot!]

Inevitably, our choices were somewhat at odds with both the jury and the public votes...

But first - the interval acts! Our hosts Malin Åkerman and Petra Mede teased us with a performance from a Swedish super pop group “beginning with an A”... It wasn't that one, it was Alcazar!

Of course, there had to be some Abba - their "Abba-tars" from the Abba: Voyage show made a special appearance in place of the "real thing"...

...and there was a faboo Abba tribute, by previous contest-winners Carola, Charlotte Perrelli and Conchita Wurst:

All that done and dusted, it was time for the tortuous bit - first off, the votes from all 37 juries. Once these started to roll in, we began to realise that unlike in this country, Olly's song was not that popular across the rest of Europe. Or is it the inevitable political voting - "anyone but the UK"? In any case, we only got 46 votes! Forty-bloody-six.

The jury favourites were:

Switzerland - 365
France - 218
Croatia - 210
Italy - 164
Ukraine - 146

At least we had Dame Joanna Lumley to cheer us up:

Sweetie, darling! Dame Joanna Lumley at Eurovision 2024

To add insult to injury, then came the even more turgid business of announcing the public phone-in votes, and...

...the UK got nothing! Nil points. Nada. From any fucker in the world.

Talk about feeling rejected. The screams of outrage from our living-room could probably have reached Malmo!

In contrast, that scrawny little bitch from Switzerland ended up with a massive 591 combined points and won the Eurovision Song Contest, despite the fact that Croatia, Israel, Ukraine and France were all more popular with the public.

Deep sigh.

The party was fantabulosa! Sir Tel approved

Never mind, eh? - same time, same place next year?

Of course!!!

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FOOTNOTE: Apologies for the blank pink placeholders for every video; this is because my US chums tend not to be able to view the official Eurovision Song Contest videos, so I have downloaded and upoloaded all of them direct to Blogger. See how good I am to you, dear reader?

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PS:

I haven't forgotten it's a Tacky Music Monday just because I'm on holiday!

It's a Eurovision blog post.

How much more fucking tacky do you want?!

Flying the Flags

We're only a few weeks away from the biggest event this country has seen in decades!

No, not the Coronation - the Eurovision Song Contest (being held in Liverpool)!!

For no particular reason other than I want to, here are just fifteen of my personal favourites from the world's largest, shinest and campest music festival (now in its 67th year)...

Conchita Wurst - Rise Like a Phoenix

Verka Serduchka - Dancing Lasha Tumbai

Gina G - Ooh Aah...Just A Little Bit

Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up

Abba - Waterloo

Loreen - Euphoria

Scooch - Flying The Flag

Giorgos and Friends - Opa!

Dana International - Diva (Israel)

Jedward - Lipstick

Katrina & The Waves - Love Shine a Light

Netta - Toy

Bardo - One Step Further

Alexander Rybak - Fairytale

Subwoolfer - Give That Wolf A Banana

The Eurovision Song Contest final will be held on 13th May 2023.

I can't wait!

History repeating...

We wuz robbed! Again.

The UK entry in the Eurovision Song Contest might not have been our taste, but it (and singer Michael Rice) wasn't so bad that it deserved to come last in the contest - there was certainly a helluva lot worse on offer on Saturday night...

Our gang gathered en masse at the completely flag-bedecked Dolores Delargo Towers once more - all dressed for the occasion, and champing at the bit for the "Gay World Cup" to come. As ever, I do the allocations for the guests - one country for costume/flag, one for booze and one for food each - and as ever, they did not disappoint!

Among the representatives, we had a Swedish flag on legs, a character from a Breugel painting (Netherlands), a Thor (Norway) and an S&M Viking (Iceland):



... and there was a frou-frou Czech national, a Portuguese peasant, an Israeli girl folk dancer with a beard - and... Bernadette from Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Australia)!



Every surface was creaking with morsels (and drink, of course) in the copious buffet, and we had plenty of time for libations and merriment (and an "ooh-ah" at the extensive gardens) before - scorecards in hand - we prepared for the "songs" to begin.

As is expected every year, it was a mixed bag. We loathed the "virtue signalling" French entry, the German "sisters" and the execrable (and most peculiar-looking) couple from Slovenia; but on the whole, a vast number of the entries committed the cardinal sin of just being boring - including the eventual winner from the Netherlands. As my sister said, loads of “we are all one, love, unity, love, children, bunnies”.

Host Graham Norton was on top form, as usual, with his sly back-handed compliments and hilarious asides - but even he could not save us.

The official voting system (first the jury votes, then the public ones) caused some wild variations in the final winners' table - for the first half of the voting, it was a neck-and-neck race between the North Macedonian and Swedish entries, but the public preferred Italy, Russia (of course, given the number of Eastern European ex-pats), Switzerland and the Dutch:

1 Netherlands
2 Italy
3 Russia
4 Switzerland
5 Norway

We, on the other hand, had a rather different Top 5. In ascending order:

5:

John Lundvik - Too Late For Love (Sweden, Eurovision Song Contest 2019)

4:

Miki - La Venda (Spain, Eurovision Song Contest 2019)

3:

Chingiz - Truth (Azerbaijan, Eurovision Song Contest 2019)

2:

Hatari - Hatrið mun sigra (Iceland, Eurovision Song Contest 2019)

1:

KEiiNO - Spirit In The Sky (Norway, Eurovision Song Contest 2019)

Our ultimate favourite Norway was the only one that was in the "real" Top 5 (in fifth place). It is a fabulous production number - and where else but Eurovision would you hear rapping in Saami (the language of Lapland)? And yes! We did love those "rebellious Icelanders" - the ones who, controversially, waved Palestine flags at the camera during the voting, to piss off the Israeli hosts - BDSM and all. However, although he did not get as low a score as in the real contest, the UK entry was not one of the most popular round our place...



And what of Madonna's much-vaunted half-time performance? Hmmm. Not one of her best, we agreed. As Ed Power in his (two-star) review for the Telegraph summed it up perfectly:

Coming on after an evening of glitz, kitsch and Australians wobbling on huge sticks, Madonna seemed to find it difficult to read the room. The result was a turn that felt skittish and which, for all its ambition, never truly connected.

It didn’t help that her voice didn’t quite hit the peaks we know it can. Nor at any point did she appear to be be enjoying herself. Her trip to Israel had been condemned by pro-Palestine groups. Madonna had responded by saying she would “never stop playing music to suit someone's political agenda” and would pray “for a new path toward peace”. She certainly presented an unbowed figure on the night. But had the criticism unmoored her slightly?

The idea that Madonna could turn up at Eurovision dressed as a one-eyed space pirate, surrounded by humming monks, yet fail to add to the camp quotient obviously sounds absurd. Nevertheless, she did slightly suck the heat out of the room as she kicked off with a scary goth version of Like A Prayer.

She appeared at the top of a stairs that seemed to have been pinched from the set of Game of Thrones. This in itself was a distraction. Madonna and steps haven’t had the happiest of histories and her tumble at the 2015 Brit Awards will have been on the minds of many watching at home (you can bet it was on Madge’s).

But, to her credit, she made it all the way down. There her treat was an appearance by two further singing monks carting huge styrofoam battering rams.

The excitement wasn’t over (actually it hadn’t really begun) as she segued into her new single Future, for which she was joined by rapper Quavo [in an interview beforehand Quavo revealed he was delighted to be at Eurovision despite seemingly having learned of the existence of Eurovision five minutes earlier].

Here Madonna abandoned any pretence at trying to win over the Eurovision audience. This was a grim, auto-tuned number that wanted very badly to be a Soundcloud rap banger. Her dancers were obviously now wearing gas-masks while the video screens projected images of flames and grim-looking world leader types. It takes a lot to reduce a Eurovision audience to a mass of restless moochers. But Madonna managed it.

Perhaps the crowd was fed up from all the waiting. All evening we’d been teased about an exclusive Madonna appearance. We knew she was in the building, having arrived in Tel Aviv earlier in the week on the private jet of Israel-Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams.

The expectation was that once all 26 singers were done, we’d cut to a mad-for-it Madge and her monks. Instead the slightly seat of its pants production forced us to watch the “one of the world’s greatest mentalists” and to then applaud a woman dressed as a banana singing about bananas.

This was weird but not nearly as weird as Madonna in the contestants’ green room. She was in full intergalactic corsair outfit and being interviewed by one of the terrified hosts. When she failed to laugh at one of his jokes and instead glared at her trousers you could almost see his soul leave his body. It got stranger – of course it did – as Madonna forced the Eurovision hopefuls to sing the chorus of her 2000 quasi-hit Music, in furtherance of world peace. Even with world peace on the line they didn’t really seem into it.

All of which led up to the actual performance. Madonna, her monks and gas masks having creeped out 200 million viewers at home, will have concluded that she at least got our attention. The organisers may have wished they’d asked Kylie instead.

Ouch.

For us, the best part of the whole evening was the segment where four previous winners of the contest were invited to perform winning songs originally done by other artists...

Conchita Wurst, Måns Zelmerlöw, Eleni Foureira, Verka Serduchka - "Switch Song" (Eurovision Song Contest 2019)

Sorry, Madge - but that's what Eurovision is all about... [And all eminently suitable for a Tacky Music Monday, of course!]

Same time, same place, next year? Of course!

Any excuse, really...

...to feature Conchita Wurst (again)...

It's her birthday today - happy 30th, Conchita!!

Conchita Wurst - Rise Like A Phoenix

I will never tire of that song...

...but how about something rather different? A diva-stravaganza!

Conchita Wurst with guest star Trevor Ashley sing songs of Shirley Bassey in Sydney, Australia

Faboo!

From the fading light I fly

This house is cleannnn! The flags are up [that's not them in the picture!], the buffet just needs preparation, and all is well for tonight's Eurovision Song Contest party. Apart from the weather, which has decided to turn to shit...

Hey ho, we'll have a faboo time even if our smokers do get soaked while standing outside. I do, of course, feel the urge to play a classic Eurovision song to kick the festivities off - but what to play? I played Bucks Fizz yesterday. I have never played Brotherhood of Man, and don't intend to start now. How about Abba? Katrina and the Waves? Volare [yes - it did begin life at Eurovision, before Dean Martin got his mitts on it]? Scooch? Verka Serduchka? Jedward?

No.

It just HAS to be The Queen of Eurovision!

Conchita Wurst - Rise Like A Phoenix

Waking in the rubble
Walking over glass
Neighbours say we’re trouble
Well that time has passed

Peering from the mirror
No, that isn’t me
Stranger getting nearer
Who can this person be

You wouldn’t know me at all today
From the fading light I fly

Rise like a phoenix
Out of the ashes
Seeking rather than vengeance
Retribution
You were warned
Once I’m transformed
Once I’m reborn
You know I will rise like a phoenix
But you’re my flame

Go about your business
Act as if you’re free
No one could have witnessed
What you did to me

Cause you wouldn’t know me today
And you have got to see
To believe
From the fading light I fly

Rise like a phoenix
Out of the ashes
Seeking rather than vengeance
Retribution
You were warned
Once I’m transformed
Once I’m reborn

I rise up to the sky
You threw me down but
I’m gonna fly

And rise like a phoenix
Out of the ashes
Seeking rather than vengeance
Retribution
You were warned
Once I’m transformed
Once I’m reborn
You know I will rise like a phoenix
But you’re my flame

Nothing tonight will beat that.

Save your Waterloo Ding Dong Phoenix for Me

Our little gang had another faboo night out on Sunday - the return of the extravaganza that is West End Eurovision!

Basically, the premise of the event - a major fundraiser for the charity Make A Difference Trust (aka TheatreMAD), which supports HIV and AIDS projects that build awareness and provide care, support and education in the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa - is that the casts of renowned West End musicals all perform song'n'dance numbers from former entries in the Eurovision Song Contest, before a panel of judges, with votes from panels from each competing show and an audience vote at the end to decide the winner. A bit like the real thing, but with a West End twist.

And just like the real thing, the audience was about 99% composed of gay men! Understandably so, as just about every second of it - from our MC, veteran Music Hall player Richard Gauntlett, to the judges: former Hot Gossip chorographer and stalwart of Strictly Come Dancing Arlene Phillips, former Eastenders actor and West End star John Partridge, and, campest of the lot, comedian, actor, and writer Tom Allen; the performances themselves, and the plethora of surprise guests (in person and in the "ident" videos) - was as camp as knickers, dear...

Here, for your delectation, is a summary of the contest highlights, courtesy of Scott Matthewman, in his excellent review on The Reviews Hub [how I despise that word!] website:

...While the cast of Hamilton start strongly, with a rendition of 2014 Denmark entry Cliché Love Song that is mashed up with their show’s own The Schuyler Sisters, it is pleasant enough but no more. One almost wonders whether, if this is all West End Eurovision has to offer, its revival was worth it...

...A couple of shows’ choices, both of song and creative performance, veers towards the traditional Eurovision style of presentation. In particular, Kinky Boots’ choice of Warrior, Georgia’s 2015 entry, fits in with the musical’s message of acceptance and defiance, while Mamma Mia! seems to step away from its everyday life of Abba-infused camp with a rendition of Undo (Sweden, 2014) that is rather too serious.

At the other end of the scale, the cast of Young Frankenstein perform a rendition of Sweden’s 1999 entry Take Me To Your Heaven with a tongue-in-cheek rendition that seeks to cast show’s matriarch Lesley Joseph in the role of God, while Aladdin’s performance of the Danish 2007 entry Drama Queen relies on muscular men in leather harnesses and an oversized drag queen – performance staples that go down well amongst an audience which is predominantly composed of gay men.

The best performances tend to be those that take a well-known Eurovision number and take it in a new direction. 42nd Street chose UK winner Boom-Bang-a-Bang for this treatment – initially performing it reverentially in a 1969-style performance, until an interruption from Lulu (the song’s original singer, and who has recently joined the 42nd Street cast) causes the cast to break out into a samba-infused version.

But this is eclipsed by the cast of Dreamgirls, who similarly start with a “straight” version of Making Your Mind Up, before junking it in favour of a hyped-up, soulful rendition that is both 100% Dreamgirls and also a thrilling and faithful interpretation of the original.

Good as it may be, though, it is the cast of The Phantom of the Opera that dominates the proceedings...

...Choosing Rise Like a Phoenix, Conchita Wurst’s 2014 winner for Austria, [it] initially looks like it is going to be a straightforward performance, the combination of beautiful golden dress and full facial beard channelling Wurst’s signature look. But as the backing performers emerge, it is clear the Phantom team are running with the idea. Women from other West End shows, including Donna from Mamma Mia! and Elphaba from Wicked, are recreated with their own beards, before being joined by other hirsute theatrical characters – Harry Potter’s Dumbledore, The Greatest Showman’s Bearded Lady, even Cousin It from The Addams Family.

It’s a performance which is simultaneously bonkers, bold and brilliantly executed. It comes as no surprise, then, when in the scoring part of the evening Phantom takes an early lead and only pulls further ahead with each round of scores. It is an appropriate win, as guest Graham Norton points out as he hands over the trophy: in recent weeks, Conchita Wurst has been forced to discuss her HIV status in public after facing blackmail threats from a former boyfriend, and her refusal to treat her diagnosis as a source of shame is the sort of message that TheatreMAD works hard to promote.

The show concludes with two genuine Eurovision performances. As with previous West End Eurovision shows, a former entrant is invited to perform. Last year’s entrant, Lucie Jones, is an appropriate choice for the event’s revival, as she is enjoying a career in musical theatre herself, currently on tour with Legally Blonde. And kicking off what is hopefully a new tradition for subsequent charity events, the UK’s current entry SuRie performs her entry, Storm.

But great as these performances are, it is the companies of the West End shows who deserve the greatest attention. With each performance predominantly undertaken by the junior members of each show’s ensemble, the evening is both a celebration of the depth of talent within the West End and a valuable fundraiser for HIV charities.

Long may it continue.

Amen to that!

There is (unfortunately) no footage of any of the actual performances from the night itself, but here is the "official ident" from Phantom crew, done in the style of [the improbably popular Channel 4 telly show about - erm - people watching telly] Gogglebox:

West End Eurovision Ident 2018 - The Phantom of the Opera

And here, again, is the UK's entry for the real, official Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon 2018:

SuRie - Storm

She was great - and let's hope she does well! Lucie Jones was great (with her "big gay hands in the air poppers o’clock remix of 'Never Give Up On You' to quote Eurovision blogger Monty on the OnEurope site). Graham Norton was great. Lulu was great. Phantom was great. In fact, everything about this was an absolute hoot - roll on next year (and roll on our Eurovision party in just a few weeks' time)!

TheatreMAD

Priks, Queers, Van Dobbens, ticker-tape, grachten, dancing in the streets and Conchita!

Needless to say, we had an absolutely fantabulosa time at Amsterdam Gay Pride over the weekend, pink moustaches and all - from the drag stage at the Amstel, to the Prik [yes, that is the name of a bar, as is "Queers"] party, to the cheese-music-fest at "Stopera" Waterlooplein, to the joyous Zeedijk street party, to the closing Rembrandtsplein "Free Festival" [even if we did get there too late to see Conchita Wurst perform, it was still a great event!].





We sang our tits off at the Sunday "oom-pah-music" singalong at Cafe 't Mandtje (in Dutch!), danced in the streets, ate (lots) of FEBO and Van Dobbens' broodje, walked for miles along the grachten, and drank copious quantities of fizzy lager [I hope not to even see another pint of bloody Heineken for at least another year]...

...but it was the Europride Canal Parade that was the most spectacular! Eighty floats, millions of spectators, crowds of happy boat people, muscle-men, rainbows, twinks, angels, drag queens, leather men, inflatable boat decorations, Conchita, hover-jetting superheroes and all - we stood in awe for hours.


[Conchita's the one in the brown frock behind the pink ticker-tape]






[There were some gorgeous go-go boys]


The water-jet display was wonderful!

Amsterdam Europride 2016 Flyboard show

[It's actually a windmill!]



A feast for the senses - and a brilliant way to celebrate [in advance; it's today] my birthday! Here's the official "theme song" for Europride 2016 - I Need A Miracle by Tara MacDonald:

Tara McDonald - I need a miracle

No. It is not good to be back.

It's quite theatrical

We're off to Sweden later [not literally, more's the pity], for the 61st Eurovision Song Contest [I am busy this morning dressing Dolores Delargo Towers with flags and bunting as we speak...]!

With its peculiar slogan - rather reminiscent of a contraceptive commercial - "Come Together", the contest - which last year alone had 200 million viewers - is for the first time being shown in America:

"Eurovision is a cultural phenomenon we have admired from afar for years," cable TV channel Logo general manager Chris McCarthy said. "We are thrilled to bring the event to U.S. audiences and cheer alongside the rest of the world."

For the uninitiated (and, unlike Australia, where fans have been going wild for Eurovision for years, there will be plenty in the States where it is never usually shown), CNN has provided a handy guide that includes this rather understated description:

It's quite theatrical. Think the Oscars, Grammys, Tony Awards, "American Idol," "The X Factor" and "America's Got Talent" all rolled into one - and then triple that.

Hilarious! Yet true.

And now, the Gallery...























More of the same tonight, please!!