Lopez Blogs

Thanks to Sveriges Television and Y** T***, I was able to catch the semi final, not all of it though so it wouldn't be fair for me to review it. I will keep my review for the final. Suffice to say my jaw dropped to the floor when I found out which of the songs were going to the final. 'Western Europe' was almost wiped off the Eurovision map whilst 'Eastern Europe' marched on. Particularly gobsmacked that Switzerland and Iceland didn't make it - especially the latter as Eirikur gave a passionate and strong performance. Bulgarian wailing/Latvian opera/Hungarian blues/Slovenian opera etc etc, only Belarus (If Koldun keeps his best vocals for Saturday this is a serious contender) and Turkey (It's OK, but please restyle Kenan so that he doesn't look like a circus ringmaster) provided remotely interesting qualifiers. I still don't get Serbia and its rather creepy presentation, but will acknowledge that it will be top 5 tomorrow. At this point I will stick my neck out for "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" to win, although if it was down to personal preference there is only one winner for me - "The Worrying Kind" by The Ark, which will hopefully bring it back to Sweden, it's been 8 years since a win and Ola and the boys deserve it - even if they are far toooooo good for Eurovision: watch out for my review of their new CD "Prayer for the Weekend" which is rather great.
More Euro-chat from me tomorrow.