Eurovision Song Contest 2007 -- woo-HOO!

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, the Eurovision Song Contest is a Europe-wide (plus some others, like Turkey and Israel) sort of American Idol with one song from each country. It started in 1956 and now is in its fifty-first year. Norway won in 1985 and got to host ESC the following year here in Bergen at the Grieg concert hall. Ask a Norwegian which Norwegian act won ESC and with what song, and they WILL know: Bobbysocks with "La det svinge" ("Let it Swing").
In all those fifty-one years, the two biggest acts launched at ESC were ABBA and Celine Dion. That gives you a very good idea about the type of music you hear -- happy Europop and ballads. Very silly, but its very kitschy silliness is probably a lot of the appeal. You also get some very interesting performances. A few years ago the Israeli entry, a male group, performed while dancing a Britney Spears-type routine in drag as airline stewardesses. I am not making this up, I swear to God. The Russian girl duo t.A.T.u. should have won in 2003 but the Irish national telecom screwed up the vote count. They were dressed like Catholic schoolgirls and started making out in the middle of the song. Now THAT'S must-see TV.
Saturday night was the first Norwegian semi-final. The winners?

Torhild Sivertsen & The Funky Family – Love on the dance floor



If you want to risk not being able to get the song out of your head ever, click this link.
http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/221755

Torhild Siversen is a local from the Bergen suburb of Askøy. She has been in the business 20+ years and appeared in skintight gold lame trousers that did not exactly complement her figure. She was backed by two guitarists with huge Afros and a female drummer. The guitarists used to be a band called Brothers when they were the only two black guys in Norway, but those days are gone and now they're part of a Funky Family instead. The song is really catchy and I haven't gotten it out of my head since, which probably tells you a lot about why it won. The other songs were mostly forgettable and I've already forgotten them.
After the performance Torhild started a evening-long tradition of kissing audience ass since it was the TV audience that would decide the winner, stating that she wanted to bring the whole audience home with her. These brownnosing appeals got more and more obvious over the course of the evening and I expected the last act of the night to start throwing keys to their hotel rooms out into the crowd. Maybe they did -- I missed their performance when my brother called.

Blue Moon Band – Goodbye to yesterday

Eh. A male-female pair, sort of like well-nourished Carpenters gone Euro. Song didn't say anything much, sort of a "look forward, not back" message, but they sounded pleasant enough.



Marika Lejon – Perfect sin

This was the exotic act. The singer is half Czech and went for Mata Hari-like sex appeal with bright pink hair. She dressed for a ballad but the song was more poppy than sultry. Apparently I'm the perfect sin, though. She seemed to really want to emphasize that.



Marianne Solberg – Livets små stjerner

Good to see someone not pander to the English speakers. She was dressed in white like some sort of ice fairy and sang this ballad about the beautiful moments in life and how we should concentrate on them. "Life's Little Stars" is the title in English. Not bad but I don't remember much else.



Stian Joneid – Are you ready

This guy came out in blue shirt and jeans with an acoustic guitar and sang a peppy little song about being ready for summer. After the rain and cold of winter, this got an enthusiastic audience response, but not enough to win.



Infinity – Hooked on you



As I mentioned, I missed this song since my brother called. Here's the song, which is very Ace-of-Base, and which, along with "Love on the Dance Floor" advanced to the national finals.

http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/221750

Anyway, to sum up, an ethnically diverse ABBA and an Ace of Base clone beat out Celine Dion (Mariane Solberg), the Carpenters (Blue Moon Band), a Czech-Norwegian Averyl Levigne dressed like Diana Krall (Marika Lejon), and a poppy Garth Brooks (Stian Joneid).

From what I've seen of the ESC, let me just say that Torhild Sivertsen & The Funky Family look like they have what it takes to go all the way this year. It's a catchy pop tune people will be humming to themselves days after the broadcast. She should really get a different pair of pants, though. Dockers are comfy, or maybe Old Navy cargoes....