★★★★★ 0/5

Europe falls in love with Norway’s “Fairytale”

The bookies were right. Norway's Alexander Rybak has taken out Eurovision 2009 in a landslide win with "Fairytale."

26
Leave a comment

img_8345Once again, the bookies had it right from Day #1.

Norway’s Alexander Rybak has won Eurovision 2009. He finished with a huge 387 points.

In second place was Iceland’s Yohanna with “Is it true?” on 218 and third place was Azerbaijan’s AySel & Arash “Always” on 207.

The charismatic 23 year old Rybak turned on an energetic performance with his violin and accompanying dancers, continually winning 12 point votes from across Europe. Last year the bookies tipped Dima Bilan to win. Maybe they should just trim the show by dumping televoting and letting the bookies decide?

It was a spectacular opening kicking off with Cirque de Soleil and a lavish acrobatic floorshow.

The musical acts had it all this year from earnest ballads, thumping dance tracks, piano accordions, mime artists and fire jugglers.

England borrowed the staging production from Dancing with the Stars, and possibly Phantom of the Opera, with a staircase, violinists and Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. The camera spent a good deal of time on him smiling from behind the ivories. Funny no other musicians seemed to enjoy as much camera time as LLAW. There was even a chandelier superimposed in this most imposing of songs, but unlike a certain famous musical, it didn’t plummet on Ms. Ewen.

Greece’s entry “This is Your Night” by Sakis Rouvas had been a hot favourite. Co-composed by Australian songwriters Craig Porteils and Cameron Giles-Webb, it was a dance song bursting with energy by the assured Rouvas. He had come close in 2004 and co-hosted in 2006 but ended up 7th this year.

Denmark’s Ronan Keating-composition “Believe Again” didn’t fare too well either. The song by the band Brinck even sounded like the boyband vocalist. Was it sung with an Irish accent? Oh well, Ireland missed out from the second Semi Final this year, maybe they were cheering for Denmark instead.

Bosnia & Herzegovina sent the leftover cast members of Les Miserables.

Malta’s Chiara again impressed with her strong vocals on her ballad “What If We?” –performed without any backing dancers or singers and all the better for it. In previous contests, Chiara had finished third, then second. First still eludes her, landing 22nd.

Turkey all but copied its style from several years with an up-tempo Eastern-influenced song that combined tradition and dance music. Part Shakira, part Holly Valance, it was straight out of a red hot genie bottle.

Patricia Kaas had echoes of Edith Piaf in her dramatic, solo number crooned in her thick French accent. If Eurovision is about a singer and song Patricia knew it. And as a bona fide star in Russia and Eastern Europe she was a clear crowd favourite.

Some acts like Ukraine’s over-the-top “Be My Valentine” had stronger presentations than their compositions. With its Clockwork Orange-style props and semi-naked centurian gladiators it was as camp as they come.

Fans in the audience and the city were meserised by a consummate Russian production. There were even a couple of Aussie fans with a Go Pies flag. Crazy.

An hilarious interval clip parodied myths of Russia’s dancing bears, KGB, constant winter and vodka.

Eurovision was once again a worthy night of pop in all its camp gory and glory. Spasiba Moscow….

See you in Oslo.

Disclaimer: David Knox blogs Eurovision for SBS.

26 Responses

  1. @ Mia: There is no political voting. There are, however, cultural similarities between bordering countries that make their pop songs appealling to each other, as well as the fact that most countries enter well-known performers who have toured extensively in the region (last year’s winner was the Russian equivalent of Ricky Martin, with three platinum albums and an extremely high profile across Eastern Europe. That’s not “political”, that’s just common sense).

    The UK scored so well this year because they actually put some effort in for a change. Last year they sent a runner-up from a reality gameshow no-one outside the UK had seen – a few years before their act couldn’t sing in key. I get sing of the English whinging about their treatment when they spend no effort on staging, performance of technique. This year they actually put some effort in and they were rewarded. It was a terrible song, of course, but there you go.

  2. Re: Graham Norton. On the whole his commentary went down very well – I’ve seen very few criticisms of his commentary. It was a refreshing change from Wogan who in recent years had obviously tired of the contest and showed it very little respect, putting far too much down to politics and lamenting what the show wasn’t rather than just celebrating what it was.

  3. Here here Kai. 10 spoilt it for our family also – I agree… out of left field in an ad break. They knew! – Poor form 10 – Poor form – I won”t forget

  4. eurovision truly was great this year! amazing/hilarious songs, great set, funny hosts as per usual. SBS did a great job and Julia was fantastic. Great show.

  5. @ John Richards

    Yes, Wogan was *very* bitter last year. But I hardly think his ramblings on political voting were a conspiracy theory. You’d have to be blind not to see it happening. And they actually changed the voting system this year, so that might go part of the way to explaining Norway’s success. I think it certainly had something to do with why the UK made the top 5.

  6. It was a great Eurovision this year! Songs were better, the set brilliant. Julia was great in her role. Although am surprised of the landslide of Norway – i thought turkey should have won!

  7. I thought Eurovision was terrible this year. The performances were as stupid as ever and that kid from Norway was horrid. The song was crap and lyrics were hilariously out of place.

    Greece or Malta should have won, even the UK was better.

  8. Is it just me or does the guy from Norway who won, look like Daniel Radcliffe without his (Harry Potter) glasses???

    I don’t think he deserved to win though – he was off key and the song/lyrics were awful. i thought his performance was one of the worst of the evening and not worthy of being in the top ten. I liked the Greeks and the finnish group.

    I really thought the real winner on the night was the backdrop and set design – absolutely awesome – Note to our Logies organisers – get the russians to organise it next year – what a fantastic display!!!

  9. I was so pissed off when during an ad break for Merlin the Channel 10 news update gave away the winner. I’m sure they did it on purpose to discourage people from watching.

  10. That show by russia will be almost imposible to top, from the brilliant stage to the interval performances (particularly liked the suspended pools) it was excellent.
    I didn’t mind Norway but I don’t think it was good enough to get twice as many points as anyone else.

  11. Loved Sam & Julia, agree it was such a nice change after the relentless bitterness of Wogan (also nice not to have to listen to his bizarre conspiracy-theory ramblings about “political voting” – I’m curious to see how he explains Norway’s win this year). I just hope SBS can afford a better microphone next year!

    I was a bit confused by the runaway success of Norway – while it certainly wasn’t bad, it didn’t do much for me, or the crowd at Glitch in North Fitzroy (going by crowd response, our runaway winner was Ukraine – she played the drums! while being pulled through fire! by half-naked centurions! Now that’s a night out).

  12. What a joke, the PQ on SBS supposed HD was unwatchable for anyone who cares about any sort of quality. SBS would have probably found it cheaper to take the genuine HD feed with Graham Norton from the BBC, rather than the expense of sending people to Moscow.

  14. My faves of the night were Iceland and Portugal.

    It’s just a shame the whole thing was an anti-climax at the end.

    Russia did a great job hosting it and I can’t wait to see what Norway does next year.

    For my 12 points for Norway (for live crosses) I would have said, “And as I open my book of voting results, what do I see? A fairytale! 12 points for Norway!”

  15. A worthy (and very cute!) winner there…only flicked to this a few times last night but seemed like a great show. Would love live Australian hosts backstage though for the telecast.

  16. I too loved Eurovision this yerar. The sets were awesome. I was barracking for Greece and Malta. Loved the French singer Patricia Kass, I thought she had an incredible voice. Also loved Iceland and Portugual’s entry.

    Loved Julia and Sam’s commentary too. David was wondering how Graham Norton’s commentary went down in the UK. He is a really funny guy. Any chance we will get a repeat of the telecast with his commentary like we have with Wogan’s commentary when we had alternate commentators for our coverage.

    Have to say loved Julia’s passion for the event. It is evident that she got quite a thrill being part of the event

  17. Spasiba Moscow!
    What a sensational competition it was this year. Less emphasis on mid-song costume changes and more emphasis on actual songs.

    They were good. Great job SBS as well. I especially loved their “Wogan’s not here’ t-shirts. Very nice.

    When Alexander received his trophy from the first ever Eurovision winner, he gave her such a huge hug I screamed out ‘careful with Nanna!’

    Also, major applause for the descending perspex swimming pools. OMG, they looked incredible!

    1. I saw Argentina’s entire Fuerza Bruta show overseas which is a breathtaking assault on your senses. The suspended pools, the running around the walls, the crashing through walls (Dima did this at the opener but it’s from this show). The audience stands in arena and moves around the floor as it envelops you. Will never forget it.

  18. It was so much better without Terry Wogan. But the hosts weren’t good again. Moscow had a great show lined up, but if you don’t have good hosts -it kinda ruins everything. The semi-finals hosts had no idea what they were doing and completely screwed up the show, but at least they were sort of interesting. The ‘Finals’ hosts looked professional and knew what they were doing… but they were boring – no chemistry there.

    Couldn’t be more happier with the winner myself. Loved Fairytale and alex is sooooooo hot lol. If Iceland won i would have been happy as well. Can’t wait til next year…

    (btw, dima bilan lip-syncing was the wrost thing out there. It should have been LIVE! Just like t.A.T.u’s performance.

  22. @TrojanTroy,

    I know what you mean. How frustrating was that spoiler drop!?! I spent 10 hours waiting just for the show by watching DVDs….what a waste of time!

    Anyway, SBS did a good job and I applaud their great work!

  23. What a fanstastic Eurovision! Ive watched it for about 25 of my 32 years and love it.the quality of the songs in the final this year was very high indeed..the changes to the voting have done the job, nowhere near as much politial voting this year, great to see France and UK in the top 10 this year, its been a long time since any Western European country did so well, cant wait for Oslo 2010!

  25. Hi David, I thought EV was great this year and SBS did a great job with coverage. Julia and Sam were great & I spent the night in the SBS chatroom which was fun as well (despite the MAJOR spoiler dropped by one of their own un-moderated chatters at 9.59 telling everyone who had won). There seemed to be a strong push by fans as well as a tiny indication given by sbseurovision that next year we would get live coverage. Have you got any news or opinions on this matter?
    The full media blackout every year gets harder and harder to achieve!!

Leave a Reply