Whilst I agree he definitely slipped up in parts of that performance, he’s no different to a lot of the artists in Eurovision which are often new and upcoming artists with little experience. Remember that Dami didn’t get her semi-final performance perfect either, her semi final felt a little strained and out of sync with the graphics on the screen. It was the grand final where she got it right took it up a notch.
Having said that he wouldn’t have been anywhere near my first choice of an artist but he was superb with his live performances on X Factor and definitely a very talented guy. I mostly think it’s the song that has let him down. I don’t find it that exciting and he will probably rank somewhere middle of the pack at best during the final.
I saw the tail end of this and I enjoyed what I saw. Whilst they had commentary throughout the performances we still saw enough of each performance.
I agreed with the final few acts from the votes. Heroes and Euphoria for me were definitely the standout Eurovision performances of the last few years and Dami being Aussie and such a strong contender for winning deserved that ranking too.
I was also upset that Ding-A-Dong didn’t make to list Eurovision classic lyrics “There will be no sorrow when you sing tomorrow and you walk along with your ding-dang-dong”
I didn’t think it was that bad and the format was what I was expecting. It’s similar to the spevials they did for the 50th anniversary and one on the greatest hit songs out of Eurovision.
Agree that some if the comments were inane though and I would have liked to hear more of the actual songs. Maybe if they didn’t have the studio performers, they could have spent more time showing the songs themselves.
If they were to play all 40 songs in full the show would go for about 4 hours
I thought it was good enough for a clip show even if I hardly knew any of the “celebrities” doing their faux vox pops. Was great to see some of the former ESC contestants though, particularly Nina from Serbia who now lives in Melbourne.
My only disappointment was that it barely acknowledged anything pre-2000. ABBA of course got a mention, and Dana International, Johnny Logan, Sandie Shaw and Bucks Fizz. I thought they might have spread the representation of the decades out a bit more instead of focusing heavily on 2000 onwards. Maybe the millennials think nothing really happened before 2000?
Yes, I assumed it must have been a lot of Gen Y voting. I hadn’t even heard about voting before the show screened. There were quite a few songs from recent years which in my opinion were not memorable at all and there were a few I can think of which were not there.
As for the commenters, there were quite a few I’ve never heard of although I did enjoy hearing from the boys from DNA who wrote Dami Im’s song and have written a number of hits for others like The Veronicas and Delta Goodrem. It was good to hear their comments.
I don’t think Eurovision was very well known in Australia until the 2000s. The competition only really started gaining hype and much of a following here about 10 years ago.
That’s not true. It was big in the 90s. In fact it has been popular since it was first screened here more than 30 years ago otherwise SBS wouldn’t have persisted with it.
There is a history beyond the time you remember @Chris.
Going by @TelevisionAU’s brilliant website, coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest has been airing on SBS since 1983. I’m not sure if it had been shown on Australian TV prior to then but alongside the multicultural broadcaster’s longtime commitment to soccer coverage, Eurovision is one of those events which is distinctively SBS.
That sounds right because Jessica Mauboy was invited to sing at Eurovision as a guest in 2013 to celebrate Australia and SBS screening it for 30 years.
True. SBS didn’t give Eurovision the high profile of marketing and hosting/resources that it does now but even in the 1980s it used to be one of their highest rating shows of the year. I remember reading ratings reports particularly in the late 1980s that said that Eurovision would be giving SBS an overall share into double figures whereas the network’s normal nightly average was sitting on around 2s and 3s.
Given that Australian TV pre-SBS was mostly dominated by American, British and white Australian culture I can’t imagine much scope for Eurovision to have had any significant airing here before SBS picked it up, and I’ve certainly not been aware of anything. According to TV Week’s report at the time, “in the past, only short segments of the event have been seen on local networks”. What this specifically entailed is unknown. It could have been something as minor as a news report picked up off the satellite after the event had taken place.
It might have a bit more hype now but it was definitely popular before 2000! I remember watching it on SBS in the late 80s! And everyone knew ABBA won it even in the 70s. You’d also be surprised how well known a lot of those old Eurovision songs were in Australia right back in the 60s and 70s. E.g. Puppet on a string is an early childhood memory for me.
Molly Meldrum used to talk about Eurovision on Countdown. He was the one who picked up on the success of ABBA and exposed them to Australia which led to the rest of the world discovering them too. I can remember Bucks Fizz being hailed as the “next ABBA” too following their Eurovision success, which of course was ridiculous but they did alright.
I’m often quite happy to have Eurovision without any commentary at all. Although I am sorry to lose Julia Zemiro and even Sam Pang, who I dreaded in the first couple of years but he did grow into the role.
And I do love Myf. I didn’t think she was that bad from what I’ve seen. It is big shoes for her to fill and I think give her a year or two to really get into the swing of it.
Not a fan of Joel Creasey, though. I thought maybe Toby Truslove, who it appeared SBS were ‘grooming’ for a commentary role last year, might have got this gig. Maybe he knocked it back, I don’t know.
Eurovision classic lyrics “There will be no sorrow when you sing tomorrow and you walk along with your ding-dang-dong”
