WARNING: Eurovision spoilers below.
The 2024 Eurovision Song Contest is underway, after a chaotic lead-up to the competition that saw one entrant disqualified amid rumours others had also wanted to bow out in support.
And after all contestants (bar the Netherlands) performed, the reading of the votes got off to a chaotic start as the hosts cut to EBU boss Martin Österdahl to confirm the votes had been counted.
Österdahl’s appearance on screen was met with a chorus of boos from the audience in the arena, making their feelings clear about how the organisation had handled the Dutch entry.
The booing continued minutes later, as the broadcast cut to Israel to hear their jury points.
SBS commentators Myf Warhurst and Joel Creasey, who are inside the arena, reported that many audience members had turned their backs as Israel’s delegate delivered her country’s jury votes. Minutes later, Germany copped another boo from the audience when they revealed their jury had awarded 8 points to Israel.
Netherlands gets the boot
Netherlands’ entry, singer Joost Klein’s hi-NRG Eurodance song Europapa made him an audience favourite – but he was dramatically booted from the contest overnight after a backstage incident involving a camerawoman.
Klein was alleged to have made threatening language during a disagreement with the crew member, and after some deliberation, was disqualified by Eurovision organisers the EBU (Eurovision Broadcasting Union).
Each artist takes to the stage to wave their country’s flag at the start of today’s Grand Final; Netherlands simply showed an empty stage, with Klein not present.
The fallout is still being felt: Dutch broadcaster Avrotros threw the contest into more disarray, announcing minutes before the Grand Final started that the Netherlands will not publicly hand out their country’s points for the other contestants during the Grand Final.
“We do not feel the need to hand out the points of the Dutch jury,” the company wrote in a statement. “We imagined this evening very differently.”
One Eurovision fan called the last-minute move “extraordinary”:
Dutch YouTuber Nikkie de Jager was due to announce the results from the Netherlands, but said in a video statement that she had decided “to not give the points during the show. I’m glad with the support and freedom I’m given to make this decision.”
And amid the drama, an even more extraordinary statement from Dutch TV presenter Cornald Maas, interviewed by press on the ground at Malmo. Maas claimed that Klein had been “bothered” by the crew member on “multiple occasions” before he allegedly snapped at her.
He finished with a succinct message for Eurovision organiser, the EBU: “F**k the EBU.”
Israel controversy rages
Every other artist performed duing he grand final – which seemed like it might not the be the case hours earlier. There were reports that entrants from Ireland, Portugal, Switzerland and the UK had been in “crisis talks” with the EBU and had been considering withdrawing from the competition.
This is in part due to Klein’s disqualification but also due to perhaps the most contentious issues at this year’s contest: Israel’s participation. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Malmo this week, demanding Israel be disqualified, due to the country’s ongoing military operation in Palestine.
Israel’s entry Eden Golan performed fifth – bumped up a spot in the running order due to the Dutch artists’s disqualification. As with all her other performances this week, loud boos could be heard amid the cheers on the broadcast – and the booing seemed even louder in the arena:
Despite the boos, Israel is expected to place well in today’s Grand Final. An apparent error during the semi-finals saw one country, Italy, publicly reveal the usually-secret percentages of their public vote: It showed that Israel had received almost 40% of Italy’s viewer votes to make it into the grand final, a massive lead. If that’s indicative of how other countries will vote, we could expect Israel to get a huge portion of the public votes today.
Ireland’s wonderfully freaky entry
Riverdance this was not. Satan horns, black eyes, pentagrams … Irish entry Bambie Thug made infamous 2006 Eurovision winners Lordi look like The Wiggles by comparison. Their song Doomsday Blue was like watching a horror movie play out live on stage: Dark, disturbing and sure to upset a few pearl-clutching viewers. Crucially, underneath all the bells and whistles, they also had a great song.
“LOVE WILL ALWAYS TRIUMPH HATE!” the artist yelled in an unscripted moment at the end of their performance. It followed a drama-filled lead-up to the contest – Bambie had refused to participate in final rehearsals for the Grand Final, and had said they were “angry” at Israel’s commentators for voicing negative opinions about their performance.
“I’m angry with other teams breaching their rules of the EBU, and still being allowed in,” Bambie said.
“So there’s definitely a war drum sounding in my heart to push the performance even more than I have done before.”
A healthy dose of nudity
Finland’s Windows95Man brought the energy up with No Rules!, emerging from a giant egg pantsless. He was actually wearing a flesh coloured G-string, but the whole song is basically an excuse for elaborate setpieces teasing that the singer was moments away from flashing his junk to the world. Mercifully, by the bridge he’d slipped into some denim cut-offs.
Spain’s entry Nebulossa also flashed a bit of flesh – not from their singer, the oldest participant this year at 56, but from her thong-and-corset-clad male back-up dancers.
A few songs later, Slovenia’s singer Raiven soared through the high notes of her song Veronika - all while wearing a complely see-through catsuit, surrounded by a gaggle of near-nude dancers:
Loreen dazzles... yet again
Reigning queen of Eurovision, two-time winner Loreen, returned after taking out the win last year to debut her new single Forever with a spectacular performance that served as a tribute to her own core strength.
Strapped into a Giger-esque high metal chair, Loreen bent forth and back as she performed the anthemic new song, before it segued into the song that gave her the win last year, Tattoo.
Sure, she was only the halftime entertainment... but how about we crown her again?
ABBA ‘reunion’ a flop
Pop fans were sent into a frenzy in the days leading up to the Grand Final with the news that ABBA would appear during half time. A reunion performance? A rare sighting of all four members, now well into their 70s, back together?
Sadly not - it was actually the ABBAtars, the digitally rendered likenesses of the band at the peak of their fame, appearing briefly to entertain audiences with some awkward patter.
ABBA’s light and music show featuring the slightly eerie ABBAtars has been entertaining audiences in London for a couple of years now, with Melbourne rumoured to be the show’s next outpost.
Australia crashes out
With Australia this year not progressing past the semi-finals, we do at least have an Aussie in the mix: Cyprus’ entry, 17-year-old Silia Kapsis, was born and raised in Sydney. She even gave Australia a quick shout-out after she’d performed her track, the infectious pop song Liar.
But one of this year’s biggest Eurovision stories – at least for us Aussies – came earlier in the week, when our entry Electric Fields crashed out of the competition during the first semi-final.
More Coverage
The Aussie duo’s performance of their song One Milkali (One Blood) landed them in the bottom five out of the 15 acts that performed at Wednesday’s semi-final one, thereby eliminating them from the competition before the grand final.
They became only the second Aussie act, after Montaigne in 2021, to fail to make it to the grand final in the decade Australia’s been competing in Eurovision.
Watch the full replay of the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest 7:30pm Sunday on SBS.
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2024-05-11 20:52:55Z
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