Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Stockholm Syndrome
So! We're back from Stockholm now, and the Melodifestivalen final was all kinds of aceness, although there's something quite surreal about watching a show in a language you don't understand. Indeed, the only word of Swedish we managed to pick up on the trip was "Tack", which means "Thank You", which, in a desperate bid to try and appear all cosmopolitan and multi-cultural, we were using at every available opportunity, thanking all and sundry for their services, no matter how minor, or whether it was even appropriate to do so. Still, despite the language barrier we still managed to have a rough idea what was going on, and our tactic of "Clapping when everyone else does" ensured we wouldn't look like a disoriented hamster should any of the ever present cameras happen to catch site of us.
The show was hosted by Kristian Luuk, who we reckon should get Kate Thornton's job now that she's no longer doing the whole X Factor thing. Not only did he get more laughs, but he seemed to make a much better fist of the whole presenting thing. Indeed, he could come over, do the whole show in his native Swedish and still be a better host than Miss Thornton. Mind you, they could stick a plank of wood on stage and it would still be a better host than Kate, so perhaps Leona will have some sort of career after all.
As for the songs themselves, well, it's safe to say that both Andreas Johnson and Sebastian were robbed, with both their tracks - A Little Bit of Love and When The Night Comes Calling respectively - being mighty pop tunes of the sort which the UK would need to sweat night and day to come up with but which the Swedes seem to toss out as effortlessly as Westlife toss out another album full of godawful ballads. Which is not to say that the winner, The Ark with The Worrying Kind, is not itself an ace little glam rock-esque slice of tunage - it is - but it's just a little bit less ace than our own favourites. To be honest, we found the whole voting system a bit confusing, and not just because of our lack of Swedish, but we were pleased to see that Tommy Nilsson, a man who looks like your uncle who's labouring under the delusion that he's cool, received no points whatsoever for his dull ballad, Jag Tror På Människan, which we're reliably informed translates as I Believe in Mankind. The title tells you all you need to know about it, really.
Hmm, maybe we should have taken notes so that we could have written a better piece about it. Still, we enjoyed ourselves and that's all that matters. We did take some photos though, and as you'll be able to see, we got the sort of view that our power and influence in the world of pop truly deserves. If you suffer from vertigo you may wish to look away now:-
The warm up before the show began
Sanna's performance. We think. It's a bit hard to tell
The same performance from a different angle, i.e. we held the camera up a bit and didn't zoom quite so much. We're so professional.
The Ark, performing after being told they were victorious. Look at their excited happy faces! You may need to get quite close to your monitor to see this. We find getting close enough so that your nose presses against the screen provides the best view, though if you're Ashlee Simpson, you're not going to have much luck, nose job or no nose job.
The show was hosted by Kristian Luuk, who we reckon should get Kate Thornton's job now that she's no longer doing the whole X Factor thing. Not only did he get more laughs, but he seemed to make a much better fist of the whole presenting thing. Indeed, he could come over, do the whole show in his native Swedish and still be a better host than Miss Thornton. Mind you, they could stick a plank of wood on stage and it would still be a better host than Kate, so perhaps Leona will have some sort of career after all.
As for the songs themselves, well, it's safe to say that both Andreas Johnson and Sebastian were robbed, with both their tracks - A Little Bit of Love and When The Night Comes Calling respectively - being mighty pop tunes of the sort which the UK would need to sweat night and day to come up with but which the Swedes seem to toss out as effortlessly as Westlife toss out another album full of godawful ballads. Which is not to say that the winner, The Ark with The Worrying Kind, is not itself an ace little glam rock-esque slice of tunage - it is - but it's just a little bit less ace than our own favourites. To be honest, we found the whole voting system a bit confusing, and not just because of our lack of Swedish, but we were pleased to see that Tommy Nilsson, a man who looks like your uncle who's labouring under the delusion that he's cool, received no points whatsoever for his dull ballad, Jag Tror På Människan, which we're reliably informed translates as I Believe in Mankind. The title tells you all you need to know about it, really.
Hmm, maybe we should have taken notes so that we could have written a better piece about it. Still, we enjoyed ourselves and that's all that matters. We did take some photos though, and as you'll be able to see, we got the sort of view that our power and influence in the world of pop truly deserves. If you suffer from vertigo you may wish to look away now:-
The warm up before the show began
Sanna's performance. We think. It's a bit hard to tell
The same performance from a different angle, i.e. we held the camera up a bit and didn't zoom quite so much. We're so professional.
The Ark, performing after being told they were victorious. Look at their excited happy faces! You may need to get quite close to your monitor to see this. We find getting close enough so that your nose presses against the screen provides the best view, though if you're Ashlee Simpson, you're not going to have much luck, nose job or no nose job.
Labels: eurovision, melodifestivalen
