Eurovision 2023 Grand Final - thread 4

[GrandTheftWalrus]

Just incase anyone wants to carry on the chat.

I was singing their Eurovision song all the way through last night & it’s still in my head. I love it!

Finland was robbed! Such a pity.

DD just rolled her eyes when she saw Mae Muller was representing the UK, so if her core market isn't in her corner, who else would be?

The Croatian entry was bizarre but meant to be satirical, I'd say. Less a pop group than a collective of protest artists using song to get their messages across.

Did anyone else find that the quality if the songs or level of the artists experience didnt match the effort we put into the stage/production. Not clutching at straws here as I didn't rate the UK entry, but I thought maybe some of the more duller songs or more inexperienced artists didnt match the stage aspect with all the lights and big screens. It was very full on, but the songs stuck out as a bit crap against it all. I don't think that helped some of the entrants at all.

Graham really span it out though, and it’s quite possible someone in her group had figured out how many public votes were left and that she had won, so she had to keep pretending!

I didn't really like the staging tbh. I found it too dark. It felt like they were aiming for "serious song competition" with all the black and shiny instead of bright and colourful like Eurovision should be.

I don't understand how Israel did so well. The song was dire. Perhaps if Mae has worn a better outfit and lost her trousers mid song then she would have done better.

I went to the show last night so haven’t seen how it came across on TV. Mae Muller was really good so I’m not sure what happened.

UK, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria and Australia got the best reactions in the arena.

I didn't know why UK chose to go last. Our singer was already really nervous so waiting until last would have done her no good at all. And the first slot and last slot are universally renown as death slots.

Europe doesn't like us and won't vote for us despite the fact we pay a huge chunk of money towards it and this year we hosted it. If we threatened to pull our funding we'd probably win.

It's interesting that you say Mae Muller came across well in the arena because on tv it sounded like she'd been handed the only microphone in the building that was being relayed through someone's Bluetooth speaker rather than the arena sound system.

She quite possibly would have. But it wouldn't have hidden her bum notes!

The girl for Israel could have belted a better song.

The song wasn't great but it's singable for anyone who doesn't speak English too. And that's definitely something of a factor.

They didn't choose apparently. It was drawn. The UK and Ukraine got first draw. The rest of the line up was drawn in halves and then the producers picked the order.

I think we were lucky tbh. I think if we'd drawn anywhere in the first half we'd have bombed even more and got null points. No one has ever got null from performing last.

I didn't know why UK chose to go last.

It's a convention (may even be a rule) that the hosting country goes last.

The other songs are arranged by the producers to make sure the song type is varied and has the best chance of standing out, so you don't get a run of three ballads followed by a run of five pop songs.

No idea what the Israel singer was doing every time the camera came to her, like she was on some online camera video of another sort. So young and acting this way. Hated the way the old men were looking at her.

Mae’s song was great but she sang it so badly!

How can it be political if Sam came second last year (granted there was a reason why Ukraine came first).

Did the UK pay for all of that? So let’s say with Sweden they asked for that box thing? I think nowadays so much can be done by graphics/CGI? There seemed to still be a lot of expensive staging .

I only watched about the last half hour of performances and had been thinking how great the sound was, to the point that I thought it was being mimed. Then Mae came on and it was truly awful.

That's funny since the french entry was Canadian 😀

I'm obviously ancient but the Finnish guy made me annoy my family by going "Father, I killed a man". Also, I thought Loreen went bit Vic Reeves club singer at times.

perhaps the swedes got all the danish votes

There is also a long tradition of the previous winners (who are normally the hosts) finishing very poorly. It's difficult to separate cause and effect there.

For all those saying "they hate us", we just sent Ukraine their first 120 mile range missiles, but unfortunately even they have ears and didn't vote for us.

Incidentally, I happen to have been to four European countries in the past six weeks - people liked the song well enough - but Mae's performance last night was still the best she has MANAGED in the past month.

That's not good enough. Forget the rest of the 26, there were a good half dozen female soloists alone who knocked spots off her - AND put in a great dance performance.

Mae couldn’t dance or sing! Not sure how she got through!

Still the cost of it is abhorrent! Paid by us technically via the Government and the BBC https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/23517388.much-cost-host-eurovision-song-contest/

Liverpool Council spent £4mill doing local events. I hope as a country we make this money back somehow! Certainly not cheap to host

Are you having a laugh?

Have you any idea of the sheer numbers of people out and spending in Liverpool this week?

Thousands upon thousands. Food stall pitches were charged at £6000 for a week by the Council.

We've spent over a thousand pounds ourselves this week - tickets, food, dining in local restaurants, hotels. And we were probably on the conservative end of spending as we worked half the week.

We probably made the money back on VAT on fancy dress alone.

Honestly, I think it's more than a bit naive not to see that.

DH said Mae sounded like she was doing karaoke, and that’s about right imo. It just didn’t have any wow factor as a performance 🤷‍♀️ Loreen on the other hand absolutely belted that song out even if it was a bit meh. The Finns were robbed though!

We spent A LOT this week and I'm local and didn't need a hotel.

I haven't seen Liverpool as busy as that before. Not midweek mid-afternoon.

I believe that they think Liverpool itself will break even at least if not run a profit. Which is unheard of for a host city. I'm not surprised tbh.

Plus it's been good for the city in terms of it being cleaned up - which it needed and will do it good in other ways for a good while.

It's good for the BBC in terms of prestige and international reputation. That in turn is good for Britain in soft power terms.

I've just listened to Sweden and Finland and agree. Finland was a huge crowd pleaser, Sweden was a bit meh.