I regret that I haven’t posted comments on the songs yet, but hopefully Daniela and I can get something up before we leave.

I also hope to update while in Norway, but that’s dependent upon Internet access there.

Not entirely on topic, nor is it off topic. However, I was discussing Eurovision with someone this evening (it’s a common occurrence if you’re me), and she told me of a drinking game she had played watching the Eurovision Song Contest. I found it interesting at the very least, and it perhaps says something about the triteness of Eurovision lyrics. This game would probably work best if you’re not into Eurovision, because, well, I’ll relay her story.

Round I: The Songs
Before the contest begins, gather everyone who’s going to play and each person picks a unique word that they think will appear in many of the songs. One that’s absurdly common is “love.”  Try also “dance,” “night,” or “heart.” Or if you’re Dustin the Turkey (Ireland 2008), “points.” Write that word on a piece of paper, and put it in a hat, then each person draws from the hat to determine their word. Whenever that word is mentioned — in any language — that person must drink.

If you’re feeling particularly evil, you could always look up the lyrics beforehand. The story that was relayed to me was that someone looked up the lyrics ahead of time and noticed that in one of the songs, “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” by Verka Serduchka (Ukraine 2007, and perhaps one of the most famous or infamous entries of the modern Eurovision era), the word “seven” was said an absurd number of times. Twenty-four, to be exact. (Yes, I counted.) So of course she put “seven” as the word into the hat. That didn’t turn out well.

Round II: The Points
During the intermission, put all the names of all the countries competing in the final into a hat. Each person draws an equal number of countries. When one of your countries is awarded eight points, take a drink. When one of your countries is awarded ten points, take two drinks. And when one of your countries is awarded twelve points, take a shot.

This could be really bad, if, for example, you picked Norway last year. That’d be 16 shots, plus a bunch of other drinks that I don’t feel like counting. At some point, you just have to give up.

So, what do you think? Ideas? Comments? Your own drinking game? Or perhaps this isn’t what you really wanted to see from me.

Daniela and I were lucky enough to get tickets to all three major events in Oslo, and we’ll be going there. With any luck, we can provide you updates from the show. Daniela has given me the great suggestion of doing some video updates from Oslo. This, of course, depends upon us having Internet access, so I can’t say for sure if I’ll be able to do this, but I hope to be able to give you some video from Oslo come May.

Expect more from me when I’m not bogged down in thousands of pages of reading for law school. (Like commentary on the songs selected.) I have no idea when that will happen.

Unrelated Notice: Our host has switched file servers for this site, and I’ve been informed that this may break some things. Hopefully it won’t, but if you notice something broken, drop me a line.

I found Belgium’s entry impressive, especially for a ten-year-old to be singing:

And the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s entry I think, with a little polishing, would have done quite well in the real contest. I don’t personally like it as much FYR Macedonia’s ESC entry this year, Nešto što kje ostane, but I think the song, with the right singer, could have done better. Maybe it would have made the final.

Malta staged a Chiara look-alike, which was quite interesting to watch. The Chiara look-alike didn’t have a voice anywhere close to Chiara’s, which I think was at its best in Angel in 2005 (interestingly, also in Kyiv)

Also appearing on stage in Kyiv tonight was Ani Lorak, Ukraine’s second place finisher in 2008, and yes, she performed “Shady Lady.”

The Netherlands ended up winning. Enjoy their promo video.

Well, the Olympic gold medalist moved away from Eurovision and back to real figure skating on a normal sized rink and won the World Grand Prix series in Moscow. While Eurovision has left Moscow and is on its way to Oslo, its stars certainly have not.

Last night I had the privilege of attending a Eurovision party at the House of Sweden hosted by the Swedish Embassy, surrounded by such stars in the Eurovision world as Christer Björkman, producer for Sveriges Television and head of delegation for Sweden, Fred Bronson, reporter and Eurovision expert, and Anna Sahlene, who’s competed in Eurovision. (Fred has also expressed a willingness to contribute to Eurovision America. Whether that’s reporting or his experiences, it is quite an honor to have a reporter of his caliber writing for our little blog.)

Once I finally catch up with my RSS feed, I’ll provide some commentary on recent Eurovision news.

First, Telenor Arena it is! Yeah, yeah, the EBU is calling it Fornebu Arena, which is its old name. It’s called Telenor, but because Telenor is not a corporate sponsor of Eurovision Song Contest, the venue can’t bear the Telenor name. It should be a fun venue, as it’s supposed to seat 23,000. That’s about as big as a place I’ve ever seen a concert in (biggest is the now-demolished Charlotte Coliseum in Charlotte, NC, which held 23,780 for a concert). Obviously, it’s way too early to start hearing a word about tickets. Hopefully the Norwegians will handle it a little better than the Russians. I can’t imagine what it was like to try to get a ticket if you didn’t speak Russian. My main concern with Telenor Arena is that it’s not easily accessible from the city center, being in the suburb of Bærum. The Russians figured something out for running the metro after hours, though, so I have complete confidence that the Norwegians will make it work for the thousands of foreigners who will come for the concert.

Second, the most recent UK contestant, Jade Ewen, winner of Eurovision: Your Country Needs You and fifth-place finisher in this year’s final, has released a new single, which has me saying, “What?” She was supposed to be a West End musical star, and she’s released what sounds to me like the stereotypical American pop song. Take a listen from the BBC via YouTube:

It’s certainly not what I expected from Jade. It sounds nothing like “It’s My Time,” possibly because Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote “It’s My Time” and this one was written by Ina Wroldsen. While I probably won’t be listening to much of Jade’s new material, I do wish her all the best.

EDIT: Fixed YouTube link.

And hello to the rest of the world. We here at Eurovision America are a rare breed – we are fans of the Eurovision Song Contest from the west side of the Atlantic Ocean. (No, that doesn’t mean we’re pro-Western Europe. Or pro-Eastern Europe for that matter.) We hope to provide a unique view of the ESC as we see it. We’re not attached to any particular competitor country, nor any country that has any time competed (we’re looking at you, Italians!). As we see it, this gives us a unique perspective on the contest that we all love. Eurovision is important to us, even though we’re not European.

What we hope to be able to do here is bring together the Americans that are Eurovision fans. We know there are more of them out there, and there could be many more if they just watched one grand final.

To accomplish our goal, we’ll be bringing you Eurovision news and reviews. And yes, many of them will be published elsewhere in the European world, especially up to the time the contest rolls around in Oslo next year. But we’re a blog – we don’t just report the news, we give commentary on it.

The two authors that we have right now are both U.S. people. We are searching for more authors, so if you’re an American, Canadian, or other English-speaking North or South American, drop us a line, either in the comments or by e-mail. (We’re going to limit this to be English-only.)