image credit: Sarah Louise Bennett / EBU

Instead of reviewing each song in advance, this year I decided to wait with my verdict until after the shows. I also will focus on just three acts, and cover the rest really quickly:

While technically okay, I found the production of last night’s show very soulless, but it had this in common with all recent editions. For one, I find it a bad habit of our times that the moderation is accompanied by music. You can’t build up atmosphere, depth or excitement by applying shopping centre event character on the hosting of Eurovision. Many people watch this with commentary, making it three layers of sound, which can be exhausting especially if you also watch the show with other people talking around you. Second, as if the dull stagings weren’t bad enough, the sound was like the songs were all performed inside of an aquarium. And third, the rushed envelopes sequence really lacked suspense.

On to the things that I liked, which weren’t many besides the songs (Filomena is one golden exception), so let me focus on my three positive surprises from last night instead:

Serbia

I thought it was too special to qualify, but I’m glad to be proven wrong: One of my favourite entries actually made it to the final! Not quite the cult anthem that “In Corpore Sano” was and will be forever, but one of the few entries this year that will remind the viewer that this is still the Eurovision Song Contest, after all.

Switzerland

Switzerland is not among my favourite songs, far from it even, but the performance brought it to another level – helped the song to be perceived from a different angle, so to speak. It would have drowned ten years ago, but with the “quality” of Eurovision recently, this can come quite far on the night.

Azerbaijan

No, I’ve never really grown into this one, but I saw something in last night’s performance that I didn’t expect to see: A chance to qualify. Maybe it was the twins with their hairdos standing there next to each other, which was a quite striking image indeed, or the cuteness of all of it: Something screamed “Qualification!”. But I didn’t settle for it, and in the end, that was the best decision to still get 9/10 right.

That’s my quick verdict for today, maybe I’ll be in a better mood on Friday. Enjoy the show tomorrow. Cheers!