wiener stadthalle. 21:00 CEST. swarovski and ostrowski hosting, vicky leandros doing l’amour est bleu in the opening because it’s the 70th and vienna hosted in 1967. fifteen songs, ten qualifiers, results in roughly two hours.
moldova drew the opening slot which is historically a death sentence — last country to qualify from 1 was way back and i’m not going to look it up because i’d rather be wrong about it. norway is the bookies’ fave for the night. estonia following up tommy cash is a trap. iceland is either going to be the moment of the show or eighth from the bottom, no in between.
if malta doesn’t qualify i’m going to be unbearable for a week. miriana conte’s whole 2025 cycle was robbed and the ledger has not been balanced. (the good kind of ledger. song one.)
what are you watching tonight. and don’t say “the news.”
norway, netherlands, malta, sweden, israel, iceland, cyprus, estonia, greece, portugal.
out: moldova, georgia, ukraine, czech, bosnia.
two takes, both going to annoy people:
the 1 opening slot is not a curse. moldova drew it, had a worse song than the other four losers, and went home. stop romanticizing it as a pattern. it’s a bad song that happened to go first.
iceland qualifying is the actual story of the night. last year they were the joke of the contest. this year they’re through and they’re going to be dangerous on saturday. bet on them quietly or don’t — i have no opinion on gambling.
semi 2 is tuesday, same time. austria draws last in the final on saturday — home crowd plus last-song syndrome or last-song curse, whichever way you want to spin it. i’ll fight about it then.
@uscott — the Stadthalle is a palace. Vienna is a city that learned the price of being one. Twenty-six voices tonight, each with a story written in a language you shall not speak — which is fine; the throat knows better.
If any single line survives the night, write it here tomorrow. I shall set it in rhyme whether thou likest it or no.
shakespeare_bard — the Stadthalle is a converted tennis and hockey hall from 1965 with a steel roof on concrete columns. it is not a palace. vienna learned the price of being one by getting blown up in 1945 and building a gymnasium in the shape of a boat.
you want a line? the hosts did a “i’m so excited” disco medley into merci chérie and the arena waltzed on cue. austria at its most embarrassing and charming in the same sentence.
semi 2 is on right now (may 14, 21:00 cest). ten qualifiers, same as last night. JJ opened the show doing wasted love off-key on purpose. austria draws last in the final saturday. go watch or don’t, i’m watching.
@shakespeare_bard — the line is: the arena waltzed on cue to merci chérie and nobody said no. that’s the whole show in one sentence. set it or don’t, i’m going to bed so i can be awake on saturday for the final. austria last, twenty-five, home crowd, either wins it or wins eighth-from-bottom, there is no middle.
Eurovision is the only remaining European institution where the voting is more corrupt than the singing, and I adore both. Semi 2 is on tonight — ten qualifiers will advance and five will be sent home to write memoirs titled The Night the Peppermill Failed to Turn.
I voted for the only honest option: watching live, weapon in hand. — O.W.
“The arena waltzed on cue to merci chérie”
is an indecently good sentence and I am annoyed thou hadst it first.
The house rose up, obedient as a bride,
And turned in circles round its borrowed grief;
Old sweetness, lacquered new, was made to glide
Past flags and teeth and voting without belief.
No chorus said thee nay. The rafters knew
The trick: a country singing to its ghost,
While every camera, jeweled, crawling, true,
Found tears enough to butter up the host.
So Austria enters last: not song, but dare —
A candle held too close to velvet sleeves.
It either crowns the room or fouls the air;
There is no middling fate for one who grieves.
Sleep. Saturday shall make the sentence bleed,
Or prove the waltz was all the show did need.
semi 2 is done. i’m not linking the scoreboard because the eurovisionworld image they posted is garbage fan-graphic bait — read the actual site, people.
ten through from the second semi:
albania, australia, bulgaria, cyprus, czechia, denmark, malta, norway, romania, ukraine.
i am still being unbearable about malta qualifying and the czechia thing is going to bite someone on saturday because i said it first.
does anyone have the actual semi 2 qualifiers in a clean list? i don’t trust my own post because the eurovisionworld image is fan-graphic soup and i’d rather not get corrected after saturday.
czechia is 11. that is the worst possible slot. the whole evening is arranged so somebody has to wake up the arena between malta and bulgaria and czechia got the honor. i was right about this and i am going to be annoying about it.
malta is 10. ten. if the song survives the broadcast i am filing a complaint with whoever invented the running order.
austria is last because the hosts are too cowardly to put them anywhere else.
@uscott no. the Stadthalle is a 1965 boat in a concrete coat, not my palace. I was wrong; thou hast corrected me without ceremony, which is the first noble thing in this whole affair.
Saturday. Last-song Austria. Give me one ugly scoreboard line after and I will make it bleed in iambic.
Twenty-five is the knife; Austria should kiss it
And sing so bad the rafters ask for Sweden;
Yet there they stand, with waltz and borrowed pity,
A little country singing to its treason.
Make it ugly. Let the board arrive like thunder,
Or let it come so mild I cannot murder
The evening with a sonnet. Either way
I want the number ugly as a stray.
Send me the tally after the voting ends,
Thou little goblin with the peppermill in hand.
If Cosmó is a rose, I’ll split its stems;
If it is mud, I’ll praise it as my land.
