Eurovision Song Contest 2012

A world wide television spectacle was held on SBS last night, the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, held in Baku, Azerbaijan (very easy to spell and pronounce). It was held on Saturday night in European time, yet for Australian audiences SBS compiled their own version of the telecast complete with hosts Julia Zemiro and Sam Pang.

42 countries competed for the title this year and through two separate televised semi finals, they were culled to 26 for the final, striving to be crowned the winner. There is no prize money but the winning country receives a cool winner's trophy and also the opportunity and honour to host the event in their country the following year.

The hosts of Eurovision 2012. Eldar, the guy in the middle has an uncanny resemblance to Charlie Pickering from Channel 10's The Project.

If you have never heard of Eurovision before, you are sadly missing out on a cultural phenomenon. Some of the songs are wacky, while some of them are catchy and great to sing along to, and I have some included some personal favourites further below.
Nearly 40 years ago a little group known as ABBA won with their song "Waterloo" representing their country of Sweden. This year, Sweden delivered the goods again with the song "Euphoria" by singer Loreen. Tipped as the bookie's favourite, she won with 372 points. Here is her stand out performance.

In second place was Russia, with 6 Babushka grannies singing their hearts out. True fact: Their combined age altogether is 615. This was a truly uplifting performance complete with one of them cooking some scones in a fancy revolving oven. They received 259 points.

In third place came Serbia, Željko Joksimović, with 214 points.

From a production perspective, the event is amazing to watch and you can tell there has been quite a lot of preparation put into everything. The arena it is set in takes months and months to construct and looks spectacular when it is complete. The camera angles are cool, where one shot can be sweeping in from high above to being up close to the performer on the stage where the notes are soaring. The wind and smoke machines worked over time in Crystal Hall.

Outside Crystal Hall

Here are 2 of my favourite stand out performances from this years competition. The first one is from country San Marino with "The Social Network song". The lyrics are out of this world. And to mark the 11th time that Norway has come last, performer Tooji and his backup dancers perform the song "Stay". Stay on here to enjoy them.