On Saturday 18th May 2013, the Eurovision final came to us from Malmo, Sweden, following the two semi-finals earlier in the week. As someone who'd had exams and various duties that week and the weekend before, Eurovision was something relaxing to look forward to.
And the show itself didn't disappoint. Petra Mede was a brilliant and funny host - she coped absolutely fine with hosting the contest alone, something that I had anticipated being a challenge for anyone. But she turned out to be just the woman for the job.
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In the UK the semi-finals were commentated by DJ Scott Mills and Ana Matronic from the Scissor Sisters. I like the idea of getting an American in so we could see what someone from outside of Europe thinks of Eurovision. She seemed to enjoy it, as did Scott, and their commentary was quite listenable.
I enjoyed the first semi-final more than the second one - I felt that the quality of the songs was higher. My favourites were Ukraine and Belgium.
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I also liked Latvia's song in the second semi final and was surprised and disappointed that they didn't make it through to the final.
I was also surprised Serbia didn't get to the final - I didn't really like the song but it was pure Eurovision!
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Then the day of the final came! My family had a party, as always! We love Eurovision!
Graham Norton did the commentary for the UK and did a good job at it.
Petra was great again as host and I loved her short history of Sweden, even if it was a bit odd:
I love the dancing meatballs!
I didn't think a lot of the green room host, Eric Saade, and I wish we could have had Krisse again! But I did quite like Lynda Woodruff, who gave a comical view of Sweden. I think it's cool that she's known for being both a singer (as Sarah Dawn Finer) and a comedienne.
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I also liked the butterfly theme; I had anticipated this being a bit boring and monotonous but the way they had the flag of each country on its butterfly was nice and looked really arty.
The sequence with the caterpillar travelling from Baku to Malmo where it became the Eurovision butterfly was sweet; I especially loved the bit where the caterpillar curled up to sleep like a cat on someone's dashboard.
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I was sad that yet again, people generally seemed to be voting for their neighbours. However, Denmark still seemed to be the runaway favourite, getting lots of high numbers of points from countries that are geographically nowhere near it.
As I don't think a lot of the song, all I can assume is that its sound managed to appeal to a diverse range of people across Europe. You can't deny that it really was the generic Eurovision song. I just don't personally get why it was so popular; for me it was good but not mind-blowing by any standard.
Still, congratulations to Emmelie de Forest and I look forward to another Scandinavian Eurovision!
Thanks for reading,
Liz x
Songs:
Gravity - Zlata Ognevich - 2013
Love Kills - Roberto Bellarosa -2013
Here We Go - PeR - 2013
Ljubav je svuda (Love is Everywhere) - Moje 3 - 2013
Swedish Smorgasbord - Petra Mede - 2013
Only Teardrops - Emmelie de Forest - 2013
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