Mr. Lava Reports - Summary of Semi-Final 2

So what's on tap for tonight's Eurovision Semi-Final 2? Belarus's nationalistic dance anthem, a beloved transsexual Eurovision legend from Israel, and probably the first semi-final featuring two sets of identical twins.

Our webcast is preceded by an endlessly cycling advertisement for Schwarzkopf! The official beauty partner of Eurovision! It occurs to me about the twelfth time around that "Schwarzkopf" literally means "blackhead."

Showtime!

Yesterday's hosts, Anke, Stefan, and Judith, are back. Will controversy-averse Eurovision un-muffle them enough so that they might make one—just ONE—joke about Belarus?

We learn that the 10 advancing countries from last night's semi-final (plus the "Big Five"--more on them below) are seated together at the front of the stage, which means most of Tuesday night's winners are being rewarded for their success with a long, lonely, conversationless night, since their neighbors are unlikely to speak their language. Serbia's Edie Sedgwick-channeling Nina, who is singing her tune in Serbian, looks particularly long-faced.

After the short, introductory clip, featuring those sooper-coolo tilt-shift camera lens opening shots (see Tuesday's report, if Blogger hasn't deleted that already), Bosnia & Herzegovina take the stage. The gray-haired guy with the guitar is Dino Merlin, who has had a decades-long history in music—he was performing back when the bulk of the Balkans were called "Yugoslavia." He's probably the most senior of the competitors in the contest. Sure, I like looking at all those leggy woman singers, but after a hundred of them strutted their stuff in Semi-Final 1 it's refreshing to see him up there. He proves that with age comes experience, and he whips the crowd up with his catchy little tune. He looks like an underdog, but also a sly old dog. We love him; we want him in the final.

In 2007 Austria left Eurovision after loudly complaining about bloc voting, which is what they call it when countries vote in knee-jerk fashion for their neighbors (Eastern European ones were most harshly accused of this, though Scandinavia did this a lot too). Now that their fellow German-speaking next-door neighbors have won a Eurovision and are hosting this year's contest, guess who has returned?

True to Eurovision form, Austria offers us, yes, a leggy singer: Nadine Beiler, sporting a smart bob. It becomes obvious that the audience is punchier than they were on Tuesday night. They were enthusiastically clapping along to Dino's tune, and now they roar approval during Nadine's a cappella opening, doing a sort of, "SING IT, SISTER!" thing, if Europeans actually say stuff like that. It's a bluesy ballad, probably good enough to advance.

Europe's largest Muslim nation, The Netherlands, now take the stage. Through some bizarre warp in the time-space continuum, it appears that Evil Bryan Ferry circa 1974 has been catapulted into modern-day Düsseldorf to perform this drammatical piece of crap.

Belgium offers an a cappella group, complete with requisite beat-boxing. It's quirky, but in a conventional sort of way. You know, like how some people think they're quirky because they like Björk, but everybody listens to Björk. The group is talented, but an a cappella tune could never be A Song for Europe. However, it's a shame they probably won't get to face off against the UK's Blue on Saturday, to show how talentless that man group is by comparison.

The first of our two sets of twins take the stage tonight, and this (once again) leggy pair are called…"TWiiNS"!

:-|

They have had a number of successful singles in their native Slovakia ("Compromise" being my personal fave). But this is a bland ballad. Think back to Azerbaijan's goosebump-good "Running Scared" from Tuesday night and you realize just how plain this is by comparison.

Speaking of Azerbaijan, we join host Judith in the Tuesday-night winners section, where she interviews Ell and Nikki, the Azerbaijani darlings of Tuesday night's show. When singer Ell takes the microphone to charm the audience with his fluent German, he effectively seals his country's destiny to win this year's contest. Incidentally, their song, "Running Scared," listed under the duo's non-Anglicized names of Eldar and Nigar, has appeared on Slovakia's pop chart this week (though, loyally, not as high as TWiiNS's song).

Ukraine takes the stage with a bland tune, but who cares? They have that awesome sand-animation woman, who won "Ukraine's Got Talent" a few years back, doing the background visuals! Remember her? The video was blogged and emailed and tweeted and farted all over the place! So here she is being awesome again. Meanwhile, cute singer Mika stands in the foreground singing some sort of song. Ukraine is guaranteed a spot.

At some point, during those intro clips where they show natives from each of the competing countries exploring Germany, you expect that they are going to get stuck with a country with no German representation. What will they do, then? Actually, could that country be Belarus?

Moldova's Zdob și Zdub take the stage! They're crazy! See their tall, pointy hats? As you watch this frenzied performance, you begin to think that they need only one more thing, and that's a girl in a fairy dress riding a unicycle. Then a girl in a fairy dress on a unicycle comes riding out, and you throw your hands in the air and say, "ENOUGH!" The band has had a respectable history making pop tunes that have rocked both Moldova and Romania, but this song is a mess, with so much banging on the kettle that it renders the viewer senseless. It's the noisiest song you will ever nod off to. (Check out "Everybody in the Casa Mare" for some better Zdob și Zdub.)

We beat up Sweden's song already.

Cyprus sends out some humorless guys dressed in black, a sort of Bauhaus boy band, and they tilt at absurd angles in unison—slowly...slooooooowly!—from one side to the other, and me getting SLEEPY! Just as my double chin hits my chest, enter the screaming woman whirling a lamp like a bola over her head. This literal rude awakening is punctuated by chunky nu metal guitars borrowed from Tuesday night's Georgia performance. Perhaps I was wrong the other day when I said that Georgia's nu metal sound seems dated; Cyprus is confirming a slowly-dawning and all too terrible truth: that there might be a nu metal revival in the works--nu nu metal! Fuck me!

Host Anke recycles the postcard joke I mentioned after Semi-Final 1.

A Turkish friend told me that after her country's defeat in Semi-Final 1 a long-running debate was re-ignited over whether Turkish Eurovision groups should sing in English or in Turkish. In fact, this same general conversation is held by almost every Eurovision delegation. I think about this as I watch Bulgaria take the stage. Singer Poli Genova opts to sing in Bulgarian, and in fact her song is a perfectly catchy piece of toe-tapping pop rock with some fist-pumping anthemic flair. But will the rest of Europe support a Bulgarian-language song?

The dilemma regarding singing in English vs. one's native language is this: some feel that it is better to sing good, non-English lyrics than to subject an audience to terrible, trite English-language ones garnished by thick accents. However, if no other country's voters can understand your lyrics, of what benefit is it to sing in your own language? It's a toughie.

Up next, a Macedonian guy (singing in his own language) performs an homage to a Russian woman. "Rusinka" is rhymed with "Vodka" and "musica." There's a jumping accordion player. It is the first—but maybe not the last—song this evening to feature a performer shouting into his microphone…through a megaphone. Not sure what the fuck is going on. Scared.

Only at Eurovision could one write that the emotional highlight of the night may have been offered by a transsexual Israeli singer. Dana International, whose song "Diva" won the contest in 1998, is back, and the audience roars with respect. Unfortunately, Dana's Eurodancey tune sounds like it could actually have been written in 1998. In 2009's Moscow Eurovision contest, LGBT rights activists were beaten by police; that would not have been a good one for her to come back to. Nice to see Dana having her moment in Düsseldorf. No chance in hell of this advancing, though, and Dana's parting words, suggesting a sort of closure, seem to acknowledge this.

Then it's back to business as usual: Slovenia offers another leggy singer. She's a super cutie. She wears thigh-high boots and a short dress well. But the song is ponderous. Then it becomes interminable. And it's only been going on for a minute.

One tranquilizing performance deserves another, so Romania's Hotel FM oblige with a forgettable tune laced with platitudes about changing the world and how we need to work together to—hey, is this Finland's song from Tuesday night?

Hosts Stefan and Anke appear on tape performing a medley of Eurovision hits. The joke is that they get progressively more violent with one another as they perform. The comic punching sound effects don't work, though showing the two of them bloodying one another up and spitting out teeth at the end is a bit gutsy. Maybe the comedy will get more risqué? Are Belarus jokes coming?

Estonia takes the stage. I‘m biased; I love singer Getter Jaani, whose "Parim pave" and "Saladus" are superb. This English-language tune, on the other hand, is bloody awful. But she does a nice little magic trick with a handkerchief turning into a cane, and she is fascinating to watch as she runs around a set of shoulder-high buildings like a toy doll come to life, blinking exaggeratedly and gesticulating wildly—she turns in a real performance. Might just be puzzling enough to get through.

And now, at last, the moment we've been waiting for: Belarus!!!!!

Oh, wait—right. Before the performance comes the intro bumper clip. So are there any Belarusians in Germany? Well, turns out they found some at a hockey game! And considering that yesterday European lawmakers were demanding that the International Ice Hockey Federation ditch the 2014 championship in Belarus to protest human rights abuses and political fraud over there, the timing is a bit sad.

Well, here goes nothing! The music begins, and we think, sure, we already know that Belarus's flag-waving "I Love Belarus" is doomed. But when Anastasiya Vinnikova opens her mouth, an even greater problem becomes apparent: she is a terrible singer.

Europe watches this bizarre, nationalistic orgy through splayed fingers. Then, a strange thing occurs—an emerging sense of sympathy. Everybody hates this song, and everybody hates the Belarusian government and its autocratic president, but why take it out on this poor singer? Sure, she has assumed the mantle of Belarusian ambassador with ten times the zeal of Leni Riefenstahl, but surely she's misunderstood?

Then Anastasiya's skin splits in half, peels off, and slides slowly to the floor like two shed halves of a long leather coat. Standing in her place is none other than Belarusian President Lukashenko himself, with glowing red eyes and a flashing torrent of blue sparks cascading from his mouth. Actually, that didn't happen, but it's an effective metaphor for what we are witnessing.

With a wave and a smile, it's all over. Wow. Belarus. Am I really going to…miss you?

That should be an easy act to follow! But Latvia is up next, and they offer a pop-rock-dance-rap hybrid that predictably fails as pop, rock, dance, and rap.

Denmark's A Friend in London takes the stage, and their lead singer has evidently taken hair-styling pointers from soon-to-emerge Jedward: his locks are combed straight up into the air like a surprised cartoon character's. The song is a torturously languid piece of schmaltz. All we can think is, "Send out Jedward! Send out Jedward!"

And then it's Jedward! I mean it's Ireland, represented by Jedward!

To the uninitiated, Jedward can be described as identical twin versions of Pee Wee Herman crossed with Animaniacs and topped with two feet of hair combed straight up into the air—like that guy's from A Friend in London.

They open with one of the twins singing while his brother lies down on the stage directly in front of him, shoe to shoe, mimicking him like a living shadow. That's cool. This is followed by a great deal of jumping and running around, reminding me of their memorable interpretation of "Ghostbusters" on "The X-Factor," the show on which they were discovered.

It is stupid great. But compared to these super-caffeinated Jedwards, the Eurovision crowd looks unusually still, or are they stunned? Please, please, please vote this through! It will be the perfect antidote to just about everything we will have to endure on Saturday.

Now co-host Judith sits down with the contestants on stage, flanked by Jedward, who through their hyperactive babbling and mugging just might blow their chances. Shut up, Jedward, shut up! There's still fifteen minutes of voting left!

Hosts Anke and Stefan do a little skit to fill some of that time. "Name two things that do not go together," Anke asks Stefan. To which Stefan replies, "England and penalty shootouts. " Boos erupt throughout the arena. It's the first moment of real comedic edginess thus far! Is this a positive sign that they have been saving their best material for the finals? In any case, I'm pleased that Anke and Stefan finally got a reaction from the crowd.

Vote tabulation time. For our entertainment, breakdancing group Flying Steps from Berlin perform their "street smart" "moves" to some "Bach" on "piano." I am tired of the whole "Let's mix classical culture with urban culture and shift everybody's paradigm!" thing. Now the piano stops, which means the inevitable techno-fied Bach will soon come in, which it then does. Oh no! A ballerina enters. You know it's working. Viewers are right now saying, "I never thought of ballet in this context before!" or "I never saw breakdancing in this light before!" You chumps!

I'm too cynical to be a Eurovision dance choreographer.

Co-host Judith talks with Lena, who sits in the "Big Five" section of the audience. The "Big Five" are the five Eurovision countries that advance automatically to the finals, because they have large populations and invest more money into the competition. Yes, it's completely unfair. Lena is the singer of last year's winning entry, and she is competing once again for Germany on Saturday. Lena excitedly explains that we have just watched Eurovision. Judith says hello to the other performers seated around her. The UK's Blue, a man group, but not the Blue Man Group—I'm getting confused—anyway!—Blue are yucking it up behind Lena, while Britain watches Blue yuck it up on BBC 1 2 maybe it's on 3.

The results are in!

A brag. I picked 8 out of 10 correctly. How sad is that? My 8 correct predictions:

Austria, the leggy woman with the bob one—THROUGH!
Bosnia & Herzegovina, the with age comes experience one—THROUGH!
Denmark, the "I copied Jedward's hair" one—THROUGH!
Estonia, the singing doll one—THROUGH!
Ireland, the Jedward one—THROUGH!
Romania, the boring OK one—THROUGH!
Sweden, the most terrible thing you'll ever see but it's completely perfect for Eurovision one—THROUGH!
Ukraine, the sand animation woman with some singer in the foreground one—THROUGH!

The two I got wrong:

Macedonia, the homage to "Rusinkas" one—THROUGH!
and finally
Slovenia, the cutest of all the leggy singers but with the worst song one—THROUGH!

Farewell to my picks Bulgaria (Bulgarian-language curse) and Latvia (four failed genres in a single tune).

And farewell to Belarus's Anastasiya Vinnikova, who begins the long, lonely walk home—literally, since she cannot afford public transportation—to a country that will likely not host the 2014 international hockey championships. If you see her, can you give her a ride to the EU border?

Mr. Lava Reports - Looking Ahead to Semi-Final Two

Blogger finally restored this entry on 18 May. It was originally posted on 11 May, then deleted about 24 hours later during a catastrophic Blogger failure. I have backdated this entry to its original post date.

In light of various performance catastrophes (e.g., “Boom Boom [Chucka Chucka]),” nine Eurovision competitors were kicked off the field this Tuesday. In theory, that means nine countries worth of people are not going to tune into the finals on Saturday. After Thursday night's second and last semi-final, a further nine countries worth of people will be doing something else Saturday night. Every country that fails to watch the final is, directly or indirectly, lost revenue for the Eurovision Song Contest, but of course, with varying degrees of financial power and a wide range of populations amongst them, some countries are more profitable to “lose” than others. So, by measurement of population alone, Turkey’s departure on Tuesday was the most disastrous. On the other hand, San Marino and Malta will be little missed.

This cruelly Randian financial logic is effectively why we have “The Big Five” countries, which are given an utterly unfair free pass to the Eurovision Finals on Saturday in order to guarantee viewership and reward associated investment. The Big Five are France, Germany (which would have gotten a pass anyway this year, since the previous year’s contest winner also automatically advances), Italy (undoubtedly seeking placation after a sulky 13 year absence from the contest), Spain, and the United Kingdom. These countries contain the overwhelming majority of Europe’s people and have decent to strong economies, which translates to more viewers and more dollars that ultimately wind their way back to the competition. In other words, the demands of the free market drive greedy/sensible Eurovision to adopt an unfair, non-competitive tack when it comes to dealing with the five biggest backers of Eurovision. This sort of paradoxical logic, where capitalism smoothly blurs into Animal Farm “more equal than others” non-competitive favoritism, is the sort of stuff that drove the trust-busting Republican Theodore Roosevelt nuts.

Speaking of curtailed democracy, one can make a compelling argument that this conundrum is why the jury system was reintroduced into the contest in the last couple of years (the official reason was to counter supposed “bloc-voting,” a phenomenon Big Five countries especially harped upon where countries vote in a knee-jerk manner for their neighbors). So, a chunk of the votes are cast by the people of Europe, and another chunk come from mysterious panels of supposed music experts based in each country, which I will henceforth call “Star Chambers.”

But we can boo and hiss the jury system and the Big Five on Saturday! I just wanted to offer you a little foreshadowing. Thursday night is all about selecting another ten delegations to send to the finals, an activity which, from Eurovision’s bean-counting perspective, also amounts to learning which nine countries’ TVs will be dark on Saturday. I’ll be watching, and will offer a complete synopsis afterward. I’ll also come clean about how well my own predictions went. I'm not feeling so confident about those, considering all the aforementioned weird forces at work!

Mr. Lava Reports - Loving Belarus

Evidence suggests that Belarus invented a face-saving story to spin the reason for why their original Eurovision Song Contest 2011 submission, “Born in Byelorussia,” had to be scuttled.

Belarusian singer Anastasiya Vinnikova takes the stage Thursday night at Eurovision Semi-Final Two singing “I Love Belarus,” and it will likely be your only chance to see this gawk-worthy disaster in the making, since the song hasn’t a prayer of advancing to the final (though voting it through might be a worthwhile prank).

Belarus’s original Eurovision 2011 song offering was called “Born In Byelorussia,” a celebration of life in the good old days of communism—which for Belarus continue! The lyrics to that earlier effort included: "Born in Byelorussia! USSR time! Byelorussia! Crazy and so fine!"

Sensing controversy, something image-hypersensitive Eurovision does not want any of, on 3 March 2011 the event organizers pressed for a lyric change, tactfully noting in a press release that “questions and doubts have come up regarding the lyrics of the Belarusian entry,” and further explaining that
“The song quoted memories from Soviet Union times as well as the historical name of Byelorussia, which is not officially used anymore these days.”

But a different story is told in a video posted to YouTube on the following day, 4 March 2011. The channel, which says it originates from Russia, with an associated website that includes specialized looks at Belarus's and Russia's Eurovision history, reports that the song was performed before last year’s cut-off date, and was therefore disqualified for non-political reasons.

Either way, the result was a complete overhaul for the song, which brings us to “I Love Belarus.”

Can you think of one good reason not to love Belarus? Except the police brutality, mysterious “suicides” of investigative journalists, and the arresting of opposition leaders? Well, I could think of several. Like how President Lukashenko, elected in 1994, now appears to be their president for life. And how the government announced plans to ship jailed opposition leaders’ kids to orphanages. Or the nagging suspicion that the president himself was behind a recent subway bombing (the government is trying to pin the blame on, once again, those mysterious, omnipresent “opposition figures").

But who cares what reasons I might have for not loving Belarus? I'm just a fake Eurotrash DJ! Let’s take an objective survey of today’s newspaper headlines instead:

The Wall Street Journal: “Russia Refuses to Bail Out Belarus”
Reuters: “Russia refuses to bail out wayward ally Belarus”
AFT: “Belarus opposition journalist goes to trial”
Monsters and Critics: “EU lawmakers call for a suspension of Belarus hockey championship”
Index on Censorship: “Five former presidential candidates now on trial in Belarus”
New York Times: “Belarus Currency Plunges After Rule Change”

But perhaps today was just a bad day. Or maybe everything you’ve just read is suspect, because…

Kyiv Post: “Lukashenko: Information war unleashed against Belarus.”

See? I’m just part of the conspiracy!

Mr. Lava Reports - Predictions for Eurovision Song Contest Semi-Final Two

These are my predictions regarding who will survive Eurovision Song Contest Semi-Final Two Tomorrow:

Austria | Nadine Beiler - “The Secret Is Love” | Prediction: YES
Belarus | Anastasiya Vinnikova - "I Love Belarus" | Prediction: NO
Belgium | Witloof Bay - “With Love Baby” | Prediction: NO
Bosnia and Herzegovina | Dino Merlin - “Love In Rewind” | Prediction: YES
Bulgaria | Poli Genova - “Na Inat” | Prediction: YES
Cyprus | Christos Mylordos - “San Aggelos S’Agapisa” | Prediction: NO
Denmark | A Friend In London - “New Tomorrow” | Prediction: YES
Estonia | Getter Jaani - “Rockefeller Street” | Prediction: YES
Ireland | Jedward - “Lipstick” | Prediction: YES
Israel | Dana International - “Ding Dong” | Prediction: NO
Latvia | Musiqq - “Angel In Disguise” | Prediction: YES
Macedonia | Vlatko Ilievski - “Rusinka” | Prediction: NO
Moldova | Zdob și Zdub - “So Lucky” | Prediction: NO
Netherlands | 3JS - “Je Vecht Nooit Alleen” | Prediction: NO
Romania | Hotel FM - “Change” | Prediction: YES
Slovakia | TWiiNS - “I’m Still Alive” | Prediction: NO
Slovenia | Maja Keuc - “Vanilija” | Prediction: NO
Sweden | Eric Saade - “Popular” | Prediction: YES
Ukraine | Mika Newton - “Angel” | Prediction: YES

Mr. Lava Reports - Summary of Semi-Final 1

When you listen to the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 entries as separate entities, the one thing that strikes you immediately is their crapness. But there’s something about seeing those songs performed in the context of the competition itself that, well, sometimes actually enhances that crapness--but that at other times elevates the tunes that happen to be the one-eyed in the kingdom of the blind. Semi-Final One offers us this opportunity to reassess half the Eurovision field. So live, from Düsseldorf, Germany, let the show begin!

Tonight's hosts, Anke Engelke, Stefan Raab, and Judith Raakers, two-thirds of whom are comedians, fail to find the funny, which is miserable considering that they are obligated to make us laugh for only five minutes of the two-hour-plus show. Most of the humor consists of them ribbing one another over their ability or inability to speak other languages.

In their defense, I know from past Eurotrash experience that Stefan Raab is a funny guy. Perhaps being funny in English is more awkward to him than being funny in his native tongue. But the more likely culprit is Eurovision itself. It is clear when one visits the Eurovision official web site that the organizers maintain a very carefully-managed image that strives to avoid all controversy. They take their Euro peace and love vibe (right down to the heart-shaped logo) extremely seriously. This renders the best comic material off-limits.

Every performance is preceded by footage of Germany as experienced through the eyes of (apparently actual) visitors from each of the represented countries. Each short clip begins with that cool tilt-shift camera technique which renders the city as if it were a living, model village; and concludes with the person or persons exclaiming something in their native tongue.

And now...the performances!

The first slot in any semi-final is a thankless one; you are quickly forgotten. This semi-final's sacrificial lamb is Poland’s leggy, raven-haired Magdalena Tul, who belts her song as if clubbing a baby harp seal. She has some pipes on her, and I like the fact that she sings in her own language instead of reaching awkwardly for the less-comfortable universal language of English. But first slot + Polish language lyrics = doomed.

Norway offers a curious, African-influenced tune with quirky/irritating lyrics about things the singer’s grandmother supposedly told her:

"When as a little girl my grandma told me
That I could be just anything that I wanted to"

(which is followed by)

"When as a little girl my grandma told me
That I could be just anything that I wanted to"

Good to have singer Stella Mwangi there, though; she’s one of the only non-white faces at Eurovision 2011 this year, plus she’s quite the leggy looker. But she doesn’t hit the low notes very well. She mentions later in the show that she sang once for Nelson Mandela, but she left out the part of the story where Nelson rose from his chair, hands clasped over his ears, yelling “Shut up shut up SHUT UP!”

Albania’s tune is too much more and not enough less. “ThankyouTHANKYOU!” Scary Woman Singer bellows afterward, with a lunge.

Armenians were already depressed about their chances when “Boom Boom (Chucka Chucka)” was selected as this year’s Eurovision entry. The delegation choreographed a boxing-themed thing, in honor of an Armenian boxer who, one imagines, must have beat the crap out of a Turkish one recently in order to garner such adulation. Two autographed boxing gloves from said boxer were given to Emmy, and the fetching singer explained in a pre-show interview that she would probably toss one out to the audience tonight and save the other for some lucky audience member in Saturday's finals.

So I knew Emmy would bring the boxing gloves, but I didn’t know she’d be sitting in a giant one. The choreography is quite cute, actually. However, the song remains bloody awful--nothing can save it. Emmy yelling out “Armenia!!!!” afterward, as opposed to the usual thanking of the crowd, seems a bit low-class, too, but of course Thursday will see Belarus's none-more-nationalistic "I Love Belarus" performed, so...OK.

Turkey, that perpetual rival of Armenia's, is on next. The country offers a boring rock song featuring lyrics telling us to "live It up" because "life is beautiful."

A segment then follows where Stefan Raab and Anke Engelke lead various Eurovision singers in a sing-a-long of that old German standard “The Happy Wanderer” ("Der fröhliche Wanderer"). Once again, comedy and Eurovision don’t mix.

One of my favorite contenders, Serbia, takes the stage next. Singer Nina is all Edie Sedgwick tonight; think of the women in the Austin Powers movies if you don’t know who Edie Sedgwick was. Song is likable 60s retro-pop befitting that look.

Russia offers a terrible song sung by a chisel-faced guy channeling a less-compelling James Dean. An assisted somersault performed by the backup dancers earns a mighty cheer from the audience.

In case you got too excited watching the somersault, Switzerland hands out Ambien with an inconsequential piece of fluff. IANYAN Magazine's Twitter feed reports that apparently there is a 30 minute rewind capability in the live streaming video. Nobody will be rewinding to this.

Georgia brings back bad memories of Y2K-era nu-metal, with a fetching female singer capably belting the tune against hard rock music before this guy cuts in and starts yelling into his microphone, which creates the unfortunate impression that the country of Georgia is about a decade behind current pop music trends. However, I am impressed that at one point the singer deliberately creates vocal distortion by wrapping her hand around the mic while singing into it. She is as talented as the song is terrible.

“Unfortunately you cannot vote by telegram and we do not accept postcards,” co-host Anke informs the viewers in another failed attempt to be funny. Damn you, Eurovision.

Next up is Finland’s “Da Da Dam.” Title suggests that it will be a horror like “Boom Boom (Chucka Chucka)," but it immediately becomes evident that this guy's lyrics are significantly richer and more earnest than the ones most Eurovision fans feel comfortable listening to. It's an easily, and perhaps deservedly, mocked sentimental tale of a budding environmentalist who expresses a desire to save the earth, but compared to what came before it it sounds like pure poetry. Big roar for this guy at the end. But the rapidly scrolling Twitter feed beside the video screen displays only contempt!

Malta offers a perfectly decent, if forgettable, dance pop tune, complete with divo.

San Marino’s tune is classy, but inescapably dull. That's good; it would be a disaster if San Marino won, because it would bankrupt the tiny country if it had to host the competition in 2012.

Croatia’s leggy blonde singer (how many "leggys" can I use in a single blog entry?) can't hit the low notes, but in a weird way that's a pleasure to me, because it demonstrates how Eurovision nobly continues to eschew auto-tuning. It is the first bona-fide dance song of the night, but it’s not a scorcher. The weird Slash look-alike does not help things. Singer Daria Kinzer does one of those magic dress transformation tricks--a wardrobe change that occurs in the blink of an eye. Now that’s what the rewind feature is for. Song even has a little dubstep breakdown—let history show that dubstep debuted at Eurovision 2011 in the bridge to this song. But a shrug of a tune.

Awww, see quirky Icelanders! Icelanders always so cute! Why look at them! They no fear volcano! They kiss one another and look like Kingston Trio, except more than three!

Hungary serves up the big disco diva anthem that Croatia wanted theirs to be. I like the Hungarian-language second verse. Beat production is solid. A big gay dance song that works.

Oh Portugal always cute too! Like Iceland! Look at them in their bright, colorful clothes, colorful like a children’s book!

Andrew Lloyd Webber apparently defected to Lithuania to write that country's tune, and at one point singer Evelina Sašenko uses sign-language in order to reach out to the hearing impaired--aka, the most fortunate of Eurovision viewers.

When the schmaltzy notes to Azerbaijan’s love ballad begin, we all curl up into a defensive crouch position. And then...

The song is stunning! Beautiful!The production is completely “now,” the beats are chunky enough to keep one alert, and the synths climb dramatically behind the wonderful vocals! Azerbaijan has sent adorable, non-threatening Muslims to the contest! Big win!!!

The high bar set by Azerbaijan puts Greece in an unenviable position. Greek columns appear on stage to remind us of the glory that once was--long, long ago--Greece. A guy stomps out on stage and barks some rap thing. Then, some dude with a big operatic voice takes over. It's like one of those modern art performances where you walk out shaking your head saying, “What the fuck was that?”

We're done! But unlike all those other reality competition shows, the performance and the results show are in one package, so we will soon learn who advances to the finals on Saturday. It’s sad to think that almost half of them have to go home tonight, as opposed to most.

While the votes are tabulated, Cold Steel Drumline are sent out to remind Eurovision fans what black men look like. These guys are American--so what are they doing here? Apparently they played on one of popular German performer Peter Fox’s albums. Drumlines, are of course, awesome. But maybe not for ten minutes. A guy runs across some drums at the end--that's pretty cool.

Before the results there’s the awkward “There are some countries that have already qualified for the final…” statement, which always must ignore the obvious and perpetual problem with "the big five" who do that, which is that they earn their automatic ticket to the final due to their being the biggest financial investors in the competition. That's sort of like if the U.S., with all its lucrative Olympic Games advertising revenue, were able to bribe the International Olympic Committee to have its athletes bypass all the qualifying heats for the final races.

Results are in, announced in random order (presumably to avoid creating voter bias for the finals). The Top 10 that will advance to Saturday's final are:

Serbia, the Edie Sedgwick one!
Lithuania, the Andrew Lloyd Webber one!
Greece, the piece of shit one!
Azerbaijan, the best one one!
Georgia, the Y2K nu-metal one!
Switzerland, the nice sweet boring one!
Hungary, the blonde dance diva tune that’s better than Croatia’s one!
Finland, the guy whose song is too lyrically rich to be in Eurovision one!
Russia, the other piece of shit one!
Adorable Iceland, the Kingston Trio plus another trio one!

Which means Armenia's Emmy gets to keep the second souvenir autographed boxing glove for herself.

Mysteriously, despite the seemingly important emphasis on the random order announcement, the Eurovision web site later declares that Azerbaijan were the "Semi-Final One Winners." We kinda already guessed.

And with that, after two hours and 13 minutes of nonstop sound and fury, the web stream falls dead silent, and I am left listening to the sound of my typing.

The million dollar question is: “What will Jedward do?” The answer comes on Thursday!

Mr. Lava Reports - I'm Dreaming of a White Eurovision

Like garrulous seagulls lured by crackers, a flock of shrieking white people has descended upon Düsseldorf for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 (the first semi-final is held tomorrow). While it's true that three countries' delegations did not get the memo and sent unusually dark faces (these offenders are Norway, San Marino, and the UK--the last country having sent a man-group with one black dude in it), the remainder of the 43 competitors are wondrously light-complexioned!

This is great news for disgruntled Germans whose Aryan causes have been severely curtailed by anti-discrimination laws for decades. At last, an unabashed celebration of white culture will be held on German soil!

Human snowflakes of goodwill are settling on the Altstadt under the auspices of the towering stuffed remains of Knut the Polar Bear, a snow-white martyr for the Aryan culture that transformed Germany into the leading European power that it is today (it must be said, though, that Knut's looking a little ragged on account of being picked apart by souvenir hunters--couldn't the city have sprung for extra security?).

White though this Euroworld may be, it is not intolerant, for even Israel's Jews have been warmly welcomed on Düsseldorf's soil. That's because today there is an even greater enemy to confront: the Muslim masses that threaten to overthrow Europe and force the burqa upon us all. Do you want to wear a burqa? Fuck no!

(Muslims, it should be said, are also represented at Eurovision. They look pretty white, don't they?)

A whiter celebration--and a whiter collection of tunes--you will never find than at Eurovision 2011! Why, three nations from the Caucasus will perform in tomorrow's semi-final! Slovenia's song entry is actually called "Vanilija"!

While Europe's Top 40 is filled with the likes of American and British R&B performers of dark complexion (Rihanna, Tinchy Stryder, Snoop Dogg, Puff Diddly-Do-Good), Eurovision remains white white white! And so, standing here in the Altstadt today, I feel like one among millions of Caspers--as in the friendly ghosts--drifting like pale plankton through a pasty white sea of Eurolove!

Mr. Lava Reports - Eurovision Performers Arrive

I am in Düsseldorf ("Dull Village") to cover the Eurovision Song Contest 2011. The Eurovison Press Centre opens on Saturday, an event seen by many as the unofficial start of the Eurovision Song Contest. Rehearsals begin the following day.

So the first Eurovision performers are arriving! I spent an amusing half-hour watching the unpacking of Eric Saade (Sweden) from his crate. Even with a few loose packing peanuts stuck in his hair he looks more life-like than Madame Tussaud's best work. His blank stare is unsettling, but once he is animated by the talented Euro Disney Imagineers he will "come to life" and thrill an estimated 125 million people around the world.

I wanted to take the Maja Keuc animatronic out to the Günnewig Rheinturm Restaurant. She is a simulation of an 18 year-old Slovenian female (though in fact she has been in development since the Tito era). She is abundantly attractive and, the Eurovision site says, programmed to be "a self-critical girl, with both feet on the ground and a firm belief in the good in this world."

Sadly, Belarus's crate, which contained Anastasiya Vinnikova, arrived damaged, and rats appear to have gnawed off one-third of Ms. Vinnikova's "living skin," revealing the Terminator-like hydraulics underneath. While it is doubtful she will look herself during the first round of rehearsals, Belarus believes the biologically-engineered flesh-like substance will grow back in time for the semi-finals. More worrying than these cosmetic issues, however, is the damage done to her singing voice, which is now a deep, metallic gonging sound. A new voice-box will arrive from Minsk soon.