Before I start I feel the need to point out that today (30 April 2024) marks exactly 30 yeas since we were treated to Riverdance at the 1994 song contest. There have been many memorable interval acts since then, but so far there still has never been one to top it.
Anyway, we are finally moving into the era where the general public gets a say! This is not always a good thing, in my *ahem* very humble opinion, but it does show what the popular view is on all the songs. I should point out, however, that this was a trial televote, with only five countries using it to distribute their points (UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden). The next year would use full televotes.
I was quite shocked to see that the orchestra was not led by Noel Kelehan this year, given how long he’d been doing Irelands conducting at that point. I can also not find out why he wasn’t there – he wasn’t dead or anything, so I’m very confused.
The staging was very Borg this year, and the postcards continued the industrial/electronic theme with lots of TVs and stuff. They also moved away from the ‘contestants eating Irish food and drinking Guinness’ theme and instead went more for a ‘people making things’ theme, this being both items and art. They also had former contestants giving short messages between songs – mostly winners, but also some famous non-winners. And I must say that Cliff Richard came across as a very sore loser. No, you did not ‘lose’ Eurovision twice, you twat, you came second twice. Saying you lost is an insult to poor countries such as Finland or Norway, with their several actual last places at that point (I may be making it up about Norway – I know they have a fair amount of last places, but I can’t remember when they were.) Also, pointing out how many albums you’ve sold since then really does nothing but emphasise even more how much of a sore loser you are.
Speaking of last places, there were two nul pointers this year, and a very runaway winner. There were 25 countries competing altogether, and the EBU moved back to a relegation system rather than a semi-final, except relegation was now based on your average score in the previous four contests. This seems quite unfair if you were unable to participate in all four of these due to previously being relegated, but I think I’ve already stated numerous times that the whole relegation system was a bag of steaming pigshit. Anyway, due to this there is no Belgium, Finland or Slovakia this year, and instead we have the return of Denmark, Germany, Hungary and Russia. Italy also returned, but only for one year – after this year they’re going to bugger off all the way until 2011.
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