Conchita Wurst, the winner of last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, was on the stage in Vienna to present Måns Zelmerlöw from Sweden with his winning trophy for ‘Heroes’, but it was Guy Sebastian’s appearance at the contest that got Europe talking and voting.
Zelmerlöw took out the top place with his uplifting song, captivating the audience with very heavy use of a computed generated picture and light show projected behind him. He finished with 365 points, beating Russian Polina Gagarina, who had 303 points. His song had everything from seductive crooning, a soaring anthem, and a very basic message, a sure-fire way to win over the audience. It would have been interesting to see his song performed without the projected theatrics, but then that wouldn’t be Eurovision would it? And we wouldn’t be here giving you the highlights.
After a slow start, with countries like The Netherlands and Denmark dropping out early, the grand final was whittled down to 27 countries, with Australia’s Guy Sebastian one of them. Coming out last in the grand final was Germany’s Ann Sophie with her Paloma Faith-esque performance that wasn’t loud (in all senses of the word) enough to leave a mark.
The U.K. made a disappointing display, coming 24th in the grand final with their slightly confused song ‘Still In Love With You’. They showed that even an English speaking country can come up with terrible lyrics, with lines like “Don’t go out in the pouring rain. You might get wet, I’d be upset”. Ground breaking stuff.
One of the highlights of watching Eurovision will always be listening to the lyrics of each song. Endless hours of fun can be found in the clichéd, tacky, but ultimately catchy tunes. Most countries chose to perform in English and (without sounding too mean) that’s the comedy gold mine.
But it was Guy Sebastian’s song ‘Tonight Again’ that got Australia watching this year, and Europe appear to be very impressed with our offering. Although placing 5th in the final, Sebastian’s song is soaring up the charts around Europe, hitting number 2 on the Swedish charts, only just behind the winning Swedish song. It has even reached the charts in countries like the Bahamas (for some reason), Estonia, Norway, and Denmark. He really did us proud.
There are way too many performances to talk about here, so do yourself a favour and check out the video highlights from the contest.
Following the recent announcement by The Frontier Touring Company that global sensation Taylor Swift will tour Australia and New Zealand on THE RED TOUR in 2013, comes the exciting news that one of...
‘KATAKLYSM played an awesome, fast, heavy set. You know it’s a heavy show when it becomes uncomfortable to stand in the venue because of the reverb, when you know that the PA can barely handle it,...
As we all try so hard to keep the resolutions we made just a week ago, we look back at the best bits of 2013 with our Top 10 Australian Albums of 2013.