The Internationalist Eurovision Blog

It's here! It's finally bloody here! All this time waiting and the rehearsals are back on again, the Facebook groups are going wild and all of us Eurovision fans are regularly peeking at the odds to see if they hold the key to knowing our destination next May! I have so much I want to say in response to everything that has happened in Lisbon with the first round of semi final one rehearsals but I will wait to listen into the views from my beloved ESC Insight before commenting (after all, all I have personally is the YouTube clips that the official Eurovision channel posts to work from). I am usually excited when rehearsals come around but this year has become particularly exciting very quickly! Disappointing rehearsals from some of the favourites, fantastic rehearsals from some of my personal favourites and the odds fluctuating like a teacher controlling a rowdy group of Kindergarten students! In all of the developments of the last few days however, there is one thing that I ...

This year's contest is an extremely unique year in terms of being able to predict what will unfold. Whilst there is a favourite in Israel's entry, they are by no stretch of the imagination running away with the victory and there are definitely still doubts over if it can do the business in Lisbon. Aside from this, the success/failure of the Big 6 is all to play for, Semi Final 1 is possibly the most competitive semi final I have come across in all my years following Eurovision and big hitters such as Russia, Hungary & Poland could realistically not qualify this year. Fortunately or unfortunately, there is a lot to play for in Lisbon and ultimately it will come down to how the performance comes across live. With this in mind, let's take a look at specifically which factors will contribute to how the performance does on stage. Excellent Vocals This may sound ridiculous given that it's a song contest, but vocals are the backbone of the live performance that ultimat...

My favourite song at this year's Eurovision Song Contest is SuRie's 'Storm' representing the United Kingdom. There, I've said it. I hear so many people on the Eurovision Facebook groups bashing this song that I so often feel like I am the only person within the Eurovision community that highly rates this song. Even within British fans, I constantly find myself trying to explain to people why this is the best entry we have sent since Jade Ewen in 2009, so I'm just going to bite the bullet and use the voice that I am lucky enough to have with this blog in order to fight my corner. I should start by saying that I rarely support the United Kingdom at anything. I support the French football team, the Sri Lankan cricket team, Canadians at the Winter Olympics. Andy Murray and the Summer Olympics are the only time you will see me flying the Union Jack. In fact, I normally enjoy Eurovision for having the opportunity to support a country based on the quality of the song...

Yesterday was another milestone in the Eurovision world as it marked us being a month away from the Grand Final and a month away from crowning the next Eurovision winner! Whilst I am fairly certain that I don't have many regular readers who aren't family or friends (Thanks for reading this guys) I still feel a need to apologise for a lack of posts. This has mainly been due to me in the thick of my dissertation which is due for submission in a couple of weeks. However, as I am fairly confident with the position it's in, I thought I might check back in here with some insights as we go into the final month of the season! Running Order Not going to lie, I was pretty chuffed to see many of my predictions bang on the money for this one! Cyprus close the first semi as predicted, Norway open the second semi as predicted and Iceland get the first semi's golden deadly second slot! Winners from the draw in the first semi include Azerbaijan, Finland, Ireland & Cyprus whilst...