Tim: Rather pleasingly, Estonia had a surprisingly good national final this year, which does make you wonder quite why they chose a dull operatic number as their winner; there was a wide range of genres, even with a trip to apocalyptic rock, with came with a helpful timer that counted down to the end of the song, at which point fire extinguishers were used liberally and necessarily. This one came in sixth, and surprisingly the extensive use of ukuleles didn’t put me off.
Tom: Blimey, I did not expect Estonia to go for an arena show. Or for them to choose Estonia’s leading George Formby impersonator for a song. Why on earth were you attracted to this one?
Tim: I’ll be honest: I’m not entirely sure. Partly is the staging, or rather the lack of it, with on screen graphics being used instead, because I’d love to know the official rules about those – Norway had a play around with them last year (and also excessive pre-recorded vocal samples, which were deemed just about acceptable).
Tom: Which surprises me: not to bang on about Electro Velvet, having to perform the ‘dance!’ samples live was one of the reasons that the song sounded so poor. But these are really irritating vocal samples, aren’t they?
Tim: Maybe a year ago, but I guess they’re mainstream enough that I’ve really become accustomed to them by now. Mainly, though, I think it’s that it seems from the way they’re jumping around that much like voXXclub last week they just seem to be having a lot of fun. And that kind of sums the whole thing up, really, including the ukulele and the graphics – it’s just quite fun. And I’ll take that.