Barbara Dex Award; Moldova and Russia

There are plenty of guys deserving a decent bashing in this year's ESC as well! Let's start with Moldova. And forget about the female tin foil cupcake. We didn't exactly expect Chişinău to be the fashion capitol of Europe, but to get reacquainted with the vest our old uncle John donated to aid Romanian orphans years ago, we did not see that one coming. We suppose it found its way to an overpriced ultra hip vintage shop in the above mentioned capitol somehow. As mentioned earlier, we praise Moldova for giving us valuable and hilarious contributions when it comes to costumes and props on stage, so it's nice to see that this tradition is being kept alive.

There is just so much material here, starting with the bloke in the front. Blimey...










Russian Peter Nalitch just couldn't be bothered to dress up at all. He and his friends showed up in Oslo dressed as a bunch of middle aged biology teachers on a field trip. But even tired and grumpy biology teachers shave and brush their hair when going to a party. So, it would have been nice if these lads had made the slightest effort. You don't need to go berserk with sequins and feathers to look presentable, you know.

"I'm looooooking at her photo!" Look what the cat dragged in, we'd say.









Yup, we could go on and on forever. We should of course have mentioned the lovely Eva Rivas and reported her to the fashion police for severe crime against humanity with that dress over jeans combo. And the Nevermind from Denmark probably had some serious welding work cut out for him while trying to weld on Eva Rivas' artificial hair.

And our very own car mechanic Didrik, trying to convince us that he had launched a new career as an accountant with that boring suit. What happened to the white waiter jacket he wore in the national final, not good enough for him? Come to think of it we have trashed poor Didrik at so many occasions by now, we're actually starting to bore ourselves. So he's off the hook. For now.

Enough about the Barbara Dex contenders, which outfits did we actually like? Watch out for follow-up blogposts!

Most embarrassing ESC moments

This year it was all about sharing the moment. Join us for a quick recap on the most embarrassing moments we experienced during ESC. We had moments where we cringed in embarrassment and other moments when we almost cracked our hips as we fell on the floor laughing our heads off.

Norway running out of champagne
GEE had a fab time at the Official Opening Reception in Oslo City Hall. Who wouldn’t love to stroll up the pink carpet, squeezed in among the delegations from Azerbaijan, Poland and Belarus? It was however quite embarrassing to find out that Mayor Fabian Stang and his crew ran out of pink champagne nearly one hour before the party was supposed to be over. Snappy head waiters shouting at their assistants as well as at the prominent guests who were trying to elbow their way to catch the last drops didn’t make it any better. GEE had to execute major damage control by telling international guests that this is what happens when you offer Norwegians free booze. Speaking of, we do however suspect that the Butterflies from Belarus were also partly to blame for this situation…

Being robbed at Euro Café at broad daylight
GEE hung out at Euro Café one afternoon trying to recover from previous night’s party and getting prepared for yet another night of more partying (Yeah, ESC life’s a bitch, we know!). We are still in shock after having paid 78 NOK for a coke and a bag of potato chips. And we didn’t even get a full bottle, we got whatever was left in a small bottle that was first opened God knows when! And the bag of chips was tiny! Yeah, we get it, Norway is an expensive country, but this is just ridiculous. We can reassure all international readers and fellow guests at Euro Café during ESC that it is indeed possible to treat your hangover at a much more reasonable price than this just about anywhere else in Oslo. Shame on you, Euro Café.

Belarus' Butterflies being too drunk to sing
Need we say more? This actually happened at a gig they were supposed to perform at a week before the final. How very professional of them, and how funny for the rest of us!

Didrik + Per Sundnes = car job
Oh, we are trying really hard to think of what is the MOST embarrassing thing about the Didrik and Per relationship, but there is just so much material! Guess the worst part, anyway, must be the fact that Per Sundnes' husband decided to give Didrik a vintage car that has been in his family for a long time. Ok, so Didrik is a part of your family now, Mr. "supposed to be kinda neutral self acclaimed leader of MGP"? Please, people, stop courting.

Picking your audience more carefully
During the final in Telenor Arena, GEE was sitting next to a man claiming to be able to predict the votes from the different countries. He proudly showed us pictures on his phone of all the five ESC celebs he had met recently (GEE acted all surprised and impressed) and predicted that Israel would give Germany 12 points and Armenia would give 12 points to Azerbaijan. We recommend him to start reading newspapers (and our blog!) and maybe redo 3rd grade history before sitting next to us again.

Harel Skaat inviting people to lipsync him
While many of the contestants this year have been very good with their use of social media in marketing, Harel Skaat and his gang spent most of their time on their so called lip sync competition. AKA send in your video where you lip sync Harel's song. We were too embarrassed to watch the whole videos, but please take a look at one of them, at least for amusement. The PR people of Israel really wanted us to market it on our blog, so now we did. You're welcome.

Someone trying to trash Lithuania
Trying to trash Lithuania in the face of some of their most dedicated fans wasn't such a good plan. The Dutch TV commentator, who we by the way loved very much, tried to tell us Jurgis from InCulto was arrogant. Nope, you really missed something elementary there, we thought, and decided to introduce them to each other. Never heard more about that. When will we be hired as your PR agents, InCulto?

Moldova behaving kinda tacky
Grabbing GEE bloggers' asses turned out to be a hit, especially among Moldavian contestants. Have to say it's not the smartest of moves among blogger girls who, surprisingly enough, are no fans of groping, yet love to trash people in public.

Semi-Final 1

The rehearsals for the semi-finals have kicked off and with this, the speculations around which countries will proceed to the big final. We find the prediction game rather mind wrenching, and with the 50/50 jury and televote system it makes it even harder to guess the lucky 10 in each semi-final.

That's why we will settle for choosing our personal favorites which according to our opinion, in a perfect world without war, global warming and Dutch schlagers, would snatch a ticket to the final. Amazingly we agree on most entries. We suppose we have brainwashed each other and have pretty much morphed into one person by now. Ok, nuff said, here’s our pick for Semi-Final 1!

• Albania 
• Belgium
• Estonia
• Finland
• Greece
• Latvia
• Moldova
• Poland
• Serbia
• Slovakia

And yeah, we know, it probably won't be these ten. Besides, we are in agony since we’re actually starting to like Russia. And who can resist Belarus’ butterflies? And omg Iceland, we love you and we so wish we could like Hera Björk’s eurotrash. But we don’t.

Which are your favorites from semi-final 1?

Different strokes for different folks

Moldova introduced themselves to the ESC universe in 2005 with a drumming grandma, and it was love at first sight. Why on earth do we not see more psychedelic, ska funk rock in this competition, we wonder! Since then the Moldovans have been trough an impressive variety of music genres and most importantly given valuable contributions when it comes to costumes and props. They have shown up on stage in bikinis, bridal gowns and thorn up garbage bags, with mohawks, body paint, teddy bears and outfits in the gross color combination orange/purple. You just gotta love it!

This year is no exception, Moldova do not disappoint us. There´s so much action on stage during this number that we could have sworn to have seen at least 50 people there! The lead singer, Olia Tira, shows up in a "skirt" that would probably make even Lady Gaga blush, and there's fiddle and saxophone playing going on like there's no tomorrow. Throw in a couple of b-boys of a rather dubious quality, rotating stage components and a tam-tam gong and you got yourself a smorgosbord to feast on into the wee hours. After scrambling around in an ocean of sulky ballads for quite a while now, this is our party island!

We end up feeling a bit dizzy over the whole shabang, but this is after all one of the symptoms of having sunstroke. Note to self, bring sunscreen and a glamorous sombrero to Telenor Arena, and we should be fine, we recon!