Madonna out of key, big differences between jury and televoting – Iceland to be booh’ed for Palenstine flag – a nervewracking voting – and then it ended with a victory for the top favourite.
Sweden won jury voting. Norway tele voting – and combined the Netherlands won!
The 2019 Eurovision Song Contest final offered all the tension one could ask for from such a show. 26 countries with songs of high variation. Most of the favourites placed in the first half making it hard to predict if they would be able to make it from those spots – and then, we had Madonna! The top selling American artist appeared as interval act performing her new single Future and her well known smash hit from 1989 Like A Prayer. If anyone should be in doubt, Madonna was singing live. Her voice isn’t what it has been, and she was out of breath at several moment. Just seeing her on the Eurovision stage will have been a magic moment for many though. It will be up to the organisers to to judge if it was really worth the money.
Prior to her performance, she was interviewed in front of the greenroom – with in particular Cyprus’ Tamta looking at her with admiration.
Before we came to Madonna, 26 acts had to perform their Eurovision entry, all hoping for that at the end of the night, they would be awarded the winner trophy.
As usual the show started with a flag ceremony, but just ahead of that Netta entered the stage to welcome us all. She was sourounded by a group of dancing flight attendants, which made one think of Scooch (United Kingdom 2007). Dana International, Ilanit (Israel 1973) and Nadav Guedj (Israel 2015) worked as breaks in the flag ceremony. And finally, the hosts came on stage and we were to begin. But let’s just add the nice thing that all countries were welcomed in their own language at the flag ceremony.
Madonna weren’t the only interval act as we also saw a show to be talked about: Conchita (singing Heroes), Måns Zelmerlöw (singing Fuego), Eleni Foueira (singing Dancing Lasha Tumbai) and Verka Serduchka (singing Toy). Once all four have done their editions of the other songs, 1979 Israeli Eurovision winner Gali Atari joins them on stage for a performance of Hallelujah. In the background, you see the 1979 Eurovision logo.
Jean Paul Gaultier was interviewed in the grand final. He is designer for two of the interval acts tonight; Dana International and Madonna.
As if we didn’t have enough interval acts tonight; Netta took the stage with her new single Nana Banana. One can really wonder how they fitted so much into the show.
During the voting, Icelandic Hatari waved the Palentine flag – and was booh’ed for doing so. This is also an act against the rules of the contest.
