Highlights from the Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Last updated on Tuesday June 26th, 2018

The 63rd edition of the popular Eurovision song contest was hosted in the Altis Arena, one of Europe’s largest indoor sports halls, in Portugal’s capital city, Lisbon. As you remember, last year’s competition was won by Salvador Sobral, who competed for his home country of Portugal. In this post, I will share my opinions and some highlights from the 2018 Eurovision song contest.

Before the contest

A total amount of 43 songs were announced to compete in Lisbon, while Russia returns after one year of absence. Alexander Rybak, who won the contest in Moscow in 2009 with his song fairytale for Norway, is among the participants of this year. Although there were some rumors like, Turkey would return to Eurovision this year, we again chose not to participate, so 6 consecutive years of Eurovision we left behind without Turkey… Like last year, I decided not to make the video or list of the most favorite songs of mine this year. There were no convincing amount of songs for me to make a video so. I have to admit that, every year, Eurovision seems to be taking something from my love and passion for it. There are a lot of discussion about the winning singers or songs, the constantly changing voting system, the political events that manipulates the competition before and after… and many more reasons.

Semi finals

19 countries took the stage in the first semifinal: Azerbaijan, Iceland, Albania, Belgium, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Israel, Belarus, Estonia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia, Austria, Greece, Finland, Armenia, Switzerland, Ireland and Cyprus respectively. The ten finalists among these countries were Albania, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Israel, Estonia, Bulgaria, Austria, Finland, Ireland and Cyprus. The results of the first semi-final were also very interesting. Often finalists, owner of quality songs Greece, a successful country profile Azerbaycan since their debut, also Armenia and Belgium weren’t able to be in the grand final.

In the second semifinal, Norway, Romania, Serbia, San Marino, Denmark, Russia, Moldova, The Netherlands, Australia, Georgia, Poland, Malta, Hungary, Latvia, Sweden, Montenegro, Slovenia and ukraine took the stage respectively. Norway, Serbia, Denmark, Moldova, The Netherlands, Australia, Hungary, Sweden, Slovenia and Ukraine have qualified for the final. I can say that the results in the second semi-final were not surprising for me.

Final

The So called big five, Germany, France, England, Spain and Italy, the twenty countries from either semi-finals and the host country Portugal completed the grand final line up.

for the first part of the voting, the national jury’s points were announced by connecting to all the countries respectively. Austria was leading before the public votes. But As al the votes were announced, the winner was Netta with her song “Toy” for Israel. So Israel won the contest after 20 years.

The combined official results

Here are the combined results of Jury and televoting points.

Israel: 529
Cyprus: 436
Austria: 342
Germany: 340
Italy: 308
Czech Republic: 281
Sweden: 274
Estonia: 245
Denmark: 226
Moldova: 209
Albania: 184
Lithuania: 181
France: 173
Bulgaria: 166
Norway: 144
Ireland: 136
Ukraine: 130
The Netherlands: 121
Serbia: 113
Australia: 99
Hungary: 93
Slovenia: 64
Spain: 61
The United Kingdom: 48
Finland: 46
Portugal: 39

Netta

Her full name is Netta Barzilai. She was born in January 22, 1993 in Hod HaSharon, Israel. When Barzilai was three months old, she moved with her family to Nigeria where she lived for four years before returning to Israel. She gifted the 4th Eurovision title to her home country. Israel won the contest three times in 1978, 1979 and 1998 Netta’s Eurovision victory will undoubtedly be an important turning point for her life and musical carreer. She currently resides in Tel Aviv. By the way, She can also play the guitar.

My highlights from the final

1. Watched a grand final without Greece, Azerbaijan and Russia. Surprising indeed.

2. Even from many months before the contest, my favorite was Germany because the song was so touching and lyrics were meaningful. Michael Schulte, who sings the song “You let me walk alone” said that he wrote this song for his father. He ended being 4th over 300 points, so that was really good comparing to my other favorites in prior years.

3. I could have guessed that Israel would win the contest. Cyprus taking second place was not a surprise for me either. I was kinda sad seing the public votes were less than the votes of jury for Austria. So they ended up being 3rd.

4. The United Kingdom’s SuRie was singing her song Storm when a strange man wearing a rucksack ran onto the stage, grabbed her microphone, and appeared to say: “Nazis of the UK media, we demand freedom.”
He was swiftly dragged off stage and SuRie continued performing her song. After the song, the presenters had to go to the green room and had a nonsense talk with Ukraine’s Mélovin about his eyes while everything gets back to normal in the stage. Surie said that she doesn’t need to repeat her performance because there was nothing wrong with it.

5. The presenters had some dificulties while the arena reacts badly booing against Montenegro’s jury giving their 12 points to their neighbors Serbia, Greece doing the same for Cyprus, and their spokesperson talking too much. Also same reactions were heard when it was time for Russia to announce their jury votes.

6. The last year’s winner Portugal, ironically took 26th place being in the last place in their home.

7. Alexander Rybak, who had returned for the second time, has something in his song. Say shoobeee shoobee dab dab; say “All day long” and that’s how you write a song. seems like kind of a satire for the music industry.

8. At the beginning of the grand final, Mariza and Ana Moura’s fado performances were simply spectacular. Salvador Sobral took the stage before moving on the votes and together with the whole arena, he sang the song that brought him the vicctory last year. “I really hope that real music wins” he finally added. But did the real music win? I let you comment on this.