In the interest of completeness, I feel compelled to report that the eventual winner of the Eurovision competition a couple of weeks back was the song that went into the final as the favorite, the song from Denmark. Not my favorite, though. In fact, my rough notes taken during the final performances specifically mention how much I disliked both the singer and the song. But in those same notes I then went on to predict that the song would actually win. Such is my firm knowledge that I and my tastes are not really in-tune with popular culture and tastes, either in Europe or North America.

It was also the case that Denmark had the most “gimmicks” of all of the performances, as detailed by the BBC blogger in her post about the Eurovision final (scroll down that page for her post entitled “Showtime”). However, she did miss several other acts that had the requisite key change toward the end of the song – I can spot those approaching even before they are upon us. But I think she was right that Denmark had just about all of the available gimmicks on display: a rising plinth, the raining pyrotechnic wall or pyrotechnic explosions, shooting flames, a costume change or going barefoot, a wind or smoke machine, some falling glitter confetti, the use of a prop, a key change, one or more drummers, karaoke on the screens on stage [I’m not sure Denmark had this last one, actually]. But clearly, You’ve Gotta Have a Gimmick to win Eurovision.

Anyway, Chris and I did sit through all 3 hours of the Eurovision final, just to see what it was like. Although there were only 26 countries with entries in this year’s competition, 39 countries are eligible to vote to choose the winner. The 13 countries that didn’t enter apparently decided that the possibility of having to pay to host next year’s competition was a large disincentive to send entries to compete this year.

But the full final hour or so of the competition consisted of each of those 39 countries having a representative show up live (via a video link) to report their vote. Denmark was declared the winner with 3 countries still left to vote; with a running tally of the accumulated points displayed during the vote reporting, it was clear that it was mathematically impossible for any one else to win at that point.  The woman who announced Germany’s votes actually screwed up their announcement and gave their points to the wrong country, but the host had the real result  in front of her, so she quickly got it corrected. Other than that, there were no other glitches, although it was a surprise to me how complex the voting and point awarding system was. But no country wound up with the dreaded “null” (zero) points in the end, so I guess that’s good.

Chris and I did finally meet some Germans who admitted to watching Eurovision, so I think people still do tune in, despite our early assessment to the contrary, when we hadn’t found a single German who said they watched it.

But after the fact, we talked with one woman who said that all the gimmicks in the acts these days are far too ordinary. She misses the over-the-top spectacles of the memorable performances that once ruled the stage at Eurovision. Her favorite example was the winning song by Finland in 2006 called Hard Rock Hallelujah. It’s got monsters. And zombies. And a lead singer in a white top hat and monster face paint who grows wings toward the end. Completely over-the-top and then some.

Now that was a gimmick. No wonder it won.