Welcome to a recap of all the action from last night’s Semi-final #1 at Eurovision 2014. I’ve got lots to tell you, so let’s get the bad news out-of the way first. I’m sorry to have to report that Latvia did NOT make it into the finals, so there will be no Cake to Bake on Saturday night. I though their lead singer sounded a bit hoarse last night, and perhaps that lost them some votes.  From what I’d read, the Latvian group had been doing impromptu jam sessions with the Maltese and Greek groups (neither of which performed last night). Perhaps that took a toll on the throats of the Latvian entry.  Also, their staging was lacking in something; it could have been better. Oh well. Better luck next year, Latvia!

So, now that we know our favorite bakers are out of the running, who did make it through last night?  I found this page which has a nice set of clips all embedded in the page, grouped by who won and who didn’t. Go there if you want to see clips of all 16 countries that performed last night.

What I want to focus on in this post is just some of the more noteworthy acts from the show.

Or rather, the things stand out from reviewing my notes today.

First, the title of this post is a nod to the gimmick for the 1-minute video intro used for each group. Last year, the gimmick was “Postcard from X”, where the group wandered around somewhere in their country. This year, it’s all about flags. Each performer had to come up with a way to artistically represent their country’s flag, and then take a photo of what they created. For example, the Latvian group created their flag by — what else — baking a cake and then decorating it with red berries of some kind to look like the flag: (note: clicking on any of the flag links below will open that group’s performance in a new window)

Latvia flag cake, Eurovision, 2014

The singer from Albania, on the other hand, took a more personal — and permanent — step to creating her version of the Albanian flag. That flag  has a silhouetted black eagle symbol in the center of an all-red background. The singer decided to have the eagle symbol tattooed on her back. Really. To get her final photo of the whole flag, the tattoo artist held up a translucent red sheet and shot the photo through that so that the tattoo appeared in the center:

Albanian flag using tattooed back photographed through a red transparency, Eurovision 2014

So the singer literally threw her whole body into the performance, but that wasn’t enough, unfortunately, and Albanian joined Latvia in the losers group. At least the Albanian singer goes has a permanent reminder of Eurovision,  I guess.

The Azerbaijani singer created her flag by painting a wall and then adding in the symbols that are in the middle of the flag by using a technique known as “light painting“, where you draw something in the air with a flashlight (or other light) during along exposure on the camera,  so the shape you draw with the light gets recorded on in the photo. It’s not easy to do.

Azerbaijani Flag with light painting symbols, Eurovision 2014

Her flag was the best part of the Azerbaijani entry, IMHO, as the song didn’t appeal to me at all (a standard rock power ballad that is so popular these days at Eurovision). Her performance, though, was head and shoulders above some of the others acts. Literally. You see, even though the singer herself — like so many others last night — remained rooted to a single spot on the stage as she sang, there was a doppelganger hanging above her on a trapeze. I guess it worked: Azerbaijan is in the finals.

But it was striking just how many of the singers seemed to be using the pick-a-place-and-don’t-move-at-all style of performing. Rather boring, IMHO. But there were other exceptions in addition Azerbaijan. For example, the 17-year-old twins from Russia ultimately moved up and down on a giant see-saw after untangling (as part of the act) their initially entwined long blonde ponytails. And then there was the singer from Ukraine, who moved around energetically in front of and on top of the giant hamster wheel that was part of her act; a man ran furiously inside it during her song.

Both of those acts made it through to the finals.

However, not as successful was the energetic woman from Estonia, who performed an acrobatic dance routine with a non-singing partner. It was hard to believe she was really singing live (as is required), as she was constantly leaping and running, and yet never sounded out of breath as she sang. Perhaps others agreed something was fishy — Estonia did not make the final cut.

Another casualty was the group from Moldova, whose singer stayed put but had a bunch of backup singers moving around her at all times. As part of the staging, which was apparently based on the Game of Thrones series, her microphone was shaped like a huge knife, and at one point she cut off  her long ponytail (click here to jump to that point in the video) with the mike/knife.  Unfortunately, it was a blink and you miss it kind of moment, so it didn’t really have much of an impact. Moldova joined the groups who did not make the final.

Another staging involved an “ice skater” (really a woman on roller blades) skating around the singer during the Montenegro performance. The illusion was that as she skated, she left a trail of light in her wake, like she was making patterns in ice. It reminded me of something they use in the Disney film Frozen; the idea in the movie is that a woman turns stuff to ice as she walks water and snow. Maybe that’s where the idea here came from? Whatever the source, it was apparently interesting enough to allow Montenegro to glide into the finals.

Portugal must have figured beforehand that it had a guaranteed winning combination for its staging, since it borrowed heavily from all the gimmicks that were very successful last year.  The singer was in a skimpy costume; there were 2 huge drums and drummers standing and performing behind the her; a heavily tattooed, half-naked man was playing a smaller drum while dancing next to her; 6 or so backup dancers — both male and female — were in oddly partially see-through shirts, gyrating in rhythm behind her; the song itself was an upbeat rock ballad with the requisite number of key changes; and there was a big finish with special effects that included lights flashing and a wind machine. Last year, all of those thing were the keys to success. Unfortunately, in 2014 that seems just so 2013, I guess. And, the woman for Portugal was wearing shoes. Last year, being barefoot was also key. Perhaps as a result, Portugal did not advance to the final this year.

Now, the mother of all outlandish groups last night had to be the group from Iceland. Goofy rock song combined with band members dressed in suits that were each a different, outrageous bright color. They also all had beards, beards of every size and shape. “The muppets go post-punk” was Chris’ comment, which I thought was particularly apt. Have a look:

Click here to see the video clip of Iceland in Eurovision 2014

They were the last to be announced as making it into the final, and even though it meant at that point that Latvia wasn’t going to go on, I was glad to see that there is at least an act that carries on the fine tradition of sheer Eurovision insanity into the final.

On a sentimental note of sorts, I should also make mention of the entry from San Marino. It seems that the same woman has been the designated singer for San Marino’s entry for three years in a row now. The last two years she did not make it past the semi-final round. So the burning question was, would the 3rd time be the charm?

The answer was decisively Maybe.  That is, her song was titled Maybe, and it did indeed make it into the finals this year. Interestingly, the announcement  that San Marino had made it into the finals got the biggest cheer from the crowd. I guess everybody likes to vote for a great back-story, even if it requires overlooking the fact that she sang the song while standing in a cheesy giant cloth clam shell.

Anyway, as I said at the top of this post that other web site has a nicely organized set of links to all 16 performances last night. While checking out the groups I haven’t talked about here, pay particular note  to the song from Sweden. Last night  Chris and I were struck by how the Swedish song was quite a good copy of — or perhaps we should say  homage to — the winning Danish song last year. It turns out that it is now the front-runner to take the title, overtaking the previous favorite Armenia in the polling. We’ll see if that changes after tomorrow’s Semi-Final #2 reveals some more of the competition.

Stay tuned.