Israel Calling – awards of the evening

Yesterday was a great evening. We all gathered around our computer screens, trying to watch the live stream from Tel Aviv, which worked five seconds at a time, while a bunch of Eurovision artists were onstage trying to show us how well they can sing without a single monitor sound in their ear and lots of screaming fans in the audience. Safe to say some did better than others and some fans were mad in social media. That should teach Israel a thing or two about cutting off people’s basic supplies. But we’ll give them for effort.

It seemed like a fabulous party, though! And we are enormously grateful to ESCKAZ, that makes videos of all entries and publishes them on what has quickly become our new favorite YouTube channel. Here are the GEE awards for the evening:

Best performance, period: Poland‘s Michal Szpak. What on EARTH did they put in that guy’s water? He’s absolutnie fantastyczne! We now figure he is not only Poland’s Jack Sparrow, but also Poland’s Placido Domingo. What a great combination!

Best energy on stage: Amir from France/Israel/a bunch of other countries, who was also the runner up for best performance of course. Did we mention that Amir is rather fabulous? He’s starting to remind us of Gianluca Bezzina now. No one has ever been that close to resembling our Maltese knight in this competition before.

Best performance of whole song in key, albeit the wrong key: Zoë from Austria. That hurt. So bad.

Best dressed in Israel and in all the fan events so far: Sandhja from Finland. Currently looking up the number for Marimekko, as we also want to look like creative zebras while jumping around in circles. Now!

Best dancers: the four poeple surrounding Sergey Lazarev from Russia. The biceps of those women are seriously impressive. MAN, we can’t wait to see this in Stockholm.

Best performance by person who obviously cannot sing at all, but tries her very best anyway, dressed in a lampshade: Samra from Azerbaijan. We should all remember she is the affirmative action this year. How brave of her to participate!

Best incorporation of monitor annoyance into your dance moves: FREDDIE from HUNGARY!

Is Freddie showing you how to make an omelet by stirring well and breaking just ONE extra egg? No, he is asking for monitor, which clearly he forgot to book at least a year ahead, as you are supposed to in Tel Aviv. Nonetheless, this looks fab, and we will of course be incorporating it into our dance routine for Euro Club. Watch out for the omelet dance!

Biggest fashion crisis in Tel Aviv: Poland‘s Michal Szpak, who both left his leather jacket in Amsterdam AND got flat hair the minute he entered Israel. Clearly, humidity and warm weather is not good for him. He should come to Stockholm, where there is absolutely zero of that. Did love his leather pants, though. More of that, hopefully in gold.

Biggest diva in Tel Aviv: Sergey Lazarev from Russia, that had a woman hold his umbrella over him while being outdoors. That’s not very gentlemanly of you, hon. Go practice your outdoorsy skills and bring your rain coat to Stockholm in case you feel like planting another tree/fallos symbol/all of the above.

Best impersonation of Justin Bieber, at least if you put it on mute, which you should always do in his case: Donny Montell from Lithuania. No further comment.

Second biggest fashion crisis: The whole bunch of artists that all showed up in leather jackets in the press conference in Tel Aviv. We are starting to think this is some kind of requirement from the EBU.