Copenhagen - Days 5-8

By Friday, the Eurovision dramas were starting to unfold. The Netherlands was disqualified due to what the EBU deemed unacceptable behaviour from Joost Klein, another crowd favourite, towards a member of the production crew. There also seemed to be some drama associated with some comments that he made during a press conference. The final was shaping up to be one of the most controversial contests for a long time.

The day of the final arrived and we had gotten into our routine of food, alcohol and getting ready. We made our way to Copenhagen Central and took a seat next to two guys on their way to the viewing party at the Euroclub. We struck up a conversation with them, with Jason spouting off about how he didn’t like Copenhagen when we were here last time, before he realised he was speaking with a local and quickly tried to recover the conversation with how much he like it staying in the outer suburbs of Copenhagen. Jason didn’t dig himself out of his hole by saying that Vesterbro was the suburbs – it’s downtown Copenhagen!

When we got to Malmö, we did our usual routine: refuel, pee and stand in line to enter the arena. This time, there were more pro-Palestine protestors than previously. One woman was dragged by Swedish police into a paddy wagon, screaming that they were hurting her arm.

Next minute, there was a camera in my face asking me who I thought would win Eurovision. I have no idea what random TV station or online blog was asking. Another interview that’s somewhere on the world wide web.

We then ran into a group of Danish boys that helped us get out of the maze that is Copenhagen Central after the first semi-final. At our first meeting, I had the Australian Aboriginal flag painted on my cheek in support of Electric Fields, who was representing Australia. One of the Danish guys mistook the colours as the German flag and started speaking in German. I had to break it to him that I didn’t understand a word. He then broke into English and shared his strong mix of gin and soda.

For the final, I wasn’t entering the arena without an alcoholic beverage to enjoy during the show. So I lined up at the bar and waited my turn. A Swedish woman came up to me and asked me where I was from; again she was amazed that we had flown 24 hours to come to Eurovision. I thought that I was all set to enjoy the show until I tried to leave the bar area and was repelled by the security guard. Apparently I wasn’t allowed to leave the area with a bottle of beer. So I had to scull it and return to Jason emptied handed reeking of beer. Oh well!

Even before the show started, the organisers had a pep talk to calm the crowd, tensions were high with one disqualified act and another act many wanted removed from the competition. The head of the EBU, Martin Österdahl, wasn’t a popular man. Every time he spoke there were audible boos from the audience. In fact, I never heard a word that he said. But when you watch the play back, the boos have been removed from the broadcast.

With the Netherlands disqualified, they refused to give their votes live on air, and Martin had to announce the votes “due to a communication problem”. In the rehearsal show, they use dummy votes and one country refused to say Israel and said Ireland instead. The host, Petra Mede, kept repeating for them to announce the correct country until it became clear that wasn’t going to happen. Luckily, no jury gave Israel douze (12) points. The public vote was another story; I still think that the public vote was rigged. And in the live show, many of us turned our backs on the Israeli contestant in support of a cease fire and an end to the genocide in Gaza. This wasn’t met with positivity from all in the arena.

After the show finished, we headed to Euroclub for the after party. The final show didn’t finish until 1am so we were already keeping our eyes open with matchsticks. We hung about, dancing in the background of the SVT TV crew who were filming at the club. Another TV appearance which we’ll never see. After an hour or so, and with tired feet, we dawdled back to the train station to make our way back to Copenhagen. Luckily, we had another day to recover and to wander the Danish streets.

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