Big Blue Flash

[UPDATE: next Whit Friday date added: 13th June 2025] While I've been finishing off my reviews of the Eurovision 2024 Grand Final acts, it occurred to me that the *other* competitive music event that I like to geek out over happens this week, and that perhaps it's worth a few words in this blog. What am I talking about? It's the annual Whit Friday march contests . I'm fascinated by this because it's such a local and specific cultural phenomenon, something genuinely unique, and something I've participated in before as a player, albeit 3 decades ago. If you've never heard of this event (or rather, collection of events) it definitely needs some explaining, and so that's what this post is for. I've adapted some text that I wrote a few years back in order to explain these contests to my choir friends. That means it was originally aimed at a musically knowledgeable audience who aren't familiar with brass bands, but honestly you don't need to be a m...

[UPDATE, 11 May: since writing this, The EBU have prohibited The Netherlands from competing in the Grand Final tonight.] Semi-Final 2 happened last night and we now know which countries are competing tomorrow in the Grand Final. That means 6 more entrants failed to make the cut - I'll review them here and round up the most notable moments from the rest of Semi-Final 2. (Same scoring system as before, see below*) Semi-Final 2: non-qualifiers Albania: Besa - " Titan " 😮😮 A perfectly decent delivery of this underwhelming composition. One positive aspect of this staging was that they kept two of the backing singers that were present in the original version, as performed at the Albanian national final. Adequate pitching, confident delivery, no mistakes but not much artistic expression either. On balance, a deserved elimination. Czechia: Aiko - " Pedestal " ★★😮😮 Now this one I'm disappointed about saying goodbye to. Aiko's delivery was grungy enough to sui...

The 2024 Eurovision Song Contest has finally started in earnest! Semi-Final 1 is done and five entrants have been knocked out. Here are my reviews of those unsuccessful performances and a mini round-up of notable surprises, both good and bad, from the rest of the semi-final. Here's a quick recap of my scoring system in 2 parts: first for the song composition itself, incorporating the studio recording. This will be the same as my initial (p)review scoring unless something drastic has changed to the recording used for playback. no stars = if I had control of the playlist I would turn it off or skip ★ wouldn't skip if it came up on shuffle ★★ on my "2024 Eurovision Favourites" playlist on Spotify ★★★ spent my own money getting a digital download; gone digging around their back catalogue for more stuff ★★★★ bought their entire back catalogue; checking out tour dates Next, for vocal performance on the night (just the vocals because everything else is recorded and played...