Welcome to the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest. This is Helsinki Calling. After 40 years of continuous misses, Finland finally won the event last year, thanks to Hard Rock Halleluyah from masked-rockers Lordi, earning the right to host this year’s festival.
The Eurovision spirit is not prominent in the streets of Helsinki. Compared to last year’s Eurovision celebrations in Athens, this year’s Eurovision host country is quite cold towards the event and is keeping things minimal. One has to be on the lookout for the occasional flags or buses bearing this year’s Eurovision kaleidoscopic logo, otherwise it’s business as usual in Helsinki.
Olivia Lewis and her Vertigo team, made up of Philip Vella, Gerard James Borg, Jes Sciberras, Joseph Chetcuti, three Swedish backing vocalists, Anna (the choreographer) and vocal coach Claire Massa, together with the Maltese Eurovision delegation, arrived in Helsinki on Thursday.
Malta took the stage for the first rehearsal on Friday. The rehearsal started at around 1.50pm, Finnish time (Malta Time + an hour). Like all the other 14 countries that rehearsed on that day, Malta had 50 minutes of trial. This included the setting of the sound and lights, and practising the camera shots.
The first rehearsal started off with a blue setting. Speaking to Olivia’s partner Mark Vassallo on Saturday morning, he told us that the blue setting made the performance look quite cold. “They looked like penguins skating on ice”, he remarked.
Mike Spiteri, from the Maltese delegation, was of the same opinion. “We asked YLE (this year’s organisers) to change the lighting scheme for us, as it wasn’t looking good at all”, he said.
Soon the stage lights changed to fiery reds, oranges and yellows. This seemed to work well, and it was set.
Olivia’s vocal performance improved from one take to another and the new dance routine is an improvement on the one with which Olivia won the Malta Song for Europe in February.
On Sunday, Olivia took the stage for the second and last time before the dress rehearsal scheduled for tomorrow. Sunday’s rehearsal started at 2pm. Olivia wore the probable Eurovision dress. This is a shiny satin yellow and peacock-blue dress, with material designed by Roberto Cavalli acquired from Ivory & Co. The dress was hand-made by designer Joseph Bonello
and everyone in the hall agreed that she looked very elegant .
The common criticism, appearing on several Eurovision-related websites, is that “there are too many things happening on the stage, which might distract the common televoters.” Some even went a step further and said that “less would have been better for such a dramatic song. The music is already complicated, let alone having all those props on stage.”
Another criticism for the Maltese performance that we heard from the international press present in Helsinki is that the movement with the white fabrics is creating a “messy” impression on stage and the Maltese team should scrap that idea totally. However, on the bright side, some other journalists, including some from Greek website Oikotimes, described the Maltese performance as follows: “Everything is very oriental-style and although the whole performance seems to be a little chaotic, Olivia sounds and looks very well and Vertigo indeed has a big chance of going through.”
Hitchock’s Vertigo
influence
Composer Philip Vella said that other alterations were planned for the final chorus. Speaking at the press conference held immediately after the rehearsal, he said that after the 2004’s Eurovision participation by Julie & Ludwig’s On Again,Off Again he wanted to return to the Eurovision with a more dynamic song to fit in with the way in which the contest has evolved. Olivia was his first choice for such a song.
Gerard James Borg explained how he got the idea of the title from a Hitchcock film. He said he became obsessed with it and wanted to create a song with the same title. That is how the song was born.
According to the 17 betting agencies grouped by Bestbetting.com, Malta ranks 14th on the current Eurovision odds. Serbia, Sweden and Switzerland are the current favourites to win this year’s trophy, closely followed by Bulgaria and Belarus.
In the meantime, Maltese fans from OGAE MALTA have voted for their favourites from this year’s entries. Belarus came first with 128 points, followed by Cyprus, Switzerland, Denmark, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Greece, Serbia, Finland and Spain (10th place with 88 points).
Read the latest news from Helsinki on www.OGAEMALTA.com and The Malta Independent. There are daily links on ONE TV at 8pm, hosted by Norman Hamilton and Deo Grech. ONE TV’s filming and editing is done by Pierre Cachia and Jason Busuttil. This report has been made possible thanks to Hamilton Travel.