21. Cool hits Hartwall: Andorra's first rehearsal

by Richard West-Soley 49 views

Andorra prepare to send a wake-up call to voters as the fresh sound of Anonymous takes to the stage for the boys' first rehearsal in Hartwall today.

From mood to mood, the ambiance of the hall changes once again as a happy bit of youth culture fills the arena. The boys are really together on stage, with a tight and very confident vocal that fills the hall, and they form a professional, seasoned act considering the age of the group's members. With a big jump together to kick the song off, they immediately inject a double dose of energy into the performance. Although the rest of the performance is static, with the boys remaining at their mic stations throughout strumming in time, this is very much in the style the song was intended and the set works very well. From the press area, the boys could almost double as Busted.

'Cool' reaches Hartwall
Digits and numerals scroll the walls behind Anonymous in a decidedly cool set – one of the most eye-catching of the day – and a nice touch is the count down of 1-2-3-4 at the appropriate moment in the lyrics. The scrolling stops suddenly for the acoustic break, before jumping back into action for the end of the song.

The presentation is extremely fresh, and the reaction in the hall was fantastic, with quite vocal applause after each run. Whether it will qualify is in the hands of the televoters, and a song like this seems squarely aimed at a particular market; but qualify or not, Anonymous look set to achieve at least Andorra's best result in the semifinal to date.

Richard West-Soley

Senior Editor

Richard's ESC history began way back in 1992, when he discovered the contest could fuel his passion for music and languages. Since then, it's been there at every corner for him in some way or another. He joined the esctoday.com team back in 2006, and quickly developed a love for writing about the contest. In his other life, he heads the development team at the learning resources company Linguascope, and writes about all aspects of language learning on the site Polyglossic.com.