Morten Thomassen from Norway started reported on the final positions of the 37 entries in the 2023 Eurovision song contest. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.

This is a blog entry and represents only writer Morten Thomassen’s own views.

Our Georgian friend Iru was the only one of those who the bookmakers predicted would make it to the finals who didn’t make it and since she lacked 41 points to do so, she was thus quite far from making it.

The song she sang was called “Echo” and was a dramatic ballad of the really big kind made even bigger if possible with a really big number on stage, why did it fail so big?

Because, it must have been, this country has not been to the finals since 2016 and was therefore quite desperate for just that and therefore placed the responsibility of achieving it on the experienced Iru’s shoulders.

There is little doubt that this is a powerful and great song and there really isn’t much to fault about the vocals in this song, what went wrong then?

When you look at the performance, it’s a bit too introverted and I don’t think that Madam Khechanovi quite manages to reach me as a TV viewer.

What we see is really a bit bland and it’s almost ugly to say when you see that a lot of work has really gone into a great stage performance.

If only the lady had looked me in the eye a little more and made me believe what she was singing about, maybe she would have caught more people on the hook.

This song probably also falls into the jury food category and these songs were mostly weeded out in the semi-finals this year.

Let’s hope our Georgian friends lick their wounds and come up with a song next year that actually takes them to the finals, they deserved it by now.

Featured image by Corinne Cummings – EBU