IRELAND

The Irish final took place on 11th February as a special Eurosong edition of “The Late, Late, Show” hosted by Ryan Tubridy. This year, RTE have tried to curb the recent run of poor performances of Ireland by introducing a new selection format with a slight x-factor twist. RTE have elected 5 mentors, all with music and entertainment experiences, whose job was to select an act, a song as well as getting them ready for the pre-selection performance.

The panel is presented – Marty Whelan, Cheryl Baker, Brian Kennedy and Marie Farrell.

Act 1 is mentored by Ronan Hardiman
Don Mescall – Talking With Jennifer
Don sings the song backed by a five piece male and female band, all singing live vocals. He is strutting about on the stage and stomping about a lot. The piano riff in the middle is quite catchy in the middle. The song sounds much better than the recorded version although the chorus is not quite clear enough. This would work very well on the radio and could be a hit.
A very favourable review from all the panel.

Act 2 is mentored by Caroline Downey Desmond
Jedward – Lipstick
The twins are dressed in red suits and huge quiffs and backed by two male and two female singers in black. It is quite clear they are not doing all the singing. The backing singers are doing some of the ends of the verses. It is very heavily choreographed but they do some very bad free styling during the verses. These guys are enjoying themselves but Europe will not get it.
The panel think that the song and performance is ‘joyous’, ‘energetic’ and ‘funny’

Act 3 is mentored by Willie Kavanagh
Bling – Shine On
They stand boy-girl-girl-boy behind microphones stands. The motown-esque start is really unusual. The start is far to choreographed and looks quite forced and contrived. As soon as they lose the stands and interact with each other it feels much more real. The group is really tight and the harmonies are very well sung. They seem really pleased with how it went.
The jury seem to agree that this worked much better live than on CD.

Act 4 is mentored by Liam Lawton
The Vard Sisters – Send Me An Angel
The three sisters are in Greek style white dresses with a pianist and 2 backing singers all in black. The song is well sung and is very clear. The theme and style of the song seems a little dated, although cleverly it does have a whiff of lots of other different songs and melodies i.e. “You raise me up” and Ellie Goulding’s version of “Your song”
The jury seem torn as to whether this is a Eurovision song or if it is contemporary enough.

Act 5 is mentored by David Hayes
Nikki Kavanagh – Falling
Nikki is joined by 2 male dancers, 2 male and 1 female backing singer. Her voice is very good and sounds very much like the recorded version. She walks around her mic stand with confidence and the movement does not affect her voice. The backing singers add a little something to the song. This is very contemporary and cold be played on the radio.
The jury does not like the dancers or the staging but say she has the best voice.

While the vote is taking place Tubridy talks to 2 former Irish hosts Cynthia Ní Mhurchu and Mary Kennedy.
Then they show a complication of ‘mistakes’ of Eurovision
The voting lines are shut and while the collate the votes, Bucks Fizz perform “Making your mind up”

The jury votes are added up first
Don Mescall 44
Jedward 62
Bling 32
The Vard Sisters 36
Nikki Kavanagh 66


The viewer points are added on
Don Mescall 48
Jedward 98
Bling 44
The Vard Sisters 54
Nikki Kavanagh 96


This means that Jedward with “Lipstick will be representing Ireland in Dusseldorf.


SINGER – Jedward
SONG – Lipstick
MUSIC – Lars Jensen And Martin Larson
WORDS – Dan Priddy