ESC Covers start the Eurovision 2024 countdown from position 37 to the top place. We are using the review of Morten Thomassen from Norway. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.
This is a blog post and only represents writer Morten Thomassen’s own views.
For the first time in ESC history, a country was disqualified in the middle of the competition due to an incident that in other competition environments might have been called unsportsmanlike conduct.
After his appearance in semi-final 2, where he otherwise finished in clear second place, Dutch Joost Klein is said to have behaved threateningly towards a photographer who, against his will, took a picture of him on his way off the stage.
On paper, this may seem like a case, but among those who decided it was unanimous that he had to be thrown out, harsh punishment many thought and until you are explained the whole sequence of events it is difficult to know what is right.
On my ranking list, the song ends up in 26th place, it actually made it to the final and must therefore finish ahead of those who didn’t, but since the final participation was taken away from them, we thus have to pretend that they came last in the final, someone I am otherwise pretty sure they wouldn’t have done it had they been allowed to run.
As the last country out of the second semi-final, the song was a fantastic way to end the show if you hear that he brings the audience with him in a way that the other artists that night definitely didn’t, and when he also ends the song in a way that gives many of those who look at it with tears in their eyes appear what you saw as a solid twist bag of a song.
That he himself destroyed himself with what he did seconds after he finished when he left the stage appears in retrospect as just sad and whether this country, which is one of the 7 countries that have been involved since its inception in 1956, will be involved next years remains to be seen, most ideally they should perhaps be with Joost again, as you know, revenge can sometimes be very sweet.
Featured image – Sarah Louise Bennett EBU