HUNGARY – LIVE BLOG for A Dal Quarter Final ONE from 1930 CET!!!

Hungary – Join us tonight at 19:30 CET for our LIVE rolling blog of the first heat of A-Dal 2017. 10 acts will compete for a place in the Semi Finals.

You can watch the show live here at 19:30 CET and just refresh our page here to get the views, comments and strangely unique points of view from Phil Colclough of OnEurope who you will know from us here at Eurovision Ireland and his sparkling charm and witty repartee should keep you entertained… or bored to hell, who knows!!

The 10 Acts tonight are :

The results will be a combination of a Jury and Audience Vote where 5 entries will progress to the Semi Finals. Then a sixth act will be solely picked by the televote from the non-qualifiers.

So sit back and get ready for Dr. Phil to give you his spin on tonight’s Hungarian first heat of A-Dal 2017 – JUST REFRESH THE PAGE for the upto date comments – at your own risk!

ROLLING BLOG

Good Evening All – It’s all kicked off on time with the same old presenters!

And a jury descended from the heavens it seems.   I’m sure we’ll get to song one shortly!

Song 1 – White Shadows – David. 

And of course they are not singing them in their released order, how silly of us to assume otherwise!

David comes on stage in his dad’s leather jacket and sings two songs at once, the first is an old-style ballad with a slight uptempo bit to it, the second is some sort of techno babble which tries to drop the beats but it seems to be a very weird mix.  Don’t know what the juries will think!

The Juries are very wordy with what they are telling David and he doesn’t seem that enamoured with what they are saying.

When it’s time for the scores he gets…. 37 points!!  more than I expected!

Song 2 – Élet – Leander Kills

And it’s now time for East European Rock at A Dal,

Typical voice that sounds like it’s had years of smoking combined with an early 1980’s sounding “rock” tune gives you a typical plodding song.  I suspect this will have it’s constituency ( though not the writer I have to add!), but I don’t think it’s getting anywhere near 37 points.  It just stops and has no tune or anything to it.  Sorry but… no

And as usual, what do I know – 40 points!!!

Song 3 – Glory – Calidora

Next comes the ethereal girl ballad from Calidora.   As again seems usual in this competition there is always the one girl that sounds out of tune when she is trying to be “hip” and it’s this one.  This song has nothing to engage me to be honest but the audience seem to like it.  Jury? – Not sure with this lot yet!

30 Points – that’s more like it and I’m back calibrated with the jury!

Song 4 – Mint a hurrikán – The Wings.

My first “oh dear” moment of the contest was when the lead singer seemed to be off in the first phrase! Thankfully he recovered to lead this guitar led slow song wagain with very little going for it apart from the “boho” look ” boo-hoo” more like.  The backing singers are all in strupes and red is the predominant theme.  It meanders like a stream, going nowhere very quickly and, frankly, it’s just boring.  NEXT! (32 points)

Song 5 – Viki Singh – Rain

A song in the Maltese or Spanish ballad mould next by Viki. This song, though, seems to be in a register that’s too low for her in the first verse which is something the song does well to recover from.  It plods along in a usual ballad stylee and is given a performance to match.  Very understated performance and her voice does the talking, although I don’t think it’s talking my language, but the juries will probably lap it up. – And they do, 39 points and 2nd place as I write this.

Song 6 – Deák – Spoon 21

Their introduction film has them in dog papier mache masks, a theme their backing singers take onto the stage with them.  Lead singer in leather (clearly a thing), singing an mid tempo boyband song that usually does very well in this competition and should see them into the next round.  Bogdan of this site tells me they are the favourites, but I can see them having to fight hard to get the 41 points needed to take the lead.  It’s well performed but very formulaic and repetitive but the girls in the audience like them!! 39 points should qualify them.

Song 7 – Create – Kata Csonder

Clearly channeling Wolf Kati, Kata is the cookie one this year, starting off with mime, singing with her microphone in a backhanded grip looking like  Katie Hopkins crossed with Babara Streisand she instantly gets my back up! – the song itself is somewhat slow and passes you by, light is not the word but it’s definitely the most amateurish song of the night so far.  trying too hard to *be* something, but flopping. 32 points ( too many imho)

Song 8 – Benji – Karcok

I was too busy being purile on the EI twitter account to pay much attention but when I looked at the other half of the screen there was a man in a panama hat! A much missed fashion accessory AND a bow tie! – Having got dressed up for the occassion the song seems to be a bit of a let down, a standard ballad sung by a good looking boy clearly aiming for the heart.  Vocally not bad but the song itself is, like many others tonight, lacking quite a bit of oomph. 36 points and that qualifies Spoon 21 and Viki Singh.

Song 9 – Ősz – Rocktenors

The mere phrase “Rocktenors” has me shuddering.  A man on a trapeze as the eye candy is also worrying.  As Bogdan has just pointed out, anything Rocky seems to go down well here but to my ear this is particularly wrist slittingly awful.  Even when one of the singers has clearly broken ihs arm and it’s pinned may not get him the requisite sympathy votes.  The song again doesn’t build into anything it’s just noise until about the last 60 seconds where it becomes something rock like but the damage has been done… surely?  33 points qualifies David Henderson.

Song 10 – Nyitva a ház – Roma Soul

And now to the final song of the evening ( thank the lord!) – Roma Soul promises a typical Roma type of song and they don’t disappoint.   Psychedelic shirts make this a danger for anyone that suffers from astigmastsm but the almost a capela beatboxing type of song is not infectious but a contrast to the other 9 songs.  they even wrap with a long haired boy, it really has something for everyone.  I think this might come close. – Qualified in joint first with Leander Kills.

Thats it from me for NOW, but i’ll update with the televoting qualifier as soon as its known

And that would be Benji so the first six all qualified tonight.

Author – Phil C – http://www.oneurope.co.uk