Eurovision Song Contest Rome 1991

One of the nightmare years of the ESC. The RAI orchestra (well the sax-player in particular) managed to ruin the Greek entry, which was ace along side the entry by Israel. Other faves (of mine) were Yugoslavia, Turkey, Finland, and Switzerland.

It's a year to forget. Problems with the voting, problems with the sound, problems, problems, problems. Do I even have to mention the huge amount of bad songs? The stage-design was nice however (but it usually is). The hosts... the hosts... What was she wearing? And what was he doing?

That guy who did the interval act was surprisingly good however, doing VERY fast dress-changes. Wearing a dress, and changing to a suit in just a few seconds. Great fun! Almost the best part of the entire evening.

Although I don't think too highly of the ESC of 1991, in some ways it's better than those held nowadays. The orchestra should be brought back into the contest. The orchestra added a lot of charm, even when it managed to ruin the occasional song.

I was living in Germany at the time where I was first introduced to Eurovision. I was hooked. I'm so glad there are others who agree that the orchestra completely robbed the Greek band of a higher score. Sofia Vossou sang the song Anixi (Spring) flawlessly. When my aunt went to Greece a few years later for vacation I begged her to find that album, which she did. The Yugoslavian song, "Brazil" is great but Baby Doll did not perform it well at all live. The Eurovision concept is great. Too bad it's not broadcast in the U.S., as far as I know. This year I will try to catch it live streamed or something on the internet. In any case, it sure beats American Idol, which is pure garbage.

The presentation was chaotic, the stage strange and the organisation lacking to say the least but the songs were first rate this year and were not poor.

Toto set new lows in presentation though!

The real winner for me was the French entry by Amina, it was such a great song and deserved to win. The RAI orchestra ruined the Greek entry which was outstanding - how on earth could that have happened in a professional orchestra? The EBU scrutineers Frank Naef was getting visibly annoyed throughout the voting which was chaos itself. Terry Wogan was at the height of his powers and was excellent.