Eurovision Song Contest Istanbul 2004

It's the first time I've watched the whole show and it was fun as I expected! Fun because most of the songs were kitsch! Fun because of the costumes, choreographies, etc... Fun because the French commentary was hilarious: Laurent Ruquier reading the sms that Geluck, Fogiel and other of his famous friends were sending to him during the show, Elsa Fayer commenting the show with sincerity, freshness and humour (and rating 2/20 almost every candidate!). Fun because of the Turkish persenter's hair! Fun because my parents and I played to the voting game. Fun because some few things were not that crap: Turkey's ska band was certainly the best, Ukraine's winner was fun to watch, French candidate was not that bad compare to former French entries, Serbia-Montenegro had a great music (what a pity the singer didn't have the same quality), Germany sent us a non-Eurovision-like candidate, and Russian teenager was cute to see and hear (with Kamel Ouali's choreography that is certainly the only good one...) The worse? Well, I suppose the egocentric gay disco diva from Bosnia is part of them, among the Austrian boys band, the Maltese old-fashioned duet and the Romanian symbol of vulgarity!

For a country which had been organizing a Eurovision Song Contest, this was the best one I have ever seen. I can say it has some flows while connecting live to other station because of the technical difficulties. The introduction of last year's winner Diva, Sertab Erener made an impressive 2-song show with dervishes.

The interval act of the "Fire of Anatolia" which may be resembling Riverdance, but in fact a totally different one, was remarkable with cultural dances from the ancient Turkish dances to the perfect and modern belly dance.

Because of having eliminated 12 of 36 entries, a total of 24 countries competed this year. The most irregular, non-routine, song for this contest was Turkish song "For Real" by ATHENA.

The crowd was incredible. All the people at the venue seems to accompany the singers, like they were all on the stage.

The winner Ruslana, from Ukraine with the song "Wild Dance" gathered the most attention. It was a well-worthy victory for her.

I think the "Eurovision Song Contest Of 2004" was great. It had a lot of great performers. I really loved Ruslan's song, as well as all the others. I really thought that Greece had a good singer this year. They came in third place. Ruslana's "Wild Dances" blew me away when I first herd it. From then on, I knew she would win. As for the comment above, Ik think that the "Eurovision Song Contest" is taken really seriously in Europe. I myself live in the USA, but I have relatives in Europe. They take the contest very seriously. I don't really know why countries like the UK, and Ireland don't put there top or famous singers in the contest. But, I know that countries like Greece and Cyprus put them in the contest. For example, both countries put up Anna Vissi in the 80's. They also put up other famous singers like Antique. Also, I know that for the 2005 contest, Greece will be putting up Helena Paparizou from Antique. She is well known for her music in Greece. Maybe the other countries want to give opportunities to the less known singers, or maybe, they just don't care as much. Anyway, I can't wait till the "Eurovision Song Contest Of 2005"! Till then, never forget about music!

I do know that the Eurovision song contest isn't supposed to be taken seriously as a song contest otherwise the 1990s would have seen Blur , Oasis or The Verve as the UK contestants while Ireland fielded U2 with Air representing France etc . In short this contest is not supposed to be taken seriously but come on at least pretend you're voting for the song you liked best , but alas politics comes into it . All the countries of the former Yugoslavia voted for one another which can be seen as part of a healing process but be honest , do you think the ghosts of 278,000 dead Yugoslavs can be exorcised by a camp and cheesy song contest featuring more often than not Euro-trash ? Neither do I . All the Nordic countries voted for one another while Greece and Cyprus gave each other maximum points as they do every year much to the disgust of the gathered audience in Turkey . Talking of Turkey I thought their entry was probably the best on the night , a sort of ska inspired track played by an actual band , but the winner was The Ukraine which seemed to have stolen their style from that sword and sorcery show from New Zealand

A well staged and organised musical event but an event that is well past its sell by date and which should hopefully be scrapped in the near future