Californian Reacts | Eurovision 2023 Weird & Wonderful Moments from the Finals

The Eurovision Song Contest 2023 was the 67th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Liverpool, United Kingdom, after Ukraine, winner of the 2022 contest with the song "Stefania" by Kalush Orchestra, was unable to meet the demands of hosting the event due to security concerns caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on behalf of the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC), the contest was held at the Liverpool Arena, and consisted of two semi-finals on 9 and 11 May, and a final on 13 May 2023. The three live shows were presented by British singer Alesha Dixon, British actress Hannah Waddingham and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina, with Irish television presenter Graham Norton joining for the final.

Thirty-seven countries participated in the contest, with Bulgaria, Montenegro and North Macedonia ceasing their participation, mainly due to the economic impact of the 2021–2023 global energy crisis.

The winner was Sweden with the song "Tattoo", performed by Loreen and written by her with five others. Loreen became the second performer to win the contest twice; it was also the seventh win for Sweden, tying Ireland's record for the most victories in the contest. Finland, Israel, Italy and Norway rounded out the top five.

#eurovision2023 #loreen #chachacha

[singingcat]

Yes, she was actually speaking french. She asked him "What's your favorite movie in french ?"
He answered "yes" 😂

[lucjanpetroniusz]

This is interesting how Americans discover in Europe we have at least 50 more unique nations every each with its own art least 1000 and more years history and culture! The mix of culture, language and diversity may be something new for Americans

[Hosigie]

I'm Croatian but I really wanted Kaarija to win, he won all of our hearts with his music and personality. But hey, at least I discovered a new artist to follow. Hopefully his career takes off.
In Croatia we have a song contest called Dora in February, and who wins that represents us in Eurovision that year.

[Saturinus]

They cut out Graham Norton's joke after Iceland's points announcement: "It's the world's slowest stripper".

[russetmantle]

I expected Sweden to win but was rooting for Finland to win (I'm in the UK, for context). There were a couple of reasons. First, Loreen has won before, so it would have been great for someone else to get a go. But mostly because I just preferred the Finland song. It had everything required to be a classic Eurovision winner: a really great concept (a song split into two parts, with two different styles, to represent the two different emotional states of the character); a powerful hook (cha cha cha, cha cha cha cha!); a really brilliant performance (he bursts out of a box and there's the beautiful sight of ballroom dancers doing the cha cha cha to a metal song, before they all get together to join in his dorky dance for the dancefloor bit).

The other thing is that the Finland song was in Finnish and the Sweden song was in English. There's a whole history of controversy in Eurovision about which languages countries should choose for their songs. There used to be a rule that countries had to send a song in one of their native languages, but that was abandoned after it became clear that this gave too much of an advantage to countries that have English as a native language, since voters were more likely to be able to understand the lyrics of their songs, and therefore feel more connected to them. Although that rule doesn't apply any more, it's still true that if a song is sent in a less broadly known language, it's at an automatic disadvantage in the voting. Which is another reason why it would have been wonderful to see Finland win. It got very close.

[palexa]

Every country has a different way of choosing a song. In Portugal for example, we have a whole competition (not unlike Eurovision: with 2 semifinals and a final) called Festival da Canção (Song Festival). It's hosted by one of the main TV stations of the country (RTP - Rádio e Televisão de Portugal: Radio and Television of Portugal) and they invite known songwriters to write a song and choose a performer and all of that. There are also some artists that are independent that can apply and then get selected to perform after some screening or something like that. The voting is done completely by the public...so basically the public chooses who to send to Eurovision to represent Portugal.
Also...I think there is no rule that says you can't participate more than once. This year's winner is an example. Loreen participated twice and won both times. Another good example is Alexander Rybak: he represented Norway twice, winning once in 2009. Simone de Oliveira from Portugal also participated twice back in 1965 and 1969 I believe. The most well know (I think) is Johnny Logan from Ireland (he won twice as the performer in 1980 and 1987 and wrote the winning song in 1992 and wrote the runner-up song in 1984)

[ssanti]

About the selection process, each country differs. Italy sends the winner of Festival di Sanremo, which is the biggest music event of the year. It lasts 5 nights and many popular singers compete. Italy has always made it in the top 6 in the past 6 editions of Eurovision, and won in 2021.

[JohanKnollema]

Historically both french and english were spoken during the ESC. French is gradually disappearing but still some french is spoken. The jury’s are allowed to give the results in either french or english. That is why the 12 points are still referred to as the ‘douze points’. I think this is the first year that even the french juror spoke english.

[onomatopoetisk]

I’m from Sweden and my favourites this year were Australia, Germany, Finland and Slovienia. Uhm… the more rock and/or industrial songs I guess 😂

[malingrundstrom]

Every country has its own process to pick their contestant. In Sweden we have Melodifestivalen which is 6 competitions in different cities of the country where the public vote. Some countries don't have public voting, some sent their like Idol winner, some have like a jury that pick their contestant and some have competitions.

[tombroderick]

The funny thing is that all over the world it seemed like there were people singing Finland's entry to the song contest IN THE FINNISH LANGUAGE. Insane! And also very impressive. Pidän kaksin käsin kiini juomista, niinku (holding on to my drink with two hands, like)

[BritInvLvr]

I wanted Finland to win. I loved that song as soon as I heard it. Tattoo did nothing for me.

[wm]

My favorite was Italy, Marco Mengoni. I liked Finland also, mch fun. estonia was very good too

[nocturne]

Some countries chose the song internally (the TV company does), and some countries has a mini Eurovision as a National Final, Some with just a final, some with qualifying rounds or semi finals. Just to get to Eurovision is often a HUGE process in many countries.

[inrivaalfosso]

I wanted Germany to win. Damn, we were so close... My favorites beside Germany were Croatia, Finland, Norway and Moldova.

[ImStevan]

Watching this video only works if you've watched the actual final. Without that context, it's just a bunch of random clips

[richt]

Countries have different ways of choosing who will represent them at eurovision. Laterly the UK has had a vote for the singer and song prior to the start of eurovision.

[mnjk]

I hate to see how sad Käärijä was. He is the real winner. He won the Semi-final, he received 376 televoting points, which was over 130 points more than Loreen. Loreen won because around 100 people in the jury wanted her to win 🙄

[Craigy]

Käärijä won the televoting with a 71.48% majority - he got 12 points from 18 countries. He is hitting the top spot in global spotify charts, getting into the Top 40 (he's currently #7 in the UK) and he is a major obsession. Never heard any crowd cheer for an act so much, in the history of the competition.

[Niki-HR]

We in Croatia submit song and something like a jury decides which songs get to the national final and then we choose our representative with the voting Eurovision voting system - jury and public vote. This year I think we had 18 acts to choose from.

We also had a period were our national broadcast chose/asked an artist if he or she (our a group) would like to represent us and if they said yes they would work on a song and showcase it on Eurovision.
It differs from country to country but most countries as far as I know do have some kind of festival or national final where they choose from.

I would recommend you to watch the compilation videos of winners, last place, runners up from the very beginning from 1956 till today. It is quite interesting. Also you can kinda see the evoultion of the ESC as well.