Scoring at the Eurovision Song Contest: Joost Klein must provide party and emotion in 3 minutes

Joost Klein, who will leave for the Netherlands for the Swedish city of Malmö on Monday April 29, has not yet released much about the stage act he will perform at the music event, but we can assume that it will be controversial and brutal. The performance is directed by Gover Meit, who was also responsible for the show that Joost presented at Lowlands last year.

Third place

Meit has stoked the fire in recent days. He promised that the Netherlands will show something on the Eurovision stage that has never been shown before during the event. “It will be a new form of the moon landing and physically almost impossible.” Expectations are therefore high. The Netherlands rose to third place among bookmakers last week. This year 37 countries are participating in the event.

Of course the song has to be in order if you want to score at the Eurovision Song Contest. But the visual aspect of the Eurovision Song Contest has always been important: after all, it is a TV program.

In 1957 singer Corry Brokken won. To make a difference, she had a violinist swirl around her. Ten years later it was Sandie Shaw’s turn, she attracted attention by performing barefoot and in 1974 Abba won with a big fancy dress competition, even the conductor had put on a costume.

Performance by Finland

In the meantime, technology has reached the point where countries have to try to turn their performance at the Eurovision Song Contest into a memorable video clip on stage. The director draws inspiration from Finland’s performance last year. That entry was the big public winner.

But Meit also mentioned Portugal’s winning entry from 2017: it not only won the public vote, but also the jury vote. “We are going to see a celebration of the Dutch entry, but also a sensitive side,” concludes Eurovision Song Contest expert Katja Zwart, who produces the weekly Eurovision Song Contest podcast. “The Finnish artist Käärijä did what suited him last year and turned it into an energetic show with bright colors.”

The Portuguese entry was the opposite, Zwart continues. “Singer-songwriter Salvador Sobral didn’t like frills and simply stuck to his sensitive song. The audience feels whether it is real or not, you cannot fool them. Sobral would have ruined it if he had made things up on stage.”

“It is admittedly a song competition. The song determines 50 percent of the result and the rest comes from the visual image,” says Aran Bade, who wrote for the TV program RTL Boulevard has been traveling to the event for years. “The stage act is your calling card, the window of your store, if it doesn’t match the artist or the song, you won’t get far,” Zwart adds.

Touching people

Each country gets exactly 3 minutes of airtime at the Eurovision Song Contest. That’s where it has to happen. Zwart: “People tend to say that the Eurovision Song Contest is a circus with strange packages, but that image is far too one-sided. An act should always evoke something in you, that is the good thing about an act. With the music video of his song Europapa Joost has already shown that he can touch people.”

Yet it took a long time before the Netherlands realized that the act is also important at the Eurovision Song Contest. Bade: “It wasn’t until 2014, when The Common Linnets were sent, that Ilse DeLange was the driving force behind the controls of the act. Then we saw in the Netherlands what the value is if you present your entry well. It was also the first time that a director was used, while many other countries were already doing so.” The Netherlands finished in second place that year.

First rehearsal

The Netherlands’ first rehearsal on stage in Malmö is Tuesday afternoon, April 30 at 4:10 PM. Afterwards, the Eurovision Song Contest organization is expected to put some fragments online via social media. It wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon, May 8, that the journalists got to see the entire performance for the first time. A day later is the semi-final in which the Netherlands will have to try to qualify for the Saturday final.