Eurovision 2023 has been a long, strange trip for Wild Youth. But finally, after seeing off John Lydon’s Public Image Limited on the Eurosong Late Late Show in February and then surviving the wrath of JK Rowling on the internet, the band have finally learned their Euro fate. Performing their blustery rocker We Are One, they are out at the semi-final stage (RTÉ One, Tuesday, 8pm), one of the five acts to be ejected at the first hurdle. We are glum.
The performance is full of gusto and bursting at the seams with enthusiasm. Also bursting at the seams is the shiny catsuit that Conor O’Donohoe, Wild Youth’s singer, is wearing. There’s a crotch of gold at the end of this pop rainbow, and it jars with the rest of the band, who look as if they’ve just wandered in from a support slot at Whelan’s.
We Are One is workaday anthemic rock, though it doesn’t help that O’Donohoe seems out of sorts as the performance begins or that his vocals are too low in the mix.
Earlier the band had said they would be gutted if they didn’t make it through. In the event, the blushes of unsuccessful competitors are spared after the organisers abandon controversial plans for an X Factor-style elimination, where the candidates would all have to stand side by side on stage. Instead, they are in the safety of the traditional Eurovision green room as the votes are tallied.
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This first semi-final had been described as the group of death. It contained both of this year’s front runners, Sweden’s Loreen and the second favourite, the Finnish rapper Käärijä. Both are voted through to the semis.
Voters also give the nod to Croatia’s Let 3, who deliver a waking-nightmare remix of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, with fake moustaches, tatty vests and a man dressed as Rasputin screaming beneath two giant missiles. Even more than O’Donohoe’s jumpsuit, it will haunt the dreams of viewers.
There had been speculation that the broadcast from the Liverpool Arena would feature a cameo from Dustin the Turkey, who notoriously represented Ireland at Eurovision 2008 – an event that is regarded as having accelerated our recent disastrous history at the contest.
And, yes, there he was, cracking wise with Hannah Waddingham, one of the presenters, before she sent him packing with the admonishment that his “giblets were showing”.
You have to feel for Wild Youth. In addition to incurring the wrath of JK Rowling, their run-up to Eurovision saw them take a trouncing from the BBC, which described We Are One as “a grasping, aspirational hymn to togetherness, with lyrics Coldplay would have rejected for being too twee”.
Twee or not, that’s the end of the journey. Where do we go from here? Not to the Eurovision final, which, once again, will have to get by without Irish representation. They’ll be fine. If Eurovision has learned anything in the 27 years since our last win, it is how to throw a party without us.
