[Nettime-ro] Zdob si Zdub la Eurovision 2005: Eurovision travesty:Moldova triumph denied

[vladimir bulat <vbulat@k.ro>]

SURSA: http://www.lnreview.co.uk/music/005071.php


Eurovision travesty: Moldova triumph denied  
May 22, 2005 


Moldova was robbed. If you reckon Manchester United was robbed by Arsenal
in the FA Cup (which they were) they weren’t half as robbed as Moldova was.

The Moldovan (…dovian?) entry in the Eurovision was a perfectly wonderful
combination of genre-busting musicianship and preposterous stagecraft. Zdob
si Zdub leapt and boinked about the stage with an enthusiasm that brought
back sweet memories of that German chap a few years ago who climbed the
rigging and looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

Their song, Boonika Bate Toba had that quality that the very best
Eurovision songs possess (remember that Swiss robitic act with the chrome
and leathers?) – the quality of being at once both baffling and brilliant.
You weren’t quite sure what it was you were seeing and hearing, only that
it was wonderful. In this respect, it is virtually a religious experience:
an awareness of being in the presence of the holy, which is beyond human
categorization.

At the back of the stage, Zdob si Zdub had positioned an old lady in
traditional dress with a drum on her lap, sitting in a bathchair. Then at a
designated moment, she came to the front and marched round, banging her
drum with gusto. It was the perfect union of tradition and modernity. The
ancient and the new.

Here is the lady:




On the night, she smiled slightly more. But not much. There was a gravitas
to her drum thumping. A dignity. A rich, almost mournful beauty. Her drum
was a battle drum for modern Moldova, a funeral drum for traditions lost, a
celebration drum; all drums in one drum.

Only Norway’s glammy Wig Wam came close to the energy of Zdob si Zdub. With
the exception of the reasonably okay Latvian entry, all of the songs that
finished above Moldova were in my list of the half-dozen worst songs on the
night. Greece: nearly as bland as France. Malta: maybe the worst song in
the competition. Romania: a pointless Stomp rip-off. And Israel: her voice
could have cut the tin drums off the feet of the Romanian dancers.

Maybe Moldova don’t have their block voting properly worked out. Or maybe
I’m simply no judge of music. Probably a bit of both.

All I know is that Zdob si Zdub aren't the first true winners of Eurovision
to be denied glory. And they won't be the last. Keep on Zdubbing!


 
 



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