| Sandwiched between the brilliant
1977 and 1979, you'd think 1978 would be pretty impressive too. Alas,
it isn't. The French, celebrating their record-breaking fifth win in
exuberant style, gave us two presenters for the first time which maybe
didn't altogether help. The most exciting thing about the entire
concert was the walk the acts took to the stage, which incorporated a
lift journey. Also the orchestra were placed on the (light-grid
dance-floor) stage in a large, rotating salad dish. Israel, having now worked out the trick, got a lot of people together, dressed them in white and had them move about the stage in synchronization while singing a groovy tune with a good chorus and some melancholic Hebrew tinges. It was quite good fun but my no means their best attempt at the formula. Germany saw Monica Aspelund last year and clearly thought "we need a woman in a white dress, annunciating; how can we make that cheaper and with thinner cloth?" The solution came in the form of Ireen Sheer (last seen in 1974) and the song "Feuer". It is a pretty good pounding little number with some nice, prominent synth work, but it lacks a certain degree of umph to make it a true classic. And her removal of the shawl that makes up the top of her dress, while perhaps of historical note, does not make the fire burn with any greater passion. Musicals star Colm Wilkinson put on his best Glen Campbell underpants and seemingly took some sort of banned stimulant for his manic performance: a rare offering of interest from Ireland. In his velvet suit he looks like a particularly rabid rodent as he jerks about doing something a little reminiscent of Gentle Ben and very much like something Jimmy Webb might've written. The Spanish duo Baccara, best known for "Yes, Sir, I can Boogie" represented Luxembourg with a song that isn't anywhere near as good as that: "Parlez-vous français?". Still, few things are quite as good as "Yes, Sir, I can Boogie", so that was to be expected. It was at least an admirable attempt and captured a good deal of the spirit and style of their big hit. Some excellent 'chance-meeting' spoken exchanges and a dance routine in the instrumental pepped things up nicely, and the song provided some much needed fun on what was on the whole a pretty dull night. For each year's songs we apply our points in the 12-10-8 style of the modern contest, irrespective of how the voting functioned at the time. In brackets is the position the song came on the night:
Europe had Belgium second, France third, Greece eighth, the UK eleventh, Italy twelfth, another dreadful Swedish number 14th, a returning Denmark 16th (with the now hopelessly past its time title of "Boom Boom"), Portugal 17th, Finland joint-18th and Norway last with the first ever nul points of the modern scoring system. |
 Our winners, Baccara.  Wild: Ireland's Colm Wilkinson.  Irene Sheer: she may look innocent, but she's about to take her top off.  Europe's winners (except for viewers in Jordan).
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