In brief
- Australian Eurovision entrant Delta Goodrem is well placed to win the famed song competition.
- The Australian singer has rapidly become a standout among longtime fans.
Reporting on Eurovision is an odd experience. You don’t sit in the arena itself; organisers aren’t keen to hand free seats to journalists when they can be sold for hundreds of Euros each.
Instead, you sit in a nearby press centre, watching the broadcast on a big screen. Unlike most press centres, people dress up, dance along to the songs they like and cheer as if they were in the front row.
Often, it’s a useful barometer to judge how an act is going to go. These people know their Eurovision.
And they loved Delta Goodrem.
Not polite applause, but a rapturous ovation. To a screen.
Checking the markets
For most of the week, Delta had been fourth or fifth most likely to win according to bookies. After her semi-final, she rocketed up to second.
Finland is the favourite, with its rare-for-Eurovision live use of a violin.
Over the last decade, the bookies do normally get it right. Last year was an exception, Australia’s operatic JJ took the title with Wasted Love, despite Sweden’s jaunty ditty about the joy of Saunas, Bara Bada Bastu being the clear favourite beforehand.
Delta may be second favourite, but she has clear momentum.
“It’s a nice feeling, we’ve still got a mission to go,” she said after qualifying for the final.
Asking the Experts
Sure, Courtney Act is biased.
In the event of an Australian win, she wants to host next year’s competition at the Rooty Hill RSL.
But she believes Delta can do it.
“Of all the performances that I have seen on this stage there has only been one that came with a level of effortless, professionalism, joy, hair flicks, piano playing and elevation into the sky,” she tells me.
“That was Delta Goodrem.”
Danny Estrin, lead singer of Voyager (Australia, 2023) and now Courtney’s co-commentator, thinks that ‘effortlessness’ is a result of experience and preparation.
“By the time you get to performing it, having rehearsed it, it becomes second nature to you,” he explains.
“If you approach it with an element of fun, it translates. She had a cheeky smile, like ‘this is what I do every single day.’
Of course, our commentators will be cheering for Australia.
But so, it seems, will the UK’s legendary commentator Graham Norton, who has not always been a fan of Australia’s involvement in the contest.
“Australia have kind of knocked it out of the park this year,” he told the BBC.
“It is just brilliant. I know it's pathetic, but I was gasping. It was so good. So I think they might be the ones to beat now."
As for your correspondent’s prediction…
This is my eighth Eurovision Song Contest (if you include the one I went to as a backpacker in Dusseldorf with a ticket bought from a scalper.)
My track record of predicting the winner is not bad; if you tip the favourite, you generally end up being right.
Finland’s Liekinheitin has all the ingredients of a Eurovision winner, yet it just doesn’t feel like a Eurovision winner to me.
So my money’s on Delta.
Besides, wouldn’t you rather a trip to Rooty Hill than Helsinki?
For the latest from SBS News, download our app and subscribe to our newsletter.
