The Moldovan live auditions are a major annual waypoint for we lovers of the more esoteric end of Eurovisionia. Each year we see a handful of the same faces popping up - some significant local stars, some just plucky chancers - all hoping to get themselves and their songs onto a prime time Saturday night TV show. But it's with those plucky chancers that the pure beauty of this process lies. As they stand on that tiny stage waiting for their music to kick in, you quickly try to assess what their voices will be like by the state of their nervousness. Sometimes they surprise you and bellow out a powerful performance. But other times they just wheeze anxiously, looking like they thought it was going to go a whole lot better in their heads when they sent their submission in to the telly people. But then you get performances like this one, that kinda straddles both categories - and makes up a couple of their own while they are about it.
Valeria here might not be a singer in perhaps the way you or I would describe one, but she certainly knows her style, and emotes and grimaces her way through an eye-widening performance. It's not always clear, however, if she's remembered all the words, as she hovers between English and Moldovan passages at almost no warning. But again, that may actually be a part of her schtick, as you certainly can't fault her passion and absolute belief that she's doing a pretty amazing thing.
These are the kinds of performances that we live for at Apocalypse - not to mock them, but to praise them for their utter self-belief and unusualness. They may be outsiders in amongst the shiny world of highly produced Europop, but they make shows like this all the more interesting for their very existence. Long may the live auditions reign, TRM!
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