Those of you with long memories for beards might just remember Orges here from the FiK final of 2011, where he surprised many with the success of his delightful little bit of French street jazz whimsy Mari. Well half a decade on he's back, looking a little more world weary than before, and growling out a song that wouldn't be out of place in Sanremo.
And while we're never entirely sure what they're singing about down in the deep South East, one can only assume that his gravely voice and tired eyes are carving out a tale of life's regrets and untold sadness. But hey, we don't read Albanian here. He might be singing out his Christmas list as far as we know.
But in what was a slow, morose and often difficult first semi-final at the Këngës, his was one of the few songs that really stood out - well, for the right kind of reasons, that is. More of the other sort tomorrow...
I just knew Orges would appear here - a cross between Chris O'Dowd in Moone Boy and Joe Cocker with a sore throat!
ReplyDeleteI have to say that last night's SF would have been excellent if it had been lacking the main singers - the orchestra was superb as always and the backing singers far, far better than almost all of the artists up front. Why don't they let them or the singers of the FiK theme tune have a go?