Monday 15 January 2024

Norway 2024 - Gothminister - We Come Alive

 

(Click here if you can't see the horrors on display above…)

In the real world, Gothminister are a goth metal band of some stature. Known for their pummelling industrial sound, they play festivals for the gnarliest of spooky kids around the globe. But every now and again they think it's a jolly good idea to have a stab at Eurovision, and it always nudges just that little bit too closely to massive layers of cringe.

Witness their latest attempt. It starts off badly enough, with a little girl in pink playing with a tiny doll version of our lad the Minister himself in a massive lilac dolls house. So when he does finally appear on some furry steps beyond her all but the most ardent member of gothkind must have let out a comic snort. A man of a certain age in a wobbly crown and even more wobbly hands starts to prowl the stage as a couple of dancers emerge from the fluff and just wobble about a bit. I can just picture the band meeting when this staging got posited "Nah, that's alright Bjorn mate, you're on your own with this one!"

You can kind of see what they were thinking with their horror film demon possession schtick, but it all ends up just a little bit creepy-in-the-wrong-way when the big lad starts singing about hiding under beds at the same time as a pre-teen begins to cavort about in a slightly-too-sexy manner. I mean, it's not quite Bognibov levels of child bothering, but it still makes for uncomfortable viewing. Which is a shame, cos there's a decent darkwave groove going on underneath it all, but it goes on about three chorus repeats too long and feels like they didn't really know where to go with the stage schtick after around the second minute.

Having said all that though, it's still one heck of an entertaining mess, and the kind of thing that this blog truly exists for!

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