Belarus 2019 - Valerija Dubickaja - Our Universe

There are some songs that no matter how strange and wonky they appear on the surface quite unexplainably get under your skin and tap an odd little tune on your heart. And this is one of ours.

On the face of it we're looking at an awkward young girl looking very small on a big stage, her high pitched willowy voice blowing in the winds pitch and key, while warbling out a gentle folksy tune with a few too many words.

And yet, a couple of rotations of the tune in and we're utterly sold on the message she's sending us, and the manner that she's delivering it to us. Her voice shifts from fragile to crashingly honest, and the complicated and unusual melody wafts over us like a warm and gentle breeze. And the bit that absolutely killed us the most was her gracious bow at the end before she left the stage.

This is our absolute favourite performance from the long and often difficult Belarusian auditions, despite all the unpromising ingredients. It almost certainly won't be yours, but like this lovely little tune, we're sometimes difficult like that.

Belarus 2019 - Pavel Lašenčuk - La Za Mir Na Planete Zemlia

If there was one performance that got everybody on their virtual feet and cheering along - after Potato Acapulco, that is - it's old Pavel here with his pure gift to live auditions. And this isn't the whole thing!

He'd already been on stage for about three minutes previously, dropping papers, arguing with the stage hand and wilfully ignoring how microphones actually work. For his second visit we walked on in a jockey's cap, rattled on some more, complained that they'd played the wrong song, demanded that they started his own song again, then launched into a beautifully pinky plonk ramble that said the words Belarus and Israel a lot yet made no apparent sense in any language.

At times we were wondering if Pavel here was a dead pan comedian of incredible talents. But on reflection we don't thing he is - we suspect that this is straight up and he's a real life grumbly old fella with a penchant for chatting over electronic party pop. God bless Belarus!

Belarus 2019 - Jaroslav Ivanov - My Loneliness

There were many wonders to behold in Belarus. God good, some bad, some utterly terrifying. Guess which category this one comes under...

Less a song than an apparent instructional video for grooming, it's probably a very innocent thing if you know what's going on. But if you don't it's as creepy as all hell!

Jaroslav's breathy voice, coupled with the distracted nature of his young female sidekick and some seriously strange cape shennanigans make for a very uncomfortable three minutes of song. Soak it in, pop fans!

Belarus 2019 - Vitalij Voronko & Artem Soroko - Potato Acapulco

The marathon five hour Spasibo auditions from Belarus took place this morning, and to be fair there were enough gems on view to be keeping us busy until December on Apocalypse. But the one that's been causing the biggest stir among the rank and file is this beautiful little number.

You may remember Mr Voronko from his performance this time a couple of years back with a giant polar bear that ended up getting up on pretty much every Somewhere's Got Talent show on the globe. So we were pleased to see the old fella back on stage with his pal Artem to sing this situationist marvel.

The only two words you'll need to worry about are Potato and Acapulco, and we can guarantee that you'll be unwillingly singing this for the rest of the night, whether you want to or not. Sadly it didn't make it through the sift, but we'll always have Acapulo! (And Potato Potato!)

Lithuania 2019 - Alen Chicco - Your Cure

Oh Lithuania, you beautiful country! Just when we thought you couldn't up your level of bewildering performances, you deliver us this little treat.

So, what are you going to see here if you click the vid? Well, a giant androgenous character looms above a seated dancer in a volumous purple onesie as he sings an allegory about healing, before... ooh, this is one surprise that we're not going to spoil for you. But needless to say that you may well spit out your tea upon viewing.

And do you want to know something else? It qualified as one of the top six to make its way into the semi-finals! Now that's what I call a country!

Moldova 2019 - Irina Tarasiuc & Lume – Ca Adriano Celentano

Oh Moldova, what have you done? OK, so you didn't have a terribly large pool of talent to play with, but you certainly had some songs in that crazy 28 that would have made your national final complete and one to remember? And what did you do? You binned every last one of them in place of a barrage of mid-tempo-to-slow ordinariness! This is supposed to be the year of the big experimentals, not arch usualness.

And what made it even worse it that you bottled out of giving us two incredibly entertaining semi-finals. You know out feelings about Mr Bognibov (and we reckon he put in his best ever performance too!), but what about your glorious folk hero Iurie Sadovnic and his gloriously batshit epistle to Robin Hood? Or Alister Mars and his plinky plonky shocky horror show pop rock tune? They were one of the very few to have made an actual effort with an actual show this year?

And this? The belwilderingly titled Ca Adrinano Celentano - a song so distilled of Europe's impressions of your fair nation that it would surely have bagged you a third great result in a row? Really? A call to arms for Moldovan folk the continent to come back home or never actually leave gets callously shoved aside by some soulless ladies wearing hats? There really is no guessing what goes on in TRM towers!

Montenegro 2019 - Andrea Demirović - Ja Sam Ti San

The Montenegrin songs snuck out on Saturday morning while everyone (surely?) was watching the Moldovan auditions, and they certainly frontloaded the order of the songs. While the following four entries got successively more dull, they opened proceedings with this absolute banger of a tune.

It's stuffed chock full of electro goodness, with it's massive whomps and insistent little plinky plonk bits. Added to that, Andrea's voice offers that cold Balkan sass that we deeply enjoy around these parts.

But we have fears. Ivana Popović's song is the kind of on-rails minor key ballad that they just lap up round those parts, and who knows whose song or daughter is part of any of those other acts, and if the special handshake rule is in operation this year. But if it's on song alone, this is surely the only one they ought to be considering this year. Surely?

Belarus 2019 - Daz Sampson & Nona - Kinky Boots

Now we're talking! In a year that's been dangerously shy of any cheesy dance numbers, old pal of this parish Daz Sampson has weighed in with an absolute blinder of the genre. Only this time he's having a stab in Belarus! Eh?

It's bouncy, it's repetitive and it's a bucketload of fun - and you just know that the stage show is going to be gleefully ludicrous. Of course he'll have get past the historically brutal Belarussian open audition process, where often even a strange walk and a funny hair do will get you the cold and disembodied "Spasibo!" before you've even got going. But Daz is made of more solid stuff than that, so we're sure he'll cope.

Oh how we wish that old Auntie Beeb was strong enough to have put at least one song this full of energy in among our final songs. They could have had someone in a hat and waistcoat doing a country version of it as a counterpoint...

In fact, we've only got one issue with this whole production. Where's Nona's boots? We certainly hope you've got a decent pair lined up for the telly!

Lithuania 2019 - Kali - Don‘t B3long

Lithuania 2019 are the gift that just continue to give. Just look at our little mate Kali here. Not so much mumble rap as grumble rap, he meanders along telling us about ill-suited is to his recently former partner, even though she's the only one who gets him and he feels like he wants to die.

Happy day!

It's people like Kali that make this show all kinds of marvellous. I was going to suggest that he was another one that they'd dragged off the streets, but it turned out that that unlikely 150 mob from the other day actually won Lithuanian X Factor a couple of years back, so for all we know this boy could be as big as Post Malone round those parts.

I love Lithuania, I really do.

Ukraine 2019 - Brunettes Shoot Blondes - Houston

Word reaches us that this is alledgedly the song that BSB are going to send to Vidbir 2019. And if it is - then wowsers!

The song itself is sweet enough - a kind of gentle alt-indie jangle with a wickedly dry lyric. It's the kind fo thing that we'd expect more from the Baltics than down Kiev way, and in and of itself it's a pretty decent tune that hooks in the brain in a way that you really don't want it to.

But the story here is the instrument that they're playing it on. In a feat of fabulous musical engineering they've managed to combine 20 instruments into one and are playing the whole thing entirely by their own power with not a hint of electricity to be seen anywhere. It's an incredible piece of kit, and the kind of thing that would do the rounds of internet excitement entirely under it's own steam, and probably get onto the end of Newsnight a fortnight after everybody else has seen it.

But marry that to a very cute and credible Eurovision song and we might have our hands on an understated danger here. Keep an eye on this one.

I wouldn't like to be the poor soul who's got to get that thing through Israeli customs, mind...

Lithuania 2019 - 120 - Nėra Abejonių

You lot who claim to be fans of Eurovision but steadfastly refuse to watch any of the qualifier shows so that you can keep yourselves pure baffle us here at Apocalypse. To use a sporting analogy, it's like claiming to be a massive fan of football's FA Cup but only watching the Wembley final. Yes, throughout Spring you get dozens of mini Eurovisions from right around the continent - and even beyond these days - and you're missing out on so much fun.

And look at all the fun you're missing out on. Songs that don't stand a cat in hell's chance of getting anywhere near Tel Aviv, but that underline the very joy of performing for its own sake. Folks like 120 here.

The song's terrible of course, but watch and marvel as two fellas who still can't believe that they've got on the telly are shouting and japing along to ever more ludicrous dance routines. Peer closely into the background and you may just spot the rank of backing singers trilling along from their song sheets like they can't quite believe their careers have come to this.

So join us, people, and soon you'll be standing with us on the musical version of the touchline of a municipal park on a damp evening watching some godforsaken Extra-Preliminary round replay (It's an FA Cup thing again). This is non-league Eurovision, and it's the absolute spirit of the competition - why on Earth would you want to miss out on such delights?

France 2019 - Silvàn Areg – Allez Leur Dire

I was on punk rock business for the first semi-final of Destination Eurovision so missed all the performances, and after being enveloped in all the Bilal hoo-haa I clean forgot to check up on the songs after. Which was my error, because this little cracker has to go down as one of the best presented three minutes of Eurovision in a long old time.

What we see here is a cheeky chappy delivering a bouncy, effortlessly French nursery rhyme of a song while stamping about in all manner of cartoon lands. Film students and cineastes among you will know how it's done straight away, but I won't spoil the fun for the rest of you.

Needless to say this scored higher than anyone could have imagined, doubtless encouraged by the performance's charm and ingenuity. You see, there are still original ways that you can do a live show in this contest, and I for one can only applaud the fella and his peoples. I only wish that I'd been awake to it earlier!

Iceland 2019 - Hatari - Hatrið Mun Sigra

After a difficult few years for Iceland, this year's Söngvakeppnin selection feels like somebody at RUV looked behind the beige curtain and discovered a whole bundle of delights that they'd never so much as considered sending in the past. And good on them, for this year they've finally got around to asking one of their nation's most popular international underground exports to join the fray. The Haters!

Some pals of ours have been calling out for this lot to be a part of the show for years, and now their dreams have finally come true - and how! These anti-state S&M techno goths will certainly knock the cobwebs off of the traditionally staid Reykjavik crowd, and their on-stage show is going to be an absolute blinder if their past record is anything to go by.

But will they be so bold as to let it go the whole way to Tel Aviv? We flipping well hope so! Imagine your nan trying to make head nor tail of this!

Lithuania 2019 - Antikvariniai Kašpirovskio Dantys - Mažulė

Those among you who aren't sure what to do with yourselves before the French final could do worse than have a gander at tonight's Lithuanian show. For while it's still an early qualifier, and nobody's entirely sure what's going on until the latter stages, it's absolutely jam packed with bonkers stuff that almost certainly won't see any further light after tonight.

For a start, you've got the unsettling regional mumble rap of Laimingu Būti Lengva, the cheesy-as-all-hell lady group La Forza and the double alumnus outfit of Jurgis Did and Erica Jennings (InCulto and Scamp) with their curious plinky plonky confection. (Actually, that one might be something of a danger, thinking about it).

But the only song to care about is from this ramshackle mob. With a name that translates as something like Kaspirov's Antique Copper Teeth (put me right, Lithuanian locals), this unlikely aggregation stand about in an ungainly stomp and belt out the mob choruses with bar room aplomb. It's as if someone had formed a lad band at the worst pub in town for a laugh and somehow got them onto X Factor. No seriously - that's where this clip's from!

I might be alone here, but I really can't wait to see what they do tonight!

Norway 2019 - Hank von Hell - Fake It

Well that was quite unexpected, Norway! Most Eurovision fans will have cast their eyes down the MGP list and thought "Oh, they've gone for another comedy rocker to fill the end slot." But to I can guarantee you that punks and metal freaks the world over have just gone "Oh my flipping days - Hank von Hell is doing Eurovision!"

Hank's best known as being a member of the camp and outrageous rock'n'roll deathpunk band Turbonegro - and outfit with a loyal and rabid gang of worldwide followers called the Turbojugend, who all dress in uniform and follow the boys around the planet. Hank himself left the band under a cloud after well-documented substance issues, and claims that his life has been turned around by Scientology.

His shows are usually awash with flame, explosions and terrible behaviour, and his traditionally erratic on stage demeanour means that absolutely bloody anything could happen on show night - especially if the Jugend mobilise...

File under: Be afraid. Be very afraid. I can't flipping wait!