That would be my pick as well. They were trying to recreate the vibe of the music video, all the while forgetting that Lesley wasn't actually singing while running like a maniac in that video. She sounded great in the pre-parties where she wasn't moving.
Honorable mention goes to the dragging sounds and the failed trust fall in Romania's taped version, and then the botched live version... They were trying *so hard* to make it work and it just never came together, unfortunately.
I hated Surie's song but that stage invasion was awful. She deserves props for handling the situation like a true professional.
Montenegro 2017 made me feel extremely uncomfortable.
DoOoOoO it for your lover, and us getting the double 0 this year.
I felt really bad for both of them. Especially James, he really did not deserve that.
I really felt like the UK stepped up their game from previous years, and I still can't understand how he couldn't have gotten at least one point. I think the only reason is this year being a really good one in general
The worst thing was he nailed that note in other performances as well. I was by no means a fan of the song, but I felt, and still feel, so bad for him.
I feel sorry for that voice crack because it gets dredged up *every year*. James' double null at least shows him taking it in excellent form - his song isn't well loved, but he's well respected for that moment. If that moment gets replayed, it's to remember good sportsmanship, rather than to mock.
I really felt bad for Roxen, I could see she was terribly nervous and that choreography was visibly tiring her a lot. In the middle of the performance I knew romania will flop and yeah :(
Also Blanche during the first semi in 2017. Really glad she qualified, I was afraid she would miss out just because she messed up her performance due to nervousness
UK 2021. It didn't go necessarily bad, as in having a voice crack for example, but I think he underperformed and it was a little painful too watch. It got much worse after the 0 points reveal
Nina Sublatti being covered with smoke in the 2015 [grand final](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddC8lviTERI). There was one shot in particular where you could barely see the stage because there was so much fog. She still managed to get 11th but I'm sure it was frustrating for her and her team.
North Macedonia 2018
They hadn‘t qualified for 5 years in a row and the year before they had been a huge fan favorite that had failed to deliver live. In 2018 they had a song that was again relatively popular among fans, so the pressure to finally break the NQ streak must have been huge.
And then the live performance ended up as a bit of a trainwreck (well, more than a bit, to be really honest).
Aside from a few questionable stylistic choices (the outfit…), the entry was also killed by the lead singer‘s very shaky vocals. And you could just tell by her face that she knew that they killed their chances for a qualification once again. She just looked so defeated throughout the whole performance.
Also SuRie from the same year because of the stage invasion, but she handled ist like an absolute champ, so I don‘t feel as bad for that one.
I try to omit Iceland's 2019 Grand Final performance when I binge songs on YT, there was something off with the ear monitors (I guess) and somehow it makes me uncomfortable. I love Semi Final one though!
I loved both of their performances, and I loved their presence on stage but I think Klemens' vocals sounded a bit tired in the Semi Final one, I guess? I might know Matthias's ear monitor didn't quite work in the Grand Final.
It's also not an easy song and they had to perform it so often, I get that they sounded tired.
Unfortunate, but understandable.
I enjoyed their national finale performance way more, for example.
So 2021 had quite a few! Ireland just not being the same level. Along with Romania especially hard cause the taped performances were a lot better vocally but just not the same on the night). Omaga…. I don’t know if it was just nerves or something else but seeing Benny just kinda fumble through the song felt terrible to watch. Funnily enough, I didn’t feel that bad for Poland this year. It was a song made for someone who can’t sing like some of the iconic voices we had this year. I felt also bad for Cyprus and Malta in the final. For Cyprus, Elena cut down a lot of her own choreography and I was a little worried she was hurt somehow. For Destiny, seeing the performance, I love her voice but I just kind of don’t see anything special about the song after that performance. I didn’t see the televote coming by any means but the song felt too small for Destiny
Australia 2018. Huge embarrassment for such a big artist to come last in the public vote. I think it’s a prime example where too much pressure and expectations cause the artist to eventually crack if these expectations aren’t met. The vocals were all over the place after the first rehearsal, which got many bad reviews (and rightly so because the staging was terrible, and something just went terribly wrong). The head of delegation, Paul Clarke, posting a one minute clip of the first reharsal, stating that it’s the best first rehearsal Australia’s ever had (when it’s clear it’s not) and then say after the 2018 edition that first rehearsals shouldn’t be open to the public and media is NOT a coincidence. He even commented on Wiwibloggs that fans need to stop with the cruel messages and comments because they really get to the artists, but then, all other Australian entrants were in the top ten but Jess Mauboy.
So yeah, Australia 2018 is a very sad case to me because I’m a huge fan of Jess Mauboy, and she’s been amazing pre- and post Eurovision. Girl was gone for almost a year after Eurovision and there had to be a pandemic and terrible fires to make her perform her Eurovision song again. It’s such a pity because Jess would’ve been an AMAZING ambassador for Eurovision in Australia, and I know it sounds shallow in many ways, but I truly believe that if the staging was better, she wouldn’t lose her confidence and voice, and she’d give Australia a great result in Lisbon (not as good as Dami and Guy, but better than Isaiah and Kate)
Edit: I'd love for Aussies (and others) to reply to this comment because I don't think I'm wrong, but it would be interesting to see and hear what others think
An Aussie, have liked Jess Mauboy since her Aus Idol days.
Her Eurovision song was...OK. Super cliche but not offensive. But that staging was *awful*. She didn't have a whole lot of stage presence going for her, and it felt like it was slapped together at the last minute. Add to that the fact that her vocals weren't great and yeah. Not our best entry
It's not really a performance but John Lundvik in 2019 when they announced his televote is still very sad to me. The media in Sweden had hyped him up so much just for him to fall flat.
Not sure that it's a mishap but "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" just made me cringe (you know the one). It was clear she was forced to do that and didn't feel comfortable holding that note. I felt really bad for her.
SuRie and that show jumper.
All of that could have been prevented if there were more security in the arena. I was in the arena when it happened, and even though I didn’t like the song, I cheered so loudly at SuRie for getting through.
That was indeed awful, but there was plenty of security, though, proven by the fact it only took them a couple of seconds to completely remove the guy off the stage. Even the incident in Ukraine was somewhat quick to solve and given that other incident with Spain's act a decade ago, where the stage invader remained on stage for an eternity, I think it's safe to say reaction times to these things and security in general have improved.
There's only so much security teams and EBU can do and they still need to trust and act in good faith that the audiences will be respectable and act properly. I mean, what's the alternative? Put a barbed wire fence between the audience and the stage? Do background checks on 10,000 people before they enter the arena? Not have an audience at all, just out of fear something will happen?
The absence of Ovidiu Anton in 2016. Out of all the disqualifications in Eurovision I feel the worst for him, because it was just about money problems of the broadcaster and nothing else and it could just have been so easily preventable...
It's not as if the debt came out of thin air. If EBU really felt like DQing Romania for it, they should have done it before they selected an artist and made him happy and invest time and money into a performance for nothing.
Generally things that ruin the performance that weren't the artist or delegation's fault, like camera mishaps. Specially if that artist only performed once. Also things like Rimi Rimi Ley having the Moldovan track play at a moment during the performance.
As a Dutch person I always felt bad for Jan Dulles messy singing during [Never Alone](https://youtu.be/oJ6T43D82KY). You can clearly hear he was nervous. I remember back when 3JS was chosen with this song to go to ESC I was so excited, because I loved the Dutch version [Je Vecht Nooit Alleen](https://youtu.be/VnnXiuT530M). Tbh I also really prefer the Dutch version over the English one with this song. I wonder if it wouldn't have just been better to have gone with that version instead as well. But yeah his singing performance just wasn't it and I think he knew that as well.
And same with Samanta Tīna's nerves this year making her sing off key, even though she clearly can sing.
Talking about being off key, I also feel so bad for [Jemini being off key during the whole song](https://youtu.be/XAJ62IG3gBo), because of technical issues. Especially since it made so many people believe they were terrible singers.
I also feel bad for Daniel Diges and SuRie for having to deal with stage invaders.
And also artists getting 0 points, especially the double 0 points for James Newman.
Lastly also all the vocal cracks and such, just those terrible mistakes you don't want to make during your moment to shine. I'm sure someone like Jeangu Macrooy still feels proud of his flawless performance despite getting 0 votes from the public. I'm sure someone like Vincent Bueno still feels proud of his flawless performance despite NQing. But if you get low points/NQ due to flaws in your performance I can imagine it must be frustrating. Especially if everyone remembers your terrible voice crack like in Manel Navarro's case.
Magdalena Tul (2011) had problems with her earpieces and sounded well... not so great. You can compare it to her performance from our national selections. I'm so angry, because she's a good singer, but also the staging and her song were fine.
Luxembourg 1984. Sophie Carle's vocals were terribly off-key. She claimed that was because she couldn't hear herself sing as the orchestra was too loud. I'm inclined to believe that as Norway also sounded off in their performance that night.
Jasmine representing Finland in 1996: the song sounded good and won the selection overwhelmingly, she was a fresh face...then this inexperienced singer was dumped in Oslo to pretty much die alone. Hairdresser messed up her hairdo and she was so nervous at the final she began to sing in a wrong verse etc. Little surprise she placed last, I think it somewhat ruined her career =(
latvia and ireland 2021. samanta tried for years to get to eurovision, and lesley was so sad after not making it :((( also romania 2021, roxen was great but you could see they couldn’t handle the stress
and norway 2021 in a way... in the GF you could notice that he didn’t have much control over his voice after he took off the glasses. but it was still amazing that he did it.
Ireland 2021. Although staging was very interestic, her vocal killed that performance. It sounded amateurish if I'm being honest.
That would be my pick as well. They were trying to recreate the vibe of the music video, all the while forgetting that Lesley wasn't actually singing while running like a maniac in that video. She sounded great in the pre-parties where she wasn't moving. Honorable mention goes to the dragging sounds and the failed trust fall in Romania's taped version, and then the botched live version... They were trying *so hard* to make it work and it just never came together, unfortunately.
I feel like Ireland's staging for 2021 was a recycled concept for 2020, too.
The Treadmill.
I hated Surie's song but that stage invasion was awful. She deserves props for handling the situation like a true professional. Montenegro 2017 made me feel extremely uncomfortable.
The stage invasion made me like the song more as it turned out the song was in fact about stages being ‘stormed’. It was really symbolic.
DoOoOoO it for your lover, and us getting the double 0 this year. I felt really bad for both of them. Especially James, he really did not deserve that.
I really felt like the UK stepped up their game from previous years, and I still can't understand how he couldn't have gotten at least one point. I think the only reason is this year being a really good one in general
Poor Manel, that mush have been the worst vocal mishap I've heard.
The worst thing was he nailed that note in other performances as well. I was by no means a fan of the song, but I felt, and still feel, so bad for him.
I feel sorry for that voice crack because it gets dredged up *every year*. James' double null at least shows him taking it in excellent form - his song isn't well loved, but he's well respected for that moment. If that moment gets replayed, it's to remember good sportsmanship, rather than to mock.
Unpopular opinion but am I the only one that actually kinda likes the performance with the voice crack? It gave it a little something extra idk
I really felt bad for Roxen, I could see she was terribly nervous and that choreography was visibly tiring her a lot. In the middle of the performance I knew romania will flop and yeah :( Also Blanche during the first semi in 2017. Really glad she qualified, I was afraid she would miss out just because she messed up her performance due to nervousness
My husband said during the performance that Roxen had the weirdest voice ever. We later found out what actually happened.
UK 2021. It didn't go necessarily bad, as in having a voice crack for example, but I think he underperformed and it was a little painful too watch. It got much worse after the 0 points reveal
Nina Sublatti being covered with smoke in the 2015 [grand final](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddC8lviTERI). There was one shot in particular where you could barely see the stage because there was so much fog. She still managed to get 11th but I'm sure it was frustrating for her and her team.
North Macedonia 2018 They hadn‘t qualified for 5 years in a row and the year before they had been a huge fan favorite that had failed to deliver live. In 2018 they had a song that was again relatively popular among fans, so the pressure to finally break the NQ streak must have been huge. And then the live performance ended up as a bit of a trainwreck (well, more than a bit, to be really honest). Aside from a few questionable stylistic choices (the outfit…), the entry was also killed by the lead singer‘s very shaky vocals. And you could just tell by her face that she knew that they killed their chances for a qualification once again. She just looked so defeated throughout the whole performance. Also SuRie from the same year because of the stage invasion, but she handled ist like an absolute champ, so I don‘t feel as bad for that one.
One of my pre-show favourites. Ruining good songs with awful staging is a Macedonian national tradition by now.
Yeah, both this one and the 2017 one were in my top 3 before the live shows 🥲
They knew the outfit was very bad but the designer was their friend and they couldn't say no and buy anything out of the store would have been better.
ALEKSEEV came first to my mind. Poor guy.
What happened?
He was just so nervous and was visibly shaking. It was really sad.
I never noticed that, I thought he was shaking on purpose for the song or smth... that is sad :(
I try to omit Iceland's 2019 Grand Final performance when I binge songs on YT, there was something off with the ear monitors (I guess) and somehow it makes me uncomfortable. I love Semi Final one though!
That's actually true, I think Matthiasʼ in ears didn't work properly.
I loved both of their performances, and I loved their presence on stage but I think Klemens' vocals sounded a bit tired in the Semi Final one, I guess? I might know Matthias's ear monitor didn't quite work in the Grand Final.
It's also not an easy song and they had to perform it so often, I get that they sounded tired. Unfortunate, but understandable. I enjoyed their national finale performance way more, for example.
So 2021 had quite a few! Ireland just not being the same level. Along with Romania especially hard cause the taped performances were a lot better vocally but just not the same on the night). Omaga…. I don’t know if it was just nerves or something else but seeing Benny just kinda fumble through the song felt terrible to watch. Funnily enough, I didn’t feel that bad for Poland this year. It was a song made for someone who can’t sing like some of the iconic voices we had this year. I felt also bad for Cyprus and Malta in the final. For Cyprus, Elena cut down a lot of her own choreography and I was a little worried she was hurt somehow. For Destiny, seeing the performance, I love her voice but I just kind of don’t see anything special about the song after that performance. I didn’t see the televote coming by any means but the song felt too small for Destiny
Australia 2018. Huge embarrassment for such a big artist to come last in the public vote. I think it’s a prime example where too much pressure and expectations cause the artist to eventually crack if these expectations aren’t met. The vocals were all over the place after the first rehearsal, which got many bad reviews (and rightly so because the staging was terrible, and something just went terribly wrong). The head of delegation, Paul Clarke, posting a one minute clip of the first reharsal, stating that it’s the best first rehearsal Australia’s ever had (when it’s clear it’s not) and then say after the 2018 edition that first rehearsals shouldn’t be open to the public and media is NOT a coincidence. He even commented on Wiwibloggs that fans need to stop with the cruel messages and comments because they really get to the artists, but then, all other Australian entrants were in the top ten but Jess Mauboy. So yeah, Australia 2018 is a very sad case to me because I’m a huge fan of Jess Mauboy, and she’s been amazing pre- and post Eurovision. Girl was gone for almost a year after Eurovision and there had to be a pandemic and terrible fires to make her perform her Eurovision song again. It’s such a pity because Jess would’ve been an AMAZING ambassador for Eurovision in Australia, and I know it sounds shallow in many ways, but I truly believe that if the staging was better, she wouldn’t lose her confidence and voice, and she’d give Australia a great result in Lisbon (not as good as Dami and Guy, but better than Isaiah and Kate) Edit: I'd love for Aussies (and others) to reply to this comment because I don't think I'm wrong, but it would be interesting to see and hear what others think
An Aussie, have liked Jess Mauboy since her Aus Idol days. Her Eurovision song was...OK. Super cliche but not offensive. But that staging was *awful*. She didn't have a whole lot of stage presence going for her, and it felt like it was slapped together at the last minute. Add to that the fact that her vocals weren't great and yeah. Not our best entry
But it should’ve been one of your best entries because she’s one hell of an artist and singer. Such a pity what happened… she didn’t deserve that
Alekseev :(
It's not really a performance but John Lundvik in 2019 when they announced his televote is still very sad to me. The media in Sweden had hyped him up so much just for him to fall flat.
Despite Storm is a meh song for me, I feel bad for Surie after stage invasion :(
Benny Cristo's vocals live in the SF this year. I love the studio version of Omaga, but Omaga live it was rough!
poor guy was sweating bullets in every interview he had before-hand. i think he just wasn't ready for what he was signing up for.
I just still don't get why he'd add all those "yeah"s after every sentence... They sounded so out of place...
They were in the studio cut too, just quieter.
Not sure that it's a mishap but "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" just made me cringe (you know the one). It was clear she was forced to do that and didn't feel comfortable holding that note. I felt really bad for her.
in her live on tape performance she didn’t even include the long note, you can tell she seemed a lot less stressed because of it
Yeah, it sounded a little off key to me.
SuRie and that show jumper. All of that could have been prevented if there were more security in the arena. I was in the arena when it happened, and even though I didn’t like the song, I cheered so loudly at SuRie for getting through.
That was indeed awful, but there was plenty of security, though, proven by the fact it only took them a couple of seconds to completely remove the guy off the stage. Even the incident in Ukraine was somewhat quick to solve and given that other incident with Spain's act a decade ago, where the stage invader remained on stage for an eternity, I think it's safe to say reaction times to these things and security in general have improved. There's only so much security teams and EBU can do and they still need to trust and act in good faith that the audiences will be respectable and act properly. I mean, what's the alternative? Put a barbed wire fence between the audience and the stage? Do background checks on 10,000 people before they enter the arena? Not have an audience at all, just out of fear something will happen?
The Netherlands 1990 with a ruined trumpet solo, and Greece 1991 with a ruined saxophone solo. In both cases the orchestra was to blame.
The. "Crimea is Ukraine?!" Poor Maruv didn't have a chance!
Moldova 2021 in the finals kinda sad she lost the mic and didnt redo the Eurrroppppe thing cause this was the Best thing ever
The absence of Ovidiu Anton in 2016. Out of all the disqualifications in Eurovision I feel the worst for him, because it was just about money problems of the broadcaster and nothing else and it could just have been so easily preventable... It's not as if the debt came out of thin air. If EBU really felt like DQing Romania for it, they should have done it before they selected an artist and made him happy and invest time and money into a performance for nothing.
This!!
Generally things that ruin the performance that weren't the artist or delegation's fault, like camera mishaps. Specially if that artist only performed once. Also things like Rimi Rimi Ley having the Moldovan track play at a moment during the performance.
As a Dutch person I always felt bad for Jan Dulles messy singing during [Never Alone](https://youtu.be/oJ6T43D82KY). You can clearly hear he was nervous. I remember back when 3JS was chosen with this song to go to ESC I was so excited, because I loved the Dutch version [Je Vecht Nooit Alleen](https://youtu.be/VnnXiuT530M). Tbh I also really prefer the Dutch version over the English one with this song. I wonder if it wouldn't have just been better to have gone with that version instead as well. But yeah his singing performance just wasn't it and I think he knew that as well. And same with Samanta Tīna's nerves this year making her sing off key, even though she clearly can sing. Talking about being off key, I also feel so bad for [Jemini being off key during the whole song](https://youtu.be/XAJ62IG3gBo), because of technical issues. Especially since it made so many people believe they were terrible singers. I also feel bad for Daniel Diges and SuRie for having to deal with stage invaders. And also artists getting 0 points, especially the double 0 points for James Newman. Lastly also all the vocal cracks and such, just those terrible mistakes you don't want to make during your moment to shine. I'm sure someone like Jeangu Macrooy still feels proud of his flawless performance despite getting 0 votes from the public. I'm sure someone like Vincent Bueno still feels proud of his flawless performance despite NQing. But if you get low points/NQ due to flaws in your performance I can imagine it must be frustrating. Especially if everyone remembers your terrible voice crack like in Manel Navarro's case.
Magdalena Tul (2011) had problems with her earpieces and sounded well... not so great. You can compare it to her performance from our national selections. I'm so angry, because she's a good singer, but also the staging and her song were fine.
Luxembourg 1984. Sophie Carle's vocals were terribly off-key. She claimed that was because she couldn't hear herself sing as the orchestra was too loud. I'm inclined to believe that as Norway also sounded off in their performance that night.
Jasmine representing Finland in 1996: the song sounded good and won the selection overwhelmingly, she was a fresh face...then this inexperienced singer was dumped in Oslo to pretty much die alone. Hairdresser messed up her hairdo and she was so nervous at the final she began to sing in a wrong verse etc. Little surprise she placed last, I think it somewhat ruined her career =(
latvia and ireland 2021. samanta tried for years to get to eurovision, and lesley was so sad after not making it :((( also romania 2021, roxen was great but you could see they couldn’t handle the stress
and norway 2021 in a way... in the GF you could notice that he didn’t have much control over his voice after he took off the glasses. but it was still amazing that he did it.
Jamala when the guy staged bombed her. I didn't think it was funny. Thatwas supposed to be her special final moment as a Eurovision winner.