The Maltese Eurovision team has emerged satisfied with the result it obtained in Azerbaijan and is taking pride in the fact that Malta placed well in the semi-finals.
The band did its utmost and the nerves of facing the final took its toll on them
Despite the neighbourly voting style everyone has become resigned to, the team believes that at the end of it all, the best song won.
Malta’s entry, This is the Night, sung by Kurt Calleja and his band, came in at seventh place in Thursday’s semi-finals, garnering 70 points.
The same pattern was not reflected, however, in Saturday night’s final in Baku, when Malta was left languishing in 21st place out of the 26 finalists from the original 42 participating countries.
It was, however, Malta’s best result in seven years.
The winning song from Sweden, Euphoria, sung by Loreen, scooped 372 points, clinching the title of the 57th edition of the festival everyone loves to hate. Sweden got maximum points from the majority of countries.
Sounding exhausted and apologising for it, Mr Calleja told The Times yesterday that the band did their utmost and the nerves of facing the final took its toll on them. He said the best song did, in fact, win.
Although in need of a rest, Mr Calleja returns to Malta today but heads out for London on Wednesday to meet the producer of Malta’s song, Dan Perty, who has produced tracks for The Wanted, JLS and even Westlife.
Anton Attard, the CEO of Public Broadcasting Services, which is in charge of Malta’s Eurovision bid, said that although some countries had taken their neighbourliness too far, the Swedish entry was “a cut above the rest”.
He thought the Italian and French songs were good too but their interpretation on stage was not up to scratch.
Referring to the result, Jason Micallef, former Labour Party general secretary and head of the party’s television station One, yesterday demanded someone be held responsible for the way Malta performed in the Eurovision.
In comments posted on his Facebook wall, Mr Micallef asked who, in the same Maltese delegation of the past two years, would shoulder responsibility for what went wrong this year, as well as last year and the year before.
“The same clique of people who know no shame in spending people’s money, remove capable people and work only with the clique, for the clique. Who will shoulder responsibility?” he asked.
In an earlier post, Mr Micallef sarcastically congratulated whoever led the Maltese delegation and raised Malta’s expectations prior to the event. Asked to react to these comments, Mr Attard at first said he preferred not to comment.
But later, Mr Attard had a change of heart and said that for him the people’s reaction to Mr Micallef’s comments was a comment in itself. Writing on timesofmalta.com, many condemned Mr Micallef for dampening Malta’s achievement, with some asking if this was a joke. Others commented that Malta should pull out of the contest, a suggestion made every year. Mr Attard pointed out that Saturday’s result was the best since 2005. Kurt is arriving back in Malta at 11.30 a.m. today.