There is no other way of putting it. This was the festival of waxed eyebrows. It’s the new Malta Eurovision Contest trademark: from singers to stylists, from lanky dancers to light-riggers, the eyebrows are getting thinner.

I am worried about the fact that all singers seem to have only two words in their vocabulary: ‘faqa’ and ‘tal-ġenn’

This sea of perfect brows hits me in the face the minute I step inside the backstage quarters at the MFCC in Ta’ Qali last weekend. That, and Kaya’s tepee dress, of course, there was no escaping that, especially given the new set-up of the Green Room.

The artists’ zone is nothing like past years. It’s a chic piazza concept – all the artist cubicles open into a vast dim space with a huge bar in the middle and enormous flat screens hanging in the air. Very loungey. Very minimalist. Straight out of Wallpaper magazine.

The food and booze this year have all been delivered to the artists’ dressing rooms, so they only pop out to perform and head straight back in. They seem happy with this arrangement. I am not. I want them out of their rooms, mingling, exclaiming how much they love each other’s song, and embarking on hugging marathons.

But it’s not to be. Out of all the singers, I mostly get to see Fabrizio Faniello. He keeps dashing back and forth across the lounge, topless. Finally he calls out: “Who’s coming to dress me up?”

No one seems willing to ‘fight for him’. I’m the only one in his line of vision. I gulp and pretend to be suddenly very interested in the huge light fitting ahead of me. By the time I look back, through a halo-ey haze of green, I see a backing dancer rushing to his torso’s aid.

Every now and again, Peter Carbonaro – the audience’ warm-up guy – strides in the Green Room, like a (fashion) policeman on the beat.

You missed him on television – he was wearing a waiter-meets-Dracula attire, his hair sleeked down with three tubs of gel. Where’s chief stylist Carina and her ‘Big No-No’ when you need her?

There she is, looking terribly overwhelmed by the whole scenario. And what’s that floating hauntingly behind her? Ah, be still thou Ghost of the Eurovision wearing Pink Vileda Gloves.

Carbonaro’s job is to keep the audience cheery during the commercial breaks and to remind people not to please take too long at the loo. This is not the Oscars – although one would be forgiven for thinking it is pretending to be.

Then Kaya comes out of her cubicle, standing proud in her grand, Queen Victoria mourning dress.

“It’s very comfortable and it’s easy to move about in it,” she tells me when I poke at it (with temerity).

I’m suspicious: she looks like she can’t even twitch her neck, and walks as if she’s standing on a wheel trolley under that skirt.

I keep looking at her and thinking how she reminds me of someone, but I can’t place her. The next day a friend said: “She made me think of a toilet paper doll.” That’s it, I thought I knew her from somewhere.

I sneak out into the auditorium to watch her performance live but keep getting distracted by her guitarist, who gave a performance worthy of Brian May – if only there was a single guitar sound in her song. I also catch Corazon, the girl at the piano who sings the saddest lyrics about solitude in the history of music, but keeps flashing huge happy smiles with every line.

Back in the Green Room, Kurt Calleja and his band are having a group hug – it is ‘the night’ for the all-for-one-and-one-for-all kind of moments. Janvil comes in for a couple of high-fives. Someone on Facebook says “he’s not exactly dressed – more upholstered”.

There’s now also Lawrence Gray around and his “very patient wife”; “no really, she’s been so patient with me you wouldn’t believe”.

The French starlet, Anggun goes up on stage, to huge groans from the lads around me: “Where was this lady hiding?” “We never saw her anywhere close to the Green Room.”

I can’t share their grief, I’m giggling: Ron the presenter is telling her his repertoire of French: “Sarkozy and La Vache Qui Rit.” This is historic – for the first time ever a funny presenter. On a Maltese show. I want to give him my number.

Soon after, we’re told by the female presenter that Anggun will be singing ‘Snow on the Sehhera’. I raise one (bushy) eyebrow.

Already we’ve had ‘Eurivision’ and ‘Enser wit yor eyes’. Next year a diction coach has to be roped in (note to organisers: Peppi ‘sangwich’ Azzopardi would hardly be a good choice of coach, here).

Also, I am worried about the fact that all singers seem to have only two words in their vocabulary: ‘faqa’ and ‘tal-ġenn’.

As if on cue, I hear Glen, last year’s winner. He’s in the middle of an impromptu rehearsal with his gospel singers/punk hookers and looks like he’s wearing an entire black eagle on his shoulders. But at least the mystery is solved, for we now know what he’s been up to since last May: heeling the world, deftly, on a pair of lofty strappy shoes.

This momentary distraction makes me lose my cameraman. The Azerbaijani duo, Niki and El, current King and Queen of Eurovision, have emerged from the dressing room.

My colleague is orchestrating a photo shoot starring him and Niki. Not many others are interested in the show-stopper girl – half the men here are gay.

This topic takes me neatly to, ahem, the camp press room. It’s mostly packed with foreign press: Poles, Dutch, Luxembourgers. I recognise most of them from last year. The only difference is their T-shirt; this year they’re wearing a Dusseldorf 2011 one.

“Kurt. Ya, ya. His song is very goot,” says a German journalist with an expertise in Eurovision, after the concert. “Ya, I dink Kurt vill be vinner in Baku.”

Before you raise your hopes, he said the same thing about Glen last year. And, ya, his eyebrows were waxed too.