What a load of balls! No, I don’t mean the song, I mean the unusual headgear Rona Nishliu is sporting, which looks to me like it’s fashioned out of a variety of ping pong balls. The rehearsal report described her dreadlocks as pinned into a large bun decorated with items resembling small Christmas-tree decorations, so I may be giving the accessories a rather specific visual diagnosis.
With her dreadlocks she looks a bit like a Rastafarian Lady Gaga. The song is cracking! Rona, a Kosovo Albanian singer and songwriter, performs Albania’s dramatic Albanian-language ballad Suus, written by Nishliu and Florent Boshnjaku. It won the 50th Festivali i Këngës, Albania’s national selection, in December 2011.
Rona stands static, centre stage, bathed initially in a shower of red lights, which create an effect not unlike the Albanian flag. The staging is deliberately minimalist, with the colours warming as the song builds. She hits all the big notes, and there are plenty of them. It’s a simple performance, and though she and the song seem to be an acquired taste it’s one I’m very partial to. Class and quality: but will it have enough mass appeal?
At this point, on 13 May 2012, Albania had only had its first rehearsal and had not yet faced the semi-final. In retrospect, the answer was rather encouraging: Suus qualified from the first semi-final in second place with 146 points, then finished fifth in the grand final on 26 May, also with 146 points — Albania’s best result at that time.
