Swedish pop @ G-A-Y

I went to G-A-Y on Saturday night to see BWO, Alcazar and Army of Lovers.

• Army of Lovers were just plain bizarre. Alexander Bard had a black blow up (female) sex doll with him.
• Alcazar were with new girl Lina, and all synchronised head turns and pointing.
• No handclaps! No strutting!
• Tess was dressed for wind machine success with a big flowy number.
• The wind machine was set to Carola strength for Tess, but a mere Sonja Alden trickle for Lina. Maybe there's a wind machine pecking order?
• Andreas was sharp with his shaved head and tight, tight trousers. He knew his market.
• They were all coy about Alcazar reforming, meaning 'no'.
• BWO were good too. Martin took his shirt off.
• They performed Temple of Love to a hugely bemused audience who had no idea of its Melodifestivalen brilliance.

Girls Aloud! Sexy! Yes Yes Yes!

The new Girls Aloud single: Sexy! No No No.

OMFG.

Amazing.

It makes me want to be a teenager again.

• It's all swooshy, drivey, whirly and amazing.
  
• It starts all Cheryl-in-vocoder, and reminds me of Eiffel65. This is no bad thing.
• Then it thumps in, and there's a 'dialogue' between Cheryl and 'the girls' about whether she did this, that or the other to some bloke she' met.
• Her replies are: No no no, No no no, No no no, Hell no, No No No, No no no, No no, no, Hell YEAH.
• Then there's more No No No bits and a verse.
• Nadine sings "d...d...dirty mind" recalling Grafitti My Soul.
• I'm sure some Popjustice types will decry some of the girls' absence, but Nicola can be clearly heard grunting "Uh Uh Uh" at one point.
• Then there are Woo Woo bits.
• It's all about singing in duplicate and triplicate. Amazing.
• It's very Sex and the City gone hyperdance whacked up and crazy. Girls Aloud - the logical mid-00s UK successors to Carrie Bradshaw et al?

Hurrah for Girls Aloud. They bring sunshine into even the wettest of summer days.

Here it is, via youtube and some random dance video:

Don't Rain on My Parade

London Pride was something of a washout. It was wet. Still, at least the float blaring out "It's Raining Men!" made sense.

I didn't even get a shot of a buff man bouncing around wearing a mankini. Forshame.

It turned out that there was a Eurovision connection.

Amnesty International used the idea of Eurovision voting to highlight the poor experiences of gays in Eastern Europe where a lot of Pride marches are banned. Thus, nul points for Moldova, Poland, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and others.

Read all about it here.

And to make it even better, the Amnesty float was blasting out I Love You, Mi Vida. Oh, if only buff Ony (Antonio to his mum) from D'Nash had turned up with his lovely arms and chest...

Lots of great photographs of the day here.