The 2026 Eurovision Song Contest has officially kicked off in Vienna, Austria, with fans tuning in from all over the world on Wednesday morning to watch Semi-Final One. The broadcast featured performances from 15 countries, and although Aussies will have to wait for Delta Goodrem to hit the stage in Semi-Final Two on Friday, our country got a special — and rather bizarre — musical shoutout during the interval act.
Before the votes were announced, the show’s hosts Michael Ostrowski (an Austrian actor and screenwriter) and Victoria Swarovski (who immediately secures gay icon status by being both a pop star and heiress to luxury goods company Swarovski) were joined onstage by our 2025 Eurovision entrant, Go-Jo, to perform a five-minute song about the differences between Australia and this year’s host country, Austria.
Go-Jo, dressed in his signature skin-tight outfit and silver platform shoes, kicked things off by saying Australia is “huge in size” while Austria is “so small”. Ostrowski then argued that Australia is “flat and dry”, whereas his country has “the Alps and waterfalls”.
The digs continued, with Swarovski saying she would die in Australia with our spiders, snakes and shark attacks, and Go-Jo said Austrian desserts cause heart attacks and he’s not a fan of winter sports.
The trio then belted out the song’s chorus, which would’ve received douze points from me if it were an official entry this year.
“Opposites, we’ve had enough of this / There ain’t no more room for failure / Austria, Australia!” they sang. “So we are the opposites / Tell the world we are opposites / We are day and night / So how can you confuse us?”
As if things couldn’t get any more wild (which, if you tuned in from 5am, felt like a total fever dream), the song transformed into a rap with Australian and Austrian-dressed back-up dancers performing alongside a human-sized kangaroo mascot.
In the spirit of Eurovision, the group ultimately decided they should put their differences aside and call their countries “Austrialia”.
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“Opposites, now friends with benefits / There ain’t no need to fight / We’ll party day and night,” they continued. “Opposites, rocking out to our greatest hits / United we are strong / That’s the Eurovision.”
Although the interval performance received enormous applause from the live audience (and me in my living room), social media users weren’t too impressed by the “cringeworthy” song. Some people pointed out that the Austria-Australia comparisons had been used as the punchline when Austria last hosted Eurovision in 2015, and others also said it sounded too similar to last year’s interval act “Made In Switzerland”.
“I am not sure whose idea was this… but what were you all on? I almost never criticise the shows, but this isn’t good,” one person commented on Instagram.
“This is the most horrible interval act we’ve had so far, the quality of the contest is worsening,” another added, while a third speculated that the performance could even hurt Delta’s chances of winning the competition.
Meanwhile, others said it was the “best song” from semi-final one, and they were thrilled to see our man Go-Jo back on the Eurovision stage.
Delta Goodrem, Australia’s official Eurovision entry, is set to perform her song “Eclipse” during the second Semi-Final on Friday morning, so fingers crossed it receives a better reception online.
