It is being billed as the boy-next-door versus the bad girls of pop. Clean-living Mickey Joe Harte takes on sultry teenaged rock chicks t.A.T.u. in a Eurovision clash of civilisations.
Where Harte is positively civil, the Russian "paedo-pop" duo of Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina are throwing tantrums, slagging competitors and describing everything as "awful" in the host city of Riga, Latvia.
t.A.T.u. - whose sexually-provocative videos feature them wearing school uniforms and passionately kissing - are favourites to win tonight's contest. But only just.
Ireland's entry, We've got the World, ranks a close second favourite in the European betting market at 5/1. At home, however, the odds are reversed with Harte's Donegal air priced as low as 9/4 favourite with some bookmakers.
Some 170 relatives and friends of the Lifford contestant flew out yesterday morning on a chartered flight for the event. Mickey Joe's mother Finola, wife Louise and children Kayleigh, (11) and Kyle, (8), were among those making the journey with what promised to be the largest ever travelling party to a Eurovision Song Contest.
Harte's song, which was written by other composers, had been embroiled in controversy due to its likeness to the winning Danish entry in 2000, Fly on the Wings of Love. The organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), investigated it for plagiarism after its release before giving it the all-clear.
Up to 160 million viewers are due to watch the event, more perhaps thanks to yesterday's rumours that t.A.T.u. are planning to appear nude tonight. No one was confirming or denying the story yesterday, and that suited the EBU just fine.
