Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

So it started. You can follow Eurovision Reddit here that is the only source of real information of the rehearsals so far.  As I have nothing to say as I've seen nothing I spare my comments until I do. If there's some other comments or media worth adding to I will do so right here.  Their new dresses are designed by Teemu Muurimäki as usual btw. And Pete's trousers are not too tight anymore to effect his vocal cords as the headlines screamed earlier.  This is what The Social media Guy wrote about Linda Lampenius x Pete Parkkonen's Liekinheitin and Finland: 16:40 - He's ready to sing and she's ready to string 🎤 🎻 Linda Lampenius stands alone on the deserted stage of what was once an orchestra. Now, it’s been littered with the overturned chairs and sheet-music stands of Linda’s former musician colleagues. But what could possibly have happened here? Shall we head to the confessional box to find out? There, we find Pete Parkkonen, and he’s been in touch with the ...

Saturday May 2, 2026. The start of the rehearsals for Eurovision song contest 2026 in Vienna after building the stage and having the stand in rehearsals the past week after weeks and months of planning and rehearsing the staging, lights, choreography and special effects and creative ideas by the artists and their teams at home while Vienna team has been programming and putting everything on computers second by second as so it is these days. If back in the day the nervous bit was could the local orchestra play the song the way wanted now it is Can they handle the visuals the way the team has planned? Times change. As usual there are several teams or people doing the creative work for various teams and behind the stagings there are many already very familiar names. Let's have a look. Black Skull Creative , a British show-making company is behind several acts this year.   Albania is among them and there won't be the signature red color this year for Albania but a prop and subtit...

The Finnish trio KAJ that won Swden's Melodifestivalen and placed 4th at the Eurovision song contest 2025 has been collecting awards and milestones over the past year.  Bara bada bastu topped the charts both in Finland and Sweden, as well as Spotify's Viral Global chart. Last year it also topped the OGAE poll and won Eurovision song of the year at OUTmusic Awards. The Finnish music publishers awarded it as The Song of the Year and also gave an Export award to KAJ. They have won also an award by the Finnish language teachers union SUKOL and many more among them The Finnish-Swedes of the Year and even an award for promoting sauna culture.  In the Finnish Grammys, Emma Awards Bara bada bastu won The Song of the Year and they also won The band of the Year and the Export award. Now they have won in the Swedish Grammys aka Grammies also The Song of the Year award. Previously they won in Sweden's Rockbjörnen award the Band of the Year and the Breakthrough of the Year awards. I sup...

On Monday 27 April, 3,000 drones projected iconic portraits of the Eurovision Song Contest onto the night sky over Schönbrunn Palace, celebrating the launch of the 70th edition in the Host City. As I'm a sucker for light art this is just fabulous! This the the right way to use drones....

  Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 1. FINLAND - LINDA LAMPENIUS X PETE PARKKONEN - LIEKINHEITIN    87 2. ITALY - SAL DA VINCI - PER SEMPRE SI   69 3. SWITZERLAND - VERONICA FISARO - ALICE    68

Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 4. MALTA - AIDEN - BELLA    60 5. SWEDEN - FELICIA -  MY SYSTEM     55 6. NORWAY - JONAS LOVV - YA YA YA    55 7. MOLDOVA - SATOSHI - VIVA, MOLDOVA!    50

Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 8. GREECE - AKYLAS - FERTO    53 9. ESTONIA - VANILLA NINJA - TOO EPIC TO BE TRUE    52 10. FRANCE - MONROE - REGARDE    51 11. AUSTRALIA - DELTA GOODREM - ECLIPSE    50

ORF and EBU have finally released the rehearsal schedule for the Eurovision song contest 2026 in Vienna according several sites yet I haven't seen an official release when writing this. Finland's first 30 minutes rehearsal is scheduled on May 2 at 15.40-16.10. The second one, 25 minutes instead of the usual 20 btw it seems, is scheduled for May 6 at 15.00-15.25. Oddly the Big4 + Austria have  25 + 25 minutes rehearsals on May 7 and 9, which  But what happens in these first and second rehearsals and what are they for?  If things haven't changed much since I was there the first 30 minutes rehearsals is mostly technical. The acts get to the stage for the very first time after the stand in rehearsals have practiced the lighting and camera angles, props and all that . Usually they get to go through the song three times, four if you are lucky and happy how things progress and changes can be made after each run through as the delegation watches on screens how it all looks like. ...

Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 12. UNITED KINGDOM -  LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER - EINS, ZWEI, DREI   49 13. ALBANIA -  ALIS - NAN    49 14. AUSTRIA -  COSMO - TANZSCHEIN    49 15. LUXEMBURG -   EVA MARIJA - MOTHER NATURE    49

  Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 16. ISRAEL -  NOAM BETTAN - MICHELLE   47 17. LATVIA - ATVARA - ENA    47 18. GERMANY -  SARAH ENGELS - FIRE   47 19. UKRAINE - LELÉKA - RIDNYM    46

  After touring the US and doing Coachella (!!!) with Joost Klein Käärijä's next step is to reconquer Sweden (and not only) with Basshunter and Ja eller nej. Yes or no? Late May he will have his very first arena concert and most likely Basshunter will join all his countless collaborators so far from BESS to Hooja, from Baby Lasagna to Joost Klein and Bojan/Joker Out, Rekami (the other fresh single with video shot infront of the famous Cha cha cha murales  Mun mestoi ), Lord of the Lost and who knows who else shows up

  Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 20. DENMARK -  SøREN TORPEGAARD LUND - FøR VI GÅR HJEM     46 21. POLAND - ALICJA - PRAY    46 22. GEORGIA - BZIKEBI - ON REPLAY   45 23. CZECHIA - DANIEL ZIZKA - CROSSROADS    45 With this set of songs we have settled out finalists as Czechia is the highest scoring song not to make it to the final. Our nn qualifiers from the first semi-final are San Marino, Croatia, Serbia, Belgium and Lithuania, and from the se...

Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 24. CYPRUS - ANTIGONI - JALLA    44 25. ROMANIA - ALEXANDRA CAPITANESCU - CHOKE ME    44 26. AZERBAIJAN - JIVA - JUST GO    39 27. ARMENIA - SIMÓN - PALOMA RUMBA    38

Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 28. MONTENEGRO - TAMARA ZIVKOVIC - NOVA ZORA    38 29. PORTUGAL - BANDIDOS DO CANTE - ROSA  36 30. SAN MARINO - SENHIT FEAT. BOY GEORGE - SUPERSTAR   35 31. CROATIA -  LELEK - ANDROMEDA    34

Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 32, BULGARIA - DARA - BANGARANGA    33 33. SERBIA - LAVINA - KRAJ MENE    32 34. BELGIUM - ESSYLA - DANCING ON THE ICE   30 35. LITHUANIA  - LION CECCAH - SÓLO QUERO MÁS   26

An era ended in Hungary last night and hopefully that was a first of many changes to come in also some other parts of the world ! I don't get to politics usually but this one links to Eurovision as well as the new elected prime minister has stated in some interview that he wants to connect Hungary to Europe again in every way including the Eurovision song contest, that he didn't agree with the non participation, so... Welcome back Hungary in 2027? All these years Hungary have been missing from Eurovision they have still continued with their national competition  since 2012 A Dal that provided the entry for Eurovision as well. Below you can hear the entries we missed. However it's worth remembering the line up and therefor also the winner might have been different if there was the ticket to Eurovision in store for the winner. This said, I would have been quite ok with most every entry that won A Dal in between. Maybe not all so Eurovision friendly but then again the songs do...

  I have no idea what these (AI things) are but oh Lord do these versions work?  (This said I am still against Ai use) What a great song this is in the end and works in every way! Just like Hard rock hallelujah from swing to acoustic to choir and everything in between back in the day. 

  Linda Lampenius x Pete Parkkonen - Liekinheitin (Orchestral Version)**** As usual acoustic version, remixed versions and all that jazz is being released of the Eurovision songs also this year. Here are some or most of them worth mentioning. Enjoy! Delta Goodrem - Eclipse (Steve Anderson Remix)*** Akylas - Super Ferto *** JONAS LOVV - YA YA YA (with The Norwegian Radio Orchestra) *** Alis - Nân (Piano Version)**** Monroe - Regarde ! (Piano Version) *** JIVA - Just Go (Rock Version)*** (... but what an earth is that styling??!!) Satoshi - Viva Moldova! (Hardstyle Remix)** SENHIT - Superstar (Acoustic Version)** Atvara - Ēnā (Acoustic Version)**** Tamara Živković - Nova Zora (orchestral version) **  LELEK - Andromeda (Choral Version) Eva Marija - Mother Nature (Folk Version)** LELÉKA - Ridnym (Live with Strings & Bandura)*** FELICIA - My System (Acoustic Version)**** ESSYLA - Dancing on the Ice (Piano Version)* LAVINA - Kraj Mene (English Version) **  Bandidos do Cante...