Royal Dublin Society's Simmonscourt Pavillion hosted the 33rd Eurovision on April 30, 1988 and 22 countries joined in. Cyprus was ment to be there, too, but was disqualified: the song had been in the Cypriot final already back in 1984! The facelift started in Brussels a year before was taken further in Dublin and 1988 was very fresh and modern production even if the songs didn't quite follow the trend. Tommy Körberg, Yardena Arazi, Hot Eyes and MFÖ returned to the contest. Körberg had a flu and serious problems with his voice and reached only 12th place despite being one of the favourites. Yardena instead agreed only to participate after a fortuneteller told her song #9 will win, Israel's number before Cyprus was disqualified! Number 9 was then Switzerland who sent 19-year-old Celine Dion and won - only with one point! Eurovision maybe didn't "make" Celine Dion but it surely helped: apparently her career was on the line after being a child star and if she didn't do well in Dublin her recording deal would be history. We all know how this story ended... But Celine wasn't the only one to be noticed from this edition: certain Lara Fabian took Luxembourg to 4th place. It would take her a bit longer to make it big worldwide (and get out of Celine's shadow) but both can be called megastars these days. Besides the very exciting voting finish one must also remember a historic moment: for the first time ever Turkey gave Greece points! And Scott Fitzgerard, the butcher from Glasgow's market place who lost to Celine only with one point? Indeed, what happened to him? Maybe he's back to cutting meat?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pEYw8PcBas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJTceYc7h1c
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