Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

As there isn't much to blog when rehearsals are done with closed doors (and yes, I'm all for it!)  I will just do a feature with a couple of  photos from the rehearsals as published by Ebu. Today we concluded the second semi-finals 30 minutes first technical rehearsal and there isn't much to say at this point. All looks good. Georgia went all fire as expected and also continued the girlie pop with male dancers, apparently these guys do not get bare chested by the end. Also Israeöl has dancers and most importantly both Israel and Latvia have a huge circle on stage! And not only. The circle motive seems to be dominant also in the backdrop of Georgia.  LATVIA SAN MARINO GEORGIA BELGIUM ESTONIA ISRAEL NORWAY NETHERLANDS All photos as always from eurovision.tv

  Belgium's RTBF chose its entry internally and was first to announce that they chose Mustii already on August 30, 2023. We had to wait for the release of his song Before the party's over until February 20, 2024 though. Among the songwriters is Pierre Dumoulin, who's co-written already City lights (2017) and Wake up (2019) for Belgium. Another co-writer is Nina Sampermans who's also co-written Would you? (2012) and Tout l'univers (2021) for Switzerland and Bridges (2023) for Estonia.  Mustii - Before the party's over Thomas Michel Mustin (33) is Belgian actor on stage, film and television, and singer with two Top-5 albums to his credit so far. He has been nominated for awards for both singing and acting, winning The Newcomer of the year 2016 as singer and The best newcomer in Belgian films in 2019. Ten singles so far both as single and featuring, three of them Top-20: 21st century boy , Blind and Skyline . He has been also Drag race Belgique judge in 2023.  He

As there isn't much to blog when rehearsals are done with closed doors (and yes, I'm all for it!)  I will just do a feature with a couple of  photos from the rehearsals as published by Ebu. Today we moved on to semi-final two and were treated with more coned shoulders and masked faces - a real trend this year. I was most curious about Albania and Switzerland as their staging team is the same as UMK's and therefor also Windows95man's (and Käärijä's) last year.  Sadly the white and black outfit trend also continues with very few exceptions and after first semi-finals "nudity" we get Czechia's "nipple" dress. And if in the first semi-final I wished Luxemburg wore something else here it is Albania.... And it looks like the producers decided to open both semi-finals with a young girl with long dark hair in a pantsuit with dancers doing acrobatics ...  Should they both qualify (which I doubt) I hope they are put back to back. MALTA ALBANIA GREECE S

BBC chose internally Olly Alexander for United Kingdom at Eurovision song contest 2024 in Malmö, Sweden. Olly himself told the news on December 16, 2023 during the final of Strictly come dancing, and the song Dizzy was premiered on March 1, 2024. The music video was shot in mid February in Tbilisi, Georgia.  Oliver Alexander Thornton (33) is an actor, singer and LGBT+ activist. He was the singer of Years & Years before the band ended its journey by 2023 it being already more or less Olly's solo project since 2021. As Years & Years they released three studio albums (two #1s, one #3) and five Top-20 hits including #1 King . For this blogger the most familiar hit is Dreamland with Pet Shop Boys though. Other collaborations include Tove Lo , Elton John and Kylie Minogue (twice) Besides music Olly has a successful acting career going on since teenage years and has been nominated to various awards over the years. Besides movies (13 so far) he has done theater and musicals on s

As always, the Eurovision entries are being released in various versions; either being revamped for the contest or having a change of language or just simply an alternative version of genre or whatever. Here's a collection of season 2024 entries and their variations starting with Finland's Windows95man's No rules in its fabulous Enigmastic 90's Spa mix. Love it! (And yes, that's Sibelius in the background!) ... but that's not all! They also did a symphonic version with Espoo's Tapiola Sinfonietta orchestra!  No rules! We follow with France. Slimane delivers the perfect ballad Mon amour but in a Meya Rework mix with more beats and stuff. I may prefer the original as it's just perfection.  Italy's Angelina Mango has recorded a Spanish verison with Alvaro de Luna Azerbijan's Fahree feat. Ilkin Dovlatov reworked their entry a bit Slimanesque way. It's quite wonderful.  Spain's Nebulossa has rercorded Zorra with Mexican superstar Gloria Trevi.

As there isn't much to blog when rehearsals are done with closed doors (and yes, I'm all for it!)  I will just do a feature with a couple of  photos from the rehearsals as published by Ebu.  Today a couple of things caught my eye: Luxemburg's totally wrong outfit, Finland's and Slovenia's "nudity" and Moldova's lack of those violin girls. Not so sure of Azeri outfits either. As for the rest pretty much the same and expected.  Today we had the first 30 minutes technical rehearsals by these countries: ICELAND SLOVENIA FINLAND MOLDOVA   AZERBAIJAN AUSTRALIA PORTUGAL LUXEMBURG