Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

73rd Sanremo festival will kick of tonight at Teatro Ariston in Saremo. The formula is pretty much the same as previous years when Amadeus has been in charge, his year number 4 out of 5 confirmed - just more young artists and more songs making the super final come Saturday night!  Tonight, the first night Amadeus will be hosting with  Eurovision veteran Gianni Morandi and influencer Chiara Ferragni, Mahmood and Blanco will be on stage singing their winning entry and Euroviison 6th placed Brividi , and Blanco will present his new single L'isola delle rose as well. I Pooh will perform as well, including Eurovision veteran Riccardo Fogli who has in it from 1966 to 1974 when he went solo (and won Sanremo 1982 and did Eurovision 1983 ), Pooh won Sanremo in 1990 and continued until 2016, and on and off ever since. They have sold over 100 million records so they are Big.  Besides action in Teatro Ariston we will have Salmo performing from a cruise ship anchored outside the c...

Italy took its well deserved third victory - finally! - at the Eurovision song contest 2021. Over the years several other Italian entries would have been worthy winners. In this series I will go through all of them from the worst ranking to the winner s. Italian 1990 Eurovision participation is a good example how Rai really didn't care so much. Sanremo winner I Pooh with Uomini soli didn't care to take part but they didn't really have a plan B or plan whatsoever when the deadline to submit the song was approaching. The legend tells the one in charge was walking down the corridors of Rai thinking how to resolve the problem rather soon than late as Ebu had reminded him once again and Toto Cutugno walks by as he was working in Raiuno as presenter (besides being Sanremo's runner up once again!)  and he just asks: Toto, would you like to do Eurovision? We need a song by next week or so. He said Ok, sure, why not. The Italian preview video of Insieme: 1992 was then a demo...

Yesterday was a busy day in the Eurovision world but also in Italy something was going: the official press conference to present the co-hosts and the Italian guest stars. Last year Carlo Conti surprised everyone when he announced previous winners Emma and Arisa as his co-hosts but now it's back to more traditional. Or not quite: for the first time there will be a male co-host, actor Gabriel Garko. He's way to the fame is though quite similar to many female stars: He was crowned Il piú bello d'Italia in 1991, or Mr Italy. Fom photoshoots the step was short to movies and he's most famous maybe for Senso '45 directed by Tinto Brass where he appeared full-frontal. He also did a sexy calendar for Max magazine. Nine movies and countless television he now will please the female viewers of Sanremo with his presence. Romanian Mădălina Ghenea will be the other hostess. He's a model and actress. She also did the Italian Strictly come dancing and appeared in Eros Ra...