Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Käärijä has been touring Finland every weekend and not only ever since he won UMK 2023 and Cha cha cha has conquered everywhere every time and now it's time to bring this crazy party to Europe and to Eurovision promo events and to the international fans! He has missed the earlier ones due to already booked gigs in Finland but now he will be present in Madrid, Amsterdam and London. In calendar also includes still gigs in Finland before leaving for Liverpool and most of all he will be chachachaing most every single major summer festival in Finland! Below are his already booked summer festivals and gigs pre-Liverpool: April 7-8 - PrePartyEs, Madrid (ES) April 9 - Siilifest, Kankaanpää (FI) April 15 - Eurovision in Concert, Amsterdam (NL) April 16 - London Eurovision Party, London (UK) April 21 - Kuopio (FI) April 22 - Lappeenranta (FI) May 20, Helsinki, Jäähalli (FI) June 2 - Ähtäri (FI) June 9 - Helsinki (FI), The legendary rock club Tavastia (sold out x2) June 16 - Jyväskylä (FI) Ju...

EBU and BBC have announced this morning the short list of the cities that are still running to host the Eurovision song contest 2023 on behalf of Ukraine under Russian aggression and full blown war. Short list might sound all but short when we still have seven (7) possible host candidates. On the other hand if they were almost 20 to start with it is sort of a short list, isn't it? Out with London and Aberdeen, Belfast, Bristol, Darlington, Edinburgh . Brighton, Cardiff, Derry, Nottingham and Sunderland withdraw their bid already before the deadline and the odd Prudhoe and Wolverhampton just made some fun to gain of publicity as in these cases always. I admit I never heard of those towns before, and probably never will again.  So, who's left? In alphabetical order: the 1998 host Birmingham and debutantes Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield . EBU and BBC are expected to announce the winnning bid later this fall once they have fine tuned their o...

Anne-Marie David started with Eurovision in 1972 when she participated in the French selection with Un peu romantique , after doing a succesful Maria Magdalena in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.  She didn't win but the year after Luxembourg chose her and Tu te reconnaitrais and she took a close second victory in the row for the Grand Dutchy beating pre-contest favorites UK's Cliff Richard and Spain's Mocedades; they are finished within six points when David scored 129 points and Richard placed third with 123. Anne-Marie Davis became international star and toured the world and participated in various festivals from Tokyo to Vina del Mar, and ended up in Turkey of all places where she released songs even in Turkish and enjoyed fame and popularity.  In 1979 she was back, this time for France and her Je suis l'enfant soleil placed third. Again the top-3 was way ahead of the others but in the end she was 19 points behind the Israeli winners, a second win in...

London's Southbank Centre will host a new immersive ABBA exhibition later this year. A lot of stuff is borrowed from the ABBA Museum in Stockholm, and one of the highlights will be recreating the night they won the Eurovision song contest as will be the hotel suite in Brighton they stayed in and the legendary Polar Studios.  Add the Eurovision winning medal, iconic costumes and instruments and their story told with recreation of iconic places in Sweden and abroad of their career. Their songs, written in the 1970's are still played today, will be set to the context of the period they were written in. What was happening in the UK and in the world? ABBA has in the UK alone nine #1 hits, ten more Top-10 hits and seven more Top-40 hits.  ABBA is proud of their Eurovision as you can note from the speech Björn Ulvaeus gave when Eurovision song contest was awarded the Charlemagne medalfor media that has contributed to the European unity:  "For me the Eurovision Son...

Maybe it's a miracle or a legenda, even a crisalide still in love with you but  oh oh, uh, oh oh don't play that song again! What's another year? Too long for the organizers of Eurostarz in Concert event in London's The Star of Kings, in King's Cross in London on August 25, 2016 as they are bringing some Eurovision stars together for some fun and entertaining evening. Nikki French will be hosting and performing with Valentina Monetta , Alex Larke of Electro Velvet, Karl William Lund and Martin Fitch aka Marcin Mrozinsky as guest star.  It's a bit of a London affair as both Valentina and Martin these days have made London their home. Various ticket sets are available with VIP package including meet and greet with the stars, photos taken and some CDs as a bonus. More information here . 

Martin Fitch, formerly known as Marcin Mrozinski and Eurovision Poland fame, is making career in London has released You and I (also in Polish: Dzieli nas ). Nice radio friendly pop tune.

Diogo Piçarra is the Idols winner back in 2012 in Portugal and today an all around artists, writer and producer. He has lived and studied in Czech Republic as well as London and has been building his career slowly and released the debut album only after all these expriences. You can found on Youtube a lot of covers he has done over the years, including Stay with me ,  Say something and All of me   as well as his original songs like Verdadeiro , Tu e eu and Volta . Below is Breve . No wonder he was voted the Best Portuguese Youtuber in 2014! Portugal has been looking for the succesful recipe for 5 decades now, could this be it? As they don't seem to want to take from their rich traditional music heritage like Fado or borrowing some Brasilian rhythms ... This will do (instead of some borrowed useless europop written propably by foreigners). At least for me. 

Mäns Zelmerlöw, the Eurovision song contest 2015 winner with Heroes will have a very busy schedules next months. Besides his on going tour in Sweden and previously booked joint dates with Tomas Ledin he's now been booked to perform in various European countries and cities in Finland, Denmark, Germany, France, Ireland, Switzerland and Netherlands. Besides that he is doing also appearances in various festivals, like Coca Cola Summer Festival in Rome, Italy.  Check out the dates and the cities after the jump.....

UPDATE: After seeing it on television it was awesome! BBC really edited it mastefully and it was fun and entertaining. Great stuff! Much better than I would have expexted after being in the recording. They polished every bit of it to perfection. Much better than the 50th anniversary show! Back home and finally a moment to calm down and cherish the moments of the night. First of all it was great to see all those Eurovision winners (and non-winners) on stage and most of them gave a very good performance - at least judged live. I'm curiously waiting how the show will turn out on screen, Graham Norton and Petra Mede , the insert videos and other stuff. As the overall impression after the show was BBC had a minimal effort in the originality and planning, and just decided to walk the singers on stage one by one and that's it. Also the last number them singing together in duets and groups Eurovision hits wasn't really something new and unseen or original, was it?  The on...

I'll be in London for the BBC's celebration of the 60 years of Eurovision..... First of all to enjoy the show, have fun and meet and greet a lot of friends and part of the San Marino 2014 team.... Stay tuned for news, gossip and hopefully photos..... :-)

EBU has been revealing names on daily basis since the Jubilee concert in London was announced a few days ago. The 60th anniversary event or Eurovision's Greatest hits will be staged in London on March 31, 2015. It will be hosted by Graham Norton and Petra Mede and below is the list of artists confirmed to appear so far. More names to come so stay tuned.... I will update this post as they happen.  Conchita Wurst - Austria - Winner 2014 Emmelie De Forest - Denmark - Winner 2013 Loreen - Sweden - Winner 2012 Dima Bilan - Russia - Winner 2008 (2006) Lordi - Finland - Winner 2006 Rosa - Spain - 7th in 2002 Natasha St-Pier - France - 4th in 2001 Olsen Brothers - Denmark - Winner 2000 Dana International - Israel - Winner 1998 (2011) Johnny Logan - Ireland - Winner 1980/1987 (1992) *Bobbysocks - Norway - Winner 1985 The Herreys - Sweden - Winner 1984 Nicole - Germany - Winner 1982 Bortherhood of Man - United Kingdom - Winner 1976 Anne-Marie David - Luxembourg...

EBU has finally revealed its way to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Eurovision song contest. A specila concert will be held in London on March 31, 2015 in Apollo Hammersmith. It will be hosted by Graham Norton and Petra Mede so it's not going to be too serious for sure! The first confirmed artists to appear are reigning Eurovision Queeen Conchita Wurst, the Swedish winners of 1984 the Herrey brothers and french Natasha St.Pier, 4th in 2001. More acts will be announced as soon as the deal is done. And surely there will be surprises so most likely all of them won't even be known beforehand (publicly at least) so let the rumour mill beging! Jan Ola Sand commented: “Over the last 60 years, the Eurovision Song Contest has become a true European institution that has led the way in TV entertainment. We are delighted that the BBC is launching our diamond jubilee celebrations with this special event and that TV viewers from across Europe and beyond will also get to enjoy it too...

Conchita Wurst has been very busy since her victory in the Eurovision song contest 2014 in Copenhagen two weeks ago. She's been to London and done various TV-shows, has given a home coming concert in Vienna , she's been honored with a sausage (and ice cream apparently on the way, too, with the taste of.... sausage, bien sur!) and she has also set the catwalm on fire in Cannes film festival besides getting compliments from likes of Elton John, Cher and many others. And she may or may not open for the Lady Gaga concerts - that was apparently all made up but who knows, maybe Gaga got interested and makes it happen? And how did Ms Wurst comment on her sausage? "It looks good, but I never thought it'd be so hug e !" Priceless. Conchita came face to face with tha sausage when visiting her hometown. Butcher Joe Aichinger lives next door to her childhood home in Bad Mitterndorf and created the sausage for her honor. "It's spicy, just like her" he s...

Jedward got some palm to their wounds when they were chosen as one of the 41 Olympic torch carriers in Dublin in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics later this summer. They may not have "lighten their fire" in Baku 2012 but with London 2012 it went better when thousands of people gathered in the streets to cheer them up! And of course they were very excited and it was all awesome! More here .