Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

And here are the last four of the semifinalist.... ALBANIA - Adrian Lulgjuraj & Bledar Sejko - Identitet Albania is using every trick int rock book for their performances; pyros and smoke and flashing lights, black leather and it's all very... well, old school rock. Not sure if it will get the televoters wild, nor the juries. After last year's excellent showing Albania may be stopped in the semis this year.... GEORGIA - Nodi Tatishvili & Sophie Gelovani - Waterfall Is it so that this is in the end my favorite of the semifinalist? It may be. The best ballad. If Europe wants a ballad it's Georgia where we are heading. Their voices are fantastic, the song is Disney-like, yes, it's like a musical tune, yes. But it's beautiful. It's a real Eurovision ballad. A real Eurovision duet. The staging is rather simple but still dramatic with the fire rain, some dry ice..... and real chemistry between the singers. Wonderful! And guess what? We've go...

Today Blogilkar's Bicykling reporter Robert had a chat with Georgian Nodi Tatishvili and Sophie Gelovani and their very talkative spokesperson from Georgian TV. Who was first, the egg or the chicken? Or the duo or the song? Why Thomas Gson? Why not a Gerogian composer? Why he wrote a ballad? Did they get what they ordered? And will they mention even one Georgian name? Find out here: Thank you Nodi and Sophie for this interview. Since we are a Finnish website we don't know you two at all. Could you tell us a bit about yourselves? We are singers from Georgia and we both are singing since our childhood. We have a lot of experience on stage as we have been doing this since we were 5-6 years old. As grown ups we have been to different international contests, done TV-shows. Despite all the projects we were not so well known even in Georgia. Only the people within music industry knew us well. In 2009-2010 we participated in Georgian Pop Idol and we gained some fame. Sophie pa...

One of this blogger's favorites this year, Georgia took the stage for the first time today as well. Nodi and Sophie have amazing voices and all the initial dislike to the song has long gone and I just love it. And judging the pics the eurovision.tv video it looks fabulous as well! A fire waterwall will gone down as well. Could it be euphoria will be washed away with waterfall and Thomas G:son makes history by winning twice in a row? Hmm....

I previously posted a muscle bulging comparison of Irish Ryan Dolan vs Azeri Farid Mammadov. Georgian Nodi Tatishvili doesn't want to be left any worse and here he is in his glory! What he lacks in muscles maybe he's got in other departments! Enjoy! And this is as good an excuse as any to listen all these three fine songs again: Gerogia , Ireland , Azerbaijan As a bonus here's Sweden 's Robin Stjernberg in bath.... with a friend.... Let the ESC 2013 begin!

Azerbaijan - Farid Mammadov - Hold me Farid aka The Body delivers a song that we've heard a zillion times, with rather banal lyrics and nothing new but somehow it works. And it works really well. A little gimmicks in the arrangement (the keyboards), his puppy looks and eagerness and seriousness, and most of all Eurovision orphan Turks spread all over the Europe will guarantee another final place for Azeris, and most likely also a top-10 finish at least, could go also a lot higher, too. Depending on the juries mainly if they buy it or not. And this song came along in the last minute, just when I was wondering what happened to this kind of songs. I like it. I admit. Proudly. Georgia - Nodi Tatishvili & Sophie Gelovani - Waterfall I should have all the reasons to dislike this, and initially I tried to, but I can't. This is the song that touches me the most this year, takes my breath away when I hear it for reasons I don't know myself. The same thing about origina...

What a medicore selection of songs in Armenia! Not that I was expecting so much ever since I heard who was selected internally, only that the presenters kept calling them The Dorians, or Gor Sujyan and the Dorians so how come only Gor Sujyan is named the artist by the TV? Anyways, as I said I didn't like any of the songs even if they improved one by one.... maybe if they had ten songs the last one would have been already pretty good? So, the running order and from worst to less bad:  The truth, No time, Toy planet and Lonely planet .... Whichever wins will be on the bottom of my list.... Sorry! Guest star Gianluca Bezzina from Malta kinda stole the show having suddenly a very nice song in Tomorrow indeed! And then we had Sopho & Nodi from Georgia singing their Quedate. .. err Waterfall . I'm warming up to the song and the couple looks amazingly handsome on stage! And the winner is.... not surprised.... Lovely planet .

Georgia has presented its entry today, titled Waterfall sung by Sophie & Nodi and penned by Thomas G:son. And how is it? In short, a watered down version of Quedate conmigo (check the 2'15'' mark and Pastora some 5-10 second before). The singers are excellent though and surely will appeal to televoters if the song lacks all the emotion and passion Pastora managed to fill it....

The Thomas G:son penned Waterfall will be the Georgian entry in Malmö 2013. It will be sung by Sopho Gelovani and Nodi Tatishvili, as we know already for some time. You can hear a snippet in the news video right here by clicking the title.

Just when you thought you had wrapped up the year with 2013 entrants here comes Georgia and announces its artists. It's another duo and it's another Sopho! After Sopho Khalvasi in 2007, Sopho Nizharadze in 2010 and Sopho Toroshelidze (of Eldrine) in 2011 here comes Sopho Gelovani in duet with Nodiko Tatishvili.  Nodiko was a child star in his country and later won local Idols in 2009 and later continued his vocal studies in London. Meantime he has collected festival experience and awards in Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Belarus and Georgia. Also Sopho started by winning local kid's competition and has continued winning awards here and there (Georgia, Armenia, Russia) and has studied in St. Petersburg. She came second in local Idols 2010.  Listen to him here and here . He's even here . And Sopho takes on Matia Bazar classic Vacanze Romane here . More of her here  and here . And here they are together.