Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

After the highest scoring televote Top-10 (see previous post) here comes the ten highest scoring jury favorites.  Here Salvador Sobral from Portugal still reigns but this year's winner Nemo came close with his endless string of 12 points by juries. One can question does the juries favor Sweden but indeed here we have four Swedes in the Top-10. Does it feel like right? No, if you ask me. Australia's runner up is featured here as is Norway's Alexander Rybak and Kristian Kostov but indeed the Top-10 differs from the televote one as there are only four songs in common: Amar pelos dos, Fairytale, Euphoria and Beautiful mess.  Salvador Sobral - Amar pelos dos  382 (Portugal 2017 /winner) Nemo - The Code  365 (Switzerland 2024/winner) Måns Zelmerlöw - Heroes  353 (Sweden 2015 /winner) Loreen - Tattoo  340 (Sweden 2023/winner) Dami Im - Sound of silence  320 (Australia 2016 /2nd) Alexandr Rybak - Fairytale  312 (Norway 2009/winner) Loreen - Euphoria...

The Eurovision song contest 2023 in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine is turning out very Ukraine as promised with a string of Ukrainian artists coming back to belt out their Eurovision successes. Throw in a bit of British by giving a slot also to last year's runner up (and not only), invite some Eurovision favorites to sing Liverpool Songbook. Add Rita Ora and some drag queens (because why not?) and me thinks it looks like a very nice mix! Grand final Opening act: Kalush Orchestra - Stefania Interval act: Sam Ryder - Space man  Flag parade: Go_A - Shum, Jamala - 1944, Tina Karol - Show me your love, Verka Serduchka - Dncing lasha tumbai Liverpool Songbook: Mahmood, Netta, Dadi Freyer, Cornelia Jakobs, Duncan Laurence, Sonia Semifinal One Opening act: Julia Sanina - Mayak Interval acts: Rita Ora - Medley of hits + Praising you,  Alyosha with Rebecca Ferguson - Ordinary world Semifinal Two Interval acts: Maria Yaremchuk, Otoy, Zlata Dziunka - Medley of Ukrainian Music Podilya dan...

The Eurovision song contest final is over and we have a winner: Ukraine! Some random thoughts: The show went on smoothly despite a few wrong camera angles, spotlights and impromptu nonsense from the hosts to cover up some time while the stage wasn't ready.  Most artists did really save their beast for tonight, including Italy, Romania, Armenia, Germany, Belgium and Greece.... No one really did badly which is always wonderful. Italy, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine, Finland, Serbia and Spain really got the arena wild. Laura's opening number was a real wardrobe gimmick extravaganza she did a pretty good job with Cattelan and Mika.  Ankle injured Damiano and Måneskin came and sung but I was more thrilled for Gigliola Cinquetti to be honest.  The voting...... well, the juries were all over the place really! And the juries are supposed to be professional but they just vote their neighbors worse than locals....And Martin gave so many votes like no one ever before, wtf? And as expecte...

The individual rehearsals come to end today when the Big5 have their second technical rehearsals for 20 minutes each. Tomorrow it's time for the Turquoise Carpet and Welcome Party following Euroviison Village opening today as well. Next week is all about Dress rehearsals and live broadcasts. Today in their post-rehearsal press conferences the Big5 will draw out which half of the final they will perform. As we know Italy is already drawn to number 9. France draw first half, UK second half. Spain got first half and Germany as well.  Just like with the semi-finalists is spare you from any further comments and let the videos provided by eurovision.tv speak to themselves. Have fun! Mystical Chills Victorius Bootyliscious Casual

The time has come: Also the Big 5 countries have arrived and have had their first rehearsals on stage in Turin.  France brings the beat with dance and folk, black and gold wardrobe, a podium on stage. Add pyros, flames, floor graphics and flashing lights and even a wink from Alvan in the end. More is more! I still don't the appeal of this song and by no means this is a winner. Italy next with Eurovision 2019 runner up Mahmood wearing something he surely won't be wearing come Saturday I think with sunglasses, too. He flew in from Madrid concert last night and apparently didn't get any sleep in between. so..... Blanco on the other hand is having a concert in Florence tonight and wasn't present but there was a stand in. No pyros as they would really be unnecessary but there's smoke. And very simple backdrop with some great white lightning. Italy is closer than any country for a long time to do a double, but maybe this is still a bit too special for a winder European te...

Once again Blogilkar's home jury has sat through the songs and videos and voted from 1 to 10. This year the jury consisted of pre-teens, 20somethings, 30somethngs, 40somethings and 50somethings. Even a dog participated and went nuts for Romania but was not allowed to vote. Most of the jury members had not heard any of the songs beforehand, some not even the Finnish one.And yes, this jury didn't care for betting odds, fan favorites or wanks but only their own taste and first impression! In the end it was a very close run and as many favorites had very divided opinions and votes those that were liked a lot or at least fairly well ended up on top instead of The Netherlands and Portugal (and Iceland and Italy, too) that may have scored most tens and nines. And UK and Norway had to be cut into pieces to find a minor preference. Sharing the same number of 10s, 9s and 8s it was down to 7s in favor of UK for the win! 1. UNITED KINGDOM - SAM RYDER - SPACE MAN (Average score 7,72) Excell...

The worst kept secret of Eurovision 2022 season is that Sam Ryder will represent the United Kingdom at the Eurovision 2022 with Spaceman .  Sam Ryder (33) started his musical adventures in 2009 and worked with several bands before going solo during Covid-19 fist lockdown posting his cover videos on TikTok most of all. By the end of the year he was the most followed artist on that platform earning a record deal. One EP and six singles later he is also an Euroviison hopeful. And a huge fan who's not afraid of UK's faith in the contest.  Actually I do like this quite a lot!