Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Eurovision song contest 2014 winner Conchita Wurst will perform for the European Parliament in Brussels on October 8, 2014. Invited by European Parliament's vice president Austrian Ulrike Lunacek with members of parliament from Netherlands, Finland and Italy. The one hour concert will take place on Esplanad Solidarnosc in front of the European Parliament and is open for everyone and is part of a campagn to fight discrimination.  "The wonderful signal for openness and anti-discrimination that the people of Europe gave Conchita Wurst with their votes must be translated ... into forging a society and legal framework allowing everyone to live and to love without fear," Lunacek said.

One of the most glamourous Eurovision break ups happened this year when Waylon left The Common Linnets as soon as the lights in B & W Hallerne in Copenhagen were dimmed and the Netherlands stopped partying for their excellent 2nd place with Calm after the storm . He decided to concentrate on his solo career and this summer saw the release of his third solo album Heaven after midnight and the first single of it, Love drunk .  Now The Common Linnets, where he was replaced in a nanosecond by Jake Etheridge, has releaed their follow up single, Give me a reason . And the band goes by as Ilse DeLange and The Common Linnets these days.... (Sounds so The Supremesque..... and curiously Diana Ross singing about Love hangover ...) This blogger joins the Waylon camp as Love drunk is one of the best songs heard this fall while Give me a reason ... well, it's just ok. Waylon-The Common Linnets 1-0.  What do you think?

So far 31 contries have confirmed their presence in the Eurovision song contest 2015 in Vienna when also Italy officially enters the game. This blogger never had a doubt about it. I guess we can also count in safely Albania, Spain, Moldova and Poland, and there are still Slovenia and eventual returns of Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria. Things might be a bit trickier in San Marino, Israel and Ukraine. Bosnia & Herzegovina returns as do Cyprus but Turkey and Andorra will stay away, along with Slovakia, Czech republic, Monaco and Luxembourg. It seems anyways that we will be hitting the 40 countries again next May :-) The confirmed so far are: Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,  Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Out of the blue comes the slogan for the 2015 Eurovision song contest in Vienna next May: Building bridges. Afte feeling the rhythm, joining us in true fantasies under the same sky it feels just perfect. Vienna has always been a bridge between East and West (a bit like Helsinki). Read the whole story here .  "With "Building Bridges" we have chosen a theme, the idea of ​​Europe with the uniting character of music and that in Vienna, the traditional capital of world music in the heart of Europe." says Dr.Alexander Wrabets, the Director general of ORF.  We understand this slogan as a logical extension of the idea Conchita Wurst formulated at the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest and also lived: the importance of openness, tolerance across all borders for a joint interaction. With the song contest in Vienna, we want music to build bridges across borders, cultures and languages​​. In light of the unifying power of this great common European event, we invite all to bui...

Another milestone, 2 million clicks on Blogilkar's Life after Helsinki 2007 . I can't thank you enough all of you who keep coming back every day and keep following me, it's been quite a journey. A few times over the past year or two I have been ready to stop blogging but even if I have slowed down a lot I guess I just can't stop it completely as the boost you get from a hit post or the pure joy of playing with photos and words and keeping up with all things Eurovision and Sanremo and the rest.... So, here I am. Next goal 3 million! Together we can make it! Meanwhile there's Vienna, and somewhere else after that and oh, so many songs! And it's time to refresh also the image and I hope dogdesign won't mind I borrowed a bit more of their design this time around - after all this blog is also to keep the spirit and memory of Helsinki 2007 Eurovision alive! Let's not let this kaleidoscope be forgotten. 

An emotional documentary film is about to be released telling the story of Lordi, Monsterimies (Monsterman), out on September 26, 2014. It tells what really was going on behind the scenes after the success in Eurovision and hard times later. "Everyone prefers to be liked than hated and bullied" says Tomi Putaansuu aka Mr Lordi. A true story behind the scenes of a monsterboy who didn't want to grow up and became a national hero. What is left? The band is in debt for several hundred thousends euros. They have no gigs in Finland as no local festival organizer seems to be interested in booking them (while abroad they have gigs all the time) "The choice for not being Mr Lordi is that I would be dead" he continues. This is the only official documentary of Mr Lordi, a Finnish national hero and a creative monster, who won the Eurovision Song Contest with his band for Finland. The film has access for the first time behind the scenes, where he has experienced gre...

Pitkästä aikaa ( After a long time ) is the very fitting name for the new Virve "Vicky" Rosti album, her first solo effort since 2007 to be released on September 19, 2014. The first single is Leikitään . But that doesn't mean she hasn't been around lately as she's been doing some reality entertainment on TV (where she even got to experiment singing in italian some opera ) and apparently she's on the road all the time alone or with her nostalgy band project Menneisyyden vangit . This is only her 8th solo album even if next year marks her 40th year in the business despite being only 55. She shot to the fame back in 1975 with her debut hit  Kun Chicago kuoli . Five hit albums followed with hits like Tuolta saapuu Charlie Brown , Näinkö meille täällä aina käy and Oon voimissain . She's also known for several other well done covers like Jolene and Rahaa, rahaa, rahaa , Sorry jos oon lady , Koputa puuta , Menolippu ,....  Come 1980's and the cov...

Giacomo who? I hear you ask. Watch closely Valentina Monetta on stage in Baku and also in Copenhagen and there he is providing backing vocals. Among his other musical productions this versatile singer has had time to record and release his own Italian song book of the songs he thinks are some of the jewels of the last 40 years of Italian music.  At first glance it seems to be like any other including the usual classics from Lucio Dalla's Caruso to Gino Paoli's Il cielo in una stanza, Battisti's E penso a te and Gianni Morandi's Canzoni stonate , but then, there are some pleasant surprises like Banane e lampone by Dalla/Morandi and E non finisce mica il cielo by Mia Martini. But there's even more. Cu ti lu rissi and Lugano addio are two songs less familiar to this blogger but they are great and fit his voice perfectly. On the track list one song sticks out like Lordi in the Eurovision history: Mamma Maria , a classic 1980's Italopop by Ricchi e Pov...

Arja Saijonmaa has released a new album in Sweden Dig har jag kär aka My Swedish songbook . It's her first studio album in Swedish since 1999. Her latest studio album is Rakkaus on rohkeutta from 2006 in Finnish. Altogether this is her 25th studio album. Enough of numbers. Arja is coming to Finland this November for a couple of concerts to celebrate her 70th birthday and career that has been going on for over 40 years in Finland, Sweden, Norway and elsewhere including touring the world with Mikis Theodorakis. She has sung everything from Finnish tangos to Swedish schlagerpop, etno music, French chansons and political songs. Besides a singer she is also an actress in theater, movies and television, she's well known human rights activist, she has even written a book about Finnish sauna. And an autobiography that has been published in Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and Greek. And she's a real diva, too. What else can you ask? She's no stranger to Eurovision either. I...

Rakkaudella merkitty mies is the title of the new studio album by Jari Sillanpää. It translates roughly to A man branded/marked with love . Twelve new songs by leading young authors including Mariska, VäinäVäinö, Paula Vesala and Saara Törmä to introduce a new, more pop oriented Jari, following the success of Liekeissä , a Cheek cover he did for a reality TV series, and other covers he did for another Tv reality show over the past 2-3 years, including Gangnam style . The first single off the album was Malagaan . Get a taste of the title track here . He is hitting the road again to present the new album to the masses later this month all throught to the end of October.  Jari Sillanpää has sold over 820.000 albums in the past 20 years, making him the 5th most sold Finnish act in the history (and the 2nd most sold solo act after Katri Helena). His self titled debut album is the most sold album in Finland with sales of 270.000. Rakkaudella merkitty mies is his 13th studio albu...

The Eurovision Cruise weekend is in full swing in Helsinki for the 5th time and last night special guests from Spain took the stage of the Eurovision Night at Hercules Night club.  Mirela opened the night by singing some Spanish entries like Dime and Vuelve conmigo, Euphoria and of course her own entry from 2009, Nada es comparable a ti (4th). Jorge Gonzales wasn't any less and delivered among others Dile que la quiero and even a Spanish cover of Zeljko Joksimovic's Nije ljubav stvar (2012). The house was packed with international Eurovision fans before the sold out cruise with guests from at least 23 different countries. In short year's Eurovision Cruise has grown to the biggest annual Eurovision event after the contest itself what comes to the number of attending people.  Tonight the party continues aborad Baltic Queen with Charlotte Perrelli, Nicky French, Softengine and CatCat . Well done, OGAE Finland!

Good and sad news to Softengine fans. The release date for their debut album is finally here! It's October 17, 2015 and the album includes 11 songs. The lead singer Topi Latukka promises epic sounds, interesting details and different kind of songs.  None of the songs of their self produced EP is included in this major release. The release party/gig will take place in Seinäjoki on October 18 and after that the band will go on tour, all four of them that is.  Sad news is bassist Eero Keskinen has decided to leave Softengine and concentrate on his lighting technician studies. Also apparently he didn't agree the commercial sound the band is taking on the album that is not to his liking. Despite this the separation has happened in a friendly manner and for now Softengine is continuing without a bassist.  Softengine won UMK 2014 and went on to Eurovision song contest in Copenhagen and scored Finland's best result with Something better in the modern era Eurovision sinc...

Tim Schou was the front man of A friend in London , the Danish band that sung in Eurovision 2011 New tomorrow finishing 5th. Since then the band released their debut album and split while Tim went on to musicals ( Little Mermaid and Hair ) and other things, like doing diving jumps on TV. This year he was hosting the EuroClub in Copenhagen and won over some new fans while doing a great job and released his first solo effort, Supernova . On January 14, 2015 he will play The Garage in London and only 150 tickets are available here . After this special gig he's off to a real UK tour with dates in Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow apparently. 

It's September 1, 2014 and from this day on you may hear potential Eurovision entries on radio or on internet as from now on they can be published according EBU. A bit like Poland last year that chose Donatan & Cleo's My Slowianie after it became a huge hit. It was originally released November 4, 2013. But the rules about publishing the songs varies also by local broadcasters. Some countries let them be uploaded and enjoyed by all on an early stage like Switzerland, some keep them unheard until the very last minute like Sweden. I haven't really kept track on national submission dates but for example Finland opens its submission today for a week only so if you want to take part in UMK 2015 you better hurry up! The same goes for Denmark where submission ends the same day. Sweden goes on until September 16 but then thousends of songs are expected there once again..... Meanwhile the 60th Eurovision song contest, to be held in Vienna's Wiener Stadthalle on May 1...

Once again one amateur gets a ticket to Melodifestivalen semifinals and this year it is Kalle Johansson. This 17-year-old emerged as the winner of Svensktoppen Nästa and therefor won the ticket to Sweden's national selection for Eurovision and could travel all the way to Vienna. His winning song is  Den där Dan , but of course Christer Björkman & co will find him another song and the guy will propably go through a major make over during next winter.  Kalle will be the third Svesktoppen Nästa winner in the Melodifestivalen. In 2013 Therese Fredenwall came 5th in her semifinal and in 2014 Eko came last in their semifinal. Maybe Kalle will be third time lucky to make it to the final? 

Conchita Wurst started her press conference in Finland this afternoon - after posing for each and every photographer very kindly - stating she thought Finland was the clichè: Freezing cold. Instead the sun is shining and she loves it. It's her first time in Finland and the press conference in her hotel had also many journalists from Russia and Estonia attending. She tells about her inspirations (Celine Dion and her parents among others) and her busy schedule since she won the Eurovision song contest in Copenhagen this May. It's like a hop on-hop off - today in Finland, tomorrow somewhere else. She doesn't really know any Finnish artists yet but tomorrow she will meet the top artists sharing the stage with her in Serena Pop & Rock Festival in Espoo and maybe she will be inspired by some of them, too... Then she is asked about her home life and she states home is where the wig is in the corner, where it's just Tom being lazy. And does she cook? No, she orders he...

Once again OGAE Finland is organising the Eurovision Cruise  on September 6-7. This is already the 5th annual edition and the event gathered last year 2000 fans from Finland and abroad to enjoy among others Valentina Monetta , Krista Siegfrids and Marion Rung performing aboard. This time they have got Eurovision winner Charlotte Perrelli , Finland's entrants this year, Softengine , UK's 2000 entrant Nikki French to perform along with hosts CatCat ! And there's more, check out the FB page for further information.  But that's not all. The fun for fans starts already the night before (September 5) at Hercules with the 28th Eurovision Fanclub night (more info here ). DJ Ohrmeister will be there and it's an excellent kick off to meet again your friends and enjoy some Eurovision. Before that there's a warm up dinner at Manala restaurant. But there's still more. Before the real cruise on September 6 you can enjoy aboard m/s Emma some Helsinki sightse...

Emmelie De Forest, Eurovision song contest 2013 winner with Teardrops has released another single off her worthcoming second album, Drunk tonight , that follows Rainmaker , that was a kind of theme song for the Eurovision 2014 in Denmark and that she performed in the final as well. Drunk tonight has a beautiful video and the song itself has a quiet charm that may take some listenings to open fully. At the same time it brings nothing new to her repertoir but follows the musical path she has taken, that includes also Hunter and prey . Time will tell how far she will get on this path.....

The Netherlands have taken the spotlight in this pre-new season gossip mill of the artist game for 2015 Eurovision song contest. First Alain Clark was put forward as almost certain name but now comes also Dotan. AvroTros only comments there are several names (at least three) in the game and it's up to the artists themselves if they wish to make it known beforehand, AvroTros will only announce the selected one in due time. Back to Dotan. He's a 27-year-old Amsterdam based singer-songwriter. He released his debut album back in 2011 to minor success, but the follow up 7 layers this year has been a #2 success including chart topper Home and the first single Fall . His manager didn't deny - nor confirm - the proposal.  One thing seems to be sure: the Netherlands is going after another quality, semi-acoustic affair. 

I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days with Valentina Monetta before and after the concert in San Marino on August 5, 2014. A concert where she presented songs from her latest album Sensibilità . An album where Valentina was able to express herself in a more personal way including songs composed by herself in collaboration with other authors, including her brother Vincenzo ( Viaggio samba , this blogger's personal favorite). An intimate concert in the magical setting of Piazza della Libertà under (almost) full moon, with intense and original interpretations of rearranged Chrysalis and Maybe and a lot of what she does best: jazzy stuff. But it's not all spotlights and glitter in the tiny intense, somewhat closeted reality of the microstate of San Marino, a small jewel of the Italian peninsula, as we spoke over a pleasant lunch and the post-concert gathering in the historic center, or during an afternoon at the beach on the Adriatic Coast (where her video for May...

It seems the Netherlands have chosen. This time it should be singer, producer and musician Alain Clark (35). His first album came out back in 2004 without much of a success. Change to sing in English produced a triple platinum Live it out three years later. Since then three more top-3 albums of his groovy soul, latest this year, Walk with me . His biggest hits are This ain't gonna work ,  Father & Friend and Back in my world .  If this turns out true, like the main newspaper De Telegraaf suggests this morning the Netherlands continue their string of serious artist with a real career. Apparently Alain has tried an international career before without too much of a success, but Eurovision could change all that..... This isn't his first adventure to the Eurovision world. In 2012 he co-wrote Ivan Peroti's  Take me as I am and came 3rd. 

Remember UMK 2013? Mikael Saari and his We should be trough finished second and was a huge fan favorite both home and abroad. Many were expecting an imminent album release and all that but now Mikael tells he was negotiating with several record companies but they all wanted him to sing in Finnish. He instead thinks he expresses himself better in English and so, nothing came of it.... "I can't write a kind of music the commercial companies are searching for" he states. For himself that is, he is more than willing to write pop songs in Finnish for other artists. But today he says in an interview by Etelä-Suomen Sanomat he's very happy with his life; he's finishing his studies by Christmas this year, he sings, performs, writes and is living his dream as he puts it.  He has been doing musicals since UMK. He's headlining the new musical Poika Mancini in Oulu this fall. Earlier he was doing West Side Story and Pieni lemmenleikki (based on Eurovision songs)...

While I was holidaying Vienna and its Wiener Stadthalle was confirmed as the host city for the 2015 Eurovision song contest. And indeed it seems like a perfect fit. Vienna itself is more than suitable to host the 60th anniversary edition giving it maybe a bit imperial touch - the historic palaces and all that fabulous bling bling seems to be only 2-3 kms away from the venue. Sissi would approve I'm sure, Conchita for sure does. She thinks it'll be a bit over the top as Vienna is a bit over the top when needed. And with Eurovision over the top fabulousness goes very well!  Wiener Stadhalle was designed by architect Roland Rainer, built in the 1950's and opened in 1958. It was expanded in 1974 with a public swimming pool - time will tell if that will be engaged with the Eurovision activities (foam party anyone?). The contest will take place in the D Hall but the complex includes various other halls of different sizes so it seems the press center (Halle F?) and the rest w...

And finally we also have a visitor from Kosovo! Actually I'm a bit surprised I didn't have it already... A huge welcome, whoever you are! That brings the Flagcounter flags up to 217 already..... Anyone in North Korea? ;-p

While Eurovision song contest is heading for it's 60th edition EBU has decided to give a little face lift for its generic logo. Until 2003 there was no generic logo and broadcasters created their own ones instead and it was a bit confusing really.... Then in 2004 the heart shaped "v"logo was introduced for Istanbul contest. Ever since that logo has branded all Eurovision song contest events and merchandising along with annual broadcaster's own event sub logos and themes from Under the same sky to Feel the rhythm, True fantasy and #JoinUs . All matched together with the generic logo. What do you think? On top the new one with the next host's flag and and below the first one featuring the Turkish flag.... This blogger likes the simplified and cleaner logo and the change of the letter type to Gotham. Well done!