Most of my adult life (if I have ever had one...) I have been involved with Eurovision song contest. Most of the time it has been another good reason to get together with friends, eat some food and since we are Finns - have some drinks.
Most of the time it was focusing more on the party, where the Eurovision was only a side track. Frankly, in scale from 1 to 10 my interest towards Eurovision - Euroviisut like we call it in Finnish - has been somewhat 2. Along the years it increased a bit, but really not that much.
That was the status quo until my patriotism grew into even higher level alongthe move to Belgium. And all of a sudden we are invited to a American style baby shower party that is mixed with - Eurovision song contest! And you would never ever quess the nationality mix of the hosts; Dutch-Armenian-American.
Among the hosts were basically all nationalities from England to Russia to Scotland and via somewhere in South America and Asia to Finland. I had heard that Finland´s song was something people were talking about and I had heard pieces of it, but as always starting point was to accept Finland´s defeat.
The evening gets going and the Eurovision songs are performed. Now and then one of the songs get more attention - mainly based on the nationality of the audience. All of a sudden the points are getting in and Finland is in the lead. My comments are along the lines "don´t worry, we will get back to our level soon".
But we won´t and Eurovision has changed forever. The Lordi has won with a what-ever-heavy-rock-song "Hard Rock Halleluja"! Since then the share of the rock/ metal songs has increased. In addition to the sex shows...n
During the past year we have followed the national song selection of Finland, England and Belgium, and I gotta say most of the time I have been stunned of the results. I guess the worst was 2-3 years ago, I guess 2008;
They had a perfect Abba-goes-modern performance and song that most likely would have made it to the top, but what do the island people vote for? The flight attendant show, the type so many countries have tried and failed with a BIG crash. So did England.
Also the selection criteria has been a mystery sometimes, since clearly the people´s voice does not get the best song to the contest but giving the full decision power to professionals is not an option either. I guess the truth is somewhere in between.
This time I have the highest interest ever, and today came a positive surprise already for 2nd time;
I have a family connection to a Eurovision performer that has come through from the open series:
267 demo songs were sent to the open series and a pro jury selected 30 of them to a public vote. The results were published today and - the "family song" by Bääbs was one of the 3 songs that made it to the Finland´s final!
I didn´t listen any of the other 29 songs, but I gotta say that the Bääbs´s song "You don´t know tomorrow" is a type of a song that we have seen performing well in Eurovision finals.
There is just one trick on the way; The rest of the 15 Finnish finalists are professionals that the Finnish national broadcasting company YLE has invited.
So now it is time to start planning Euroviisuvalvojaiset already for January when the Finnish semifinals start ;o)
Here is a link to the
homepage, the song link is not active for the moment but stay tuned...
