Every day between now and the grand final in May, the team from wiwibloggs will be rounding up the latest titbits from the world of Eurovision 2019. We’ve trawled through Instagram, Twitter and elsewhere so that y’all don’t have to. This is the Daily Digest for Thursday 28 March.
Katerine serves “Better Love” realness in London
Greece’s Katerine Duska is headed to Tel Aviv to shoot her postcard later this week. But before she heads off the “Better Love” singer squeezed in a trip to London, where she met with wiwibloggs for some green juice and a gossip. We can’t tell you what went down — video interview coming to YouTube soon. But we can say that when a queen arrives you have to treat her like royalty! (William)
Tamara tells fans not to worry about her staging
After several years of questionable staging choices from the country, North Macedonia’s Tamara Todevska has told fans that everything will be ok. “I know everyone is concerned about our staging but worry not”, she wrote on Twitter. “We have a great team working with us this year and all I can say right now is that I am #Proud”. It had previously been confirmed that a Swedish team will look after her stageshow, which will feature her and three backing singers. Meanwhile, Tamara is in Tel Aviv filming her postcard. The shoot included a spot of river-dancing. (Padraig)
I had the most amazing time today shooting my Eurovision postcard. A big thanks to the entire team for making me feel so welcome. I am so proud to be part of this incredible journey. #proud #teamtamara #esc2019 pic.twitter.com/2CYXS5TbEJ
— Tamara Todevska (@TamaraTodevska) March 27, 2019
A productive five minutes
It takes three minutes to hear Serhat’s “Say Na Na Na” in full. But according to the Turkish crooner who is representing San Marino for a second time, it only took him two minutes more to come up with the song — that’s five minutes! Speaking to INFE Cyprus, he says:
To be honest I was not thinking to go back to the contest until San Marino TV asked me. I was too busy with my coming album. My first reaction at the telephone was “If we have a good song, I will do it.” I was in Cologne at that time. After five minutes I called them back and said. “We have the song”. Because I wrote the song directly after this telephone call on the streets of Cologne.
“Bigger Than Us” on Spanish TV
The BBC Eurovision account had quite the surprise on Tuesday. As they explained on Twitter: “A Spanish TV channel promoting a Turkish TV series, using the UK song. That’s #Eurovision.” Yup! Back in February the Spanish TV channel Divinity published a promo clip for their upcoming programming, along with a caption referencing his song: “Our evenings are and will be bigger.” No word on why it took them more than a month to notice. (William)
Nuestras tardes son y serán más grandes. Y son líderes, como @MichaelRiceOff Nos ha dado suerte y nosotros a él #EurovisionYouDecide pic.twitter.com/zEo6wmEFHi
— divinity (@divinity_es) February 8, 2019
John Lundvik sings “Bigger Than Us”
It’s not just Spanish TV viewers who are getting an earful of the UK’s entry. On Friday last, one of the songwriters appeared on the Swedish chatshow Skavlan. Y’all may know him, it’s John Lundvick. Of course, John is also representing Sweden and will sing “Too Late For Love” in Tel Aviv. However, he took the opportunity to deliver an a cappella version of the UK track. Michael Rice was suitably excited, tweeting “DUET soon please”. (Padraig)
Go @JohnLundvik killing it Singing ‘Bigger Than Us’ on TV! DUET soon please????? pic.twitter.com/8kWzJpDnuN
— Michael Rice (@MichaelRiceOff) March 27, 2019
Chingiz serves more live vocals
If his session with Alex Panayai left you wanting more, then look no further. Azerbaijan’s Chingiz has released yet more footage of him singing “Truth” live. The jazzy studio session comes just as the official music video passes one million views on YouTube. (Padraig)
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!
KING CHINGIZ SINGS? pic.twitter.com/1wGzJJnr36— Elmira ???? (@elmiramamedovaa) March 27, 2019
Bilal meets Tim Burton
The famed-Hollywood director Tim Burton is currently on the promotional circuit for his new blockbuster, a live-action remake of Disney’s classic cartoon Dumbo. And his path has crossed with that of Bilal Hassani. The French Eurovision star is working with Disney too. And to mark the film’s arrival, he and the House of Mouse released a video highlighting the importance of embracing difference and not letting the judgements of others define you. You can watch the French-language vlog here. (Padraig)
Sergey touches down in Israel
He’s spent the last fortnight flitting between the Netherlands and Germany. But last night Russia’s Sergey Lazarev arrived in Israel to begin filming his postcard. His first port of call appeared to be a personal visit to the city of Jerusalem. There he visited the famous Western Wall in the Old City. Next stop Tel Aviv! (Padraig)
Carousel’s debut LP takes shape
As of now, we don’t have much in the line of original material from Latvia’s Carousel. But that problem should be rectified soon. Before Eurovision takes over their lives completely, the four-piece took to the studio and laid down the instrumental for their debut LP. The lyrics are a work in progress, but they’ve promised to share the final product “soon”. (Padraig)
Hatari to join Cardi B and Bob Dylan in Denmark
First Iceland, next Tel Aviv, and after that Denmark. The anti-capitalistic BDMS techno performance group has just been announced for the Danish Roskilde Festival. They will perform on the first day of the festival, Wednesday 3 July, along with headliners Bob Dylan and Cardi B. But this won’t be Hatari’s only festival appearance this summer. They are on the line-up for the Solstice Festival in Reykjavík, Iceland, one week before Roskilde. (Steinunn)
Roskilde Festival
Posted by Hatari on Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Darude gears up for Eurovision
The “Look Away” hitmaker shared a video showing him getting fitted for in-ear monitors. That process involves inserting soft silicone plastic into the ear canal, to ensure a snug fit. Wearing in-ear monitors means that on stage in Tel Aviv, artists will be able to clearly hear the backing track and own vocals, where appropriate. Darude has chosen blue plastic for his in-ears, and performance partner Sebastian can be seen lurking in the background. (Robyn)
Additional contributions from Robyn, William and Steinunn.
Are you excited for Tamara’s stage show? Are you excited for Carousel’s album? Let us know in the comments.
I love Serhat for just being funny and entertaining and making people smile on stage 🙂 Ofc I appreciate all artistic songs and high efforts and so on, but sometimes you just need an easy-going number to relax. “Say Na Na Na!” 😀
As long as Chingiz can properly channel Aquaman in his performance, he’ll be fine.
Am I the only one looking forward to Katerine’s interview?
Azerbaijan isn’t one of the few examples in which he should lower the key to sound better. He’s singing falsetto. Unless they plan in having backing singers sing with but chest voice in a lower tone.
5 min – one song… so, fast food music after all. Bon apetit, but I pass
lol, will.i.am wrote “my humps” in five minutes too
I like black eyed peas but tbh isn’t my humps basically fast food music?
Ok that danish festival thing must be really surreal, imagine watching the stage go from Cardi B, to Bob Dylan and then to Hatari…
and I totally believe he did it in 5 minutes ^^
Aside of these, when would usually the semifinal running order be revealed? I can’t wait to see it, feels like we’re gonna have some weird placements this year.
As it’s fun to predict stuff, I’m going to predict the running order, having in mind song’s tempos and tendency to ”clear the path” for betting odds favorites: SEMI 1: 1. Cyprus 2. Montenegro 3. Belarus 4. Serbia 5. Hungary 6. Poland 7. Finland 8. Czech Republic 9. Slovenia 10, San Marino 11. Estonia 12. Portugal 13. Belgium 14. Greece 15. Georgia 16. Australia 17. Iceland SEMI 2: 1. Switzerland 2. Moldova 3. Ireland 4. Armenia 5. Austria 6. Denmark 7. Latvia 8. Romania 9. Sweden 10. North Macedonia 11. Norway 12. Russia 13. Lithuania 14. Azerbaijan 15. Croatia 16.… Read more »
My guess is next monday or next week friday.
Opening semi 1: Belarus
Closing semi1: Iceland
Opening semi 2: Sweden
Closing semi 2: Russia
Sometimes heavy favorites do open the show. Place one has statistically a decent chance of qualifying, unlike places 2 and 3. I don’t see that Belarus (slim chances of qualification) will be put in such a position. You never know, though.
I hope Australia gets the best possible spot! So artistic, meaningful and great! With a different staging the love will even grow! Go Kate! 😀
Running order will be probably revealed next week. Last year was April 3rd.
Michael sings “Bigger than us” much better than John does. Just saying.
UK Top 10. Enough said.
This Spanish soap opera uses more Eurovision songs for their promo… the UK are the only ones to have picked up on it though.
This is quite an open year. Besides Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland and Greece finishing *somewhere* high, everything is up for grabs. UK has a nice ballad with a great voice and with good staging they could pull a top 5 from the juries, which could place them in overall top 10. Experience says that at least one or two of automatic qualifiers will fail to impress. My bet is that Italy ain’t it. UK, Spain and France have a shot as well.
Agreed on everything although probably it will become a tighter year after the rehearsals. See Greece last year when they were top10 until rehearsals and then went downhill.
Wow meeting with Tim Burton is a huge thing! Well done Bilal!
Bilal’s wigs are my spiritual animal
Skavlan is actually Norwegian, but it is a Swedish-Norwegian show
Just saying, it took Queen and David Bowie about five minutes to come up with Under Pressure. Great things can happen in five minutes.
You shouldn’t talk about Queen and David Bowie like that.
It’s not the first time when you need jokes to be explained to you.
Not sure if youre sarcastic or genuine. I choose to believe the first
I feel sorry for people who can’t get into San Marino. It’s so happy I can’t get cynical about it.
I like Serhat more and more. 5 minutes can be enough if you have inspiration. Overthinking a song doesn’t make it better, all contrary, you can lose the spark.
Adam Levine can’t pull that off live, either. His Super Bowl performance was horrendous, not to mention his live vocals in concerts.
Just what I was thinking. Such an amusing song, but at the same time, it’s undeniably cheesy and simple. I’d probably push him through as a borderline on pure charm.
H a t a r i needs to leave home those eyes. BDSM is one thing, but those eyes makes them look like horror cartoons for children.
I mean that’s their style. They have to look as creepy as possible. They shouldn’t tone it down a bit imo. The reason why they are one of the favorites is because the whole thing is just literally “in your face” and they are not afraid of it.
They don’t need to tone it down at all, they just have to not be ridiculous, I agree those contact lenses are childish.
Noone had problems with Melovin using it thought.
Well, as i remember tons of people here were saying how Mélovin lens is childish and ridiculous gimmick,
I never liked it too, but only becouse without lens Mélovin looks much prettier for me lol
Chingiz’s live vocals are very good. So what was the point of that much autotune in the studio version then? I don’t get it.
Because that’s not as good as you think.
i think what you hear as autotune might be more backing vocals, Milanov’s symphonix made sound effects
Azeri HoD had said ”they are gonna recreate the music video on stage in tel aviv, so most likely with the dancers with beautiful dresses alongside him, and something never seen at eurovision before, she (Husniye) also teased
Husniye was HoD before in azerbaijan’s early eurovision years, was also spokesperson for them in 2009, 2010
I like the idea, but filling the stage with dancers can possibly made the focus shift from Chingiz. He isn’t even the focus on his music video, for all honesty.
I think there will be some holograms or new technology
Azerbaijan always puts on a great show so I expect something really good in Tel Aviv.
They better 🙂 after Aisel last year. I am still hurting.
But to be fair, even Aisel had interesting staging!
Something in this song is overproduced. The chorus is just very loud, whether it’s background singers, instrumental, autotune or all of the above. Chingiz’s vocals are just drowning in all that and the lyrics become less understandable. The video does a great job in being a dazzling distraction and I’m sure the staging will do so too.
WOW! this masterpiece of Serhat only 5 minutes? ahahha
Actually i do believe it. It does not need so much time and inspiration to write a song like NANANA! :p
For some reason I dont have a hard time believing Serhat came up with that song only in 5 minutes
Chingiz’s live vocals FAB 🙂
I really do hope Macedonia’s staging would be as good as advertised. I am still bitter at how they completely ruined two great songs in a row. They both deserved better.
Not to mention Autumn Leaves, their best song. To this day Im wondering what the staging was about…
Well Jana was pregnant at this time in Kiev …and last year they were in harder semi ..
Ira Losco was pregnant too and did well with the jury in 2016.
I want macedonia to qualify so badly. I’d probably cheer harder than for my own country since our qualification is expected xD