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 Friday March.
Ireland, Georgia and Montenegro get commercial releases
We were promised a 5 April release date, but this morning Irish fans woke up to a pleasant surprise — “22” is now available to stream and download. And it’s not just Sarah McTernan who has arrived on Spotify and iTunes. Georgia’s Oto Nemsadze and Montenegro’s D mol have also dropped on all the major platforms. There are no major changes to report, except that Oto’s song is now going by its English title “Keep On Going”. “Chameleon” and “Run With The Lions” from Malta and Lithuania are the last songs standing. You can listen to all 39 released entries (plus “Siren Song”) by following the wiwibloggs playlist. (Padraig)
The crown is coming
While Serbia may have returned to singing in its native language since the revival of Beovizija, that doesn’t mean it’s abandoning the English language. Much like last year’s entry, “Kruna” will get an English version. Singer Nevena Bozovic teased some of the lyrics on Instagram: “I sing for you, I sing it all out. Sapphires and gold, shine in my heart. Eternal light.” While it may only be a few lines, it has definitely piqued our interest and we can’t wait for the full version. (Oliver)
Duncan Laurence tours Dutch radio
He’s racked up almost 4.5 million streams on Spotify, but the Netherlands’ Duncan Laurence isn’t abandoning the older medium of radio. On Thursday, he appeared on Radio 10’s Ekdom in de Morgen. In the interview, Duncan explains that “my song is my answer to the critics who said ‘Duncan who?!’ when I was announced as the artist for the Netherlands. In this case, the music gave the answer”. When asked about the pressure, he said “I can still handle it, I see it as a big compliment, for now it are just the bookmakers, Europe still needs to make it’s choice”. “I wrote the basics at the Rock academy in Tilburg”, he says of “Arcade”, “I needed to do music exercises at the piano, and I wanted to stop with that for a moment and just sit down at the piano. Then I wrote it, about a person I loved, that until she died, always wished her love would come back. I later finished it with Wouter Hardy”. You can listen to the full interview here and watch his in-studio performance below. (Jacintha)
Eliot teases acoustic “Wake Up”
Yesterday, Belgium’s Eliot previewed a small portion of the acoustic version of “Wake Up”, his Eurovision 2019 song. He didn’t reveal much save some piano tinkling. The release date remains TBC. Alas, unless you spotted it yesterday, the snippet on his Instagram story has now expired. (Jacintha)
John Lundvik back in the studio with “Too Late For Love” songwriters
Together they wrote Sweden’s song for Eurovision this year. And in a post on John Lundvik’s Instagram, the Swedish star revealed he’s back at work with Anders Wrethov and Andreas “Stone” Johansson. The post captured John Lundvik taking time out from the studio for a boxing session. (Angus)
Michela: Queen of the Desert
Malta’s Michela Pace is one of many 2019 acts that have been in Israel filming their postcards. Unlike several of her peers, however, Michela shirked an urban environment. Instead she shot her clip in the remote desert Timna Valley in southern Israel. (Angus)
Miki for Earth Hour concert
Earth Hour, the annual environmental event, takes place tomorrow evening. And Spain’s Miki will be playing his part. Just before lights go off for an hour, he will perform “La Venda” outside RTVE studios in Madrid. Spanish commentator Tony Aguilar will host. (Padraig)
?@mikiot2018, 'embajador' de @rtve en #HoraDelPlaneta para concienciar sobre el cambio climático @WWFespana
??Cantará este sábado #LaVenda en Plaza de Oriente (Madrid) antes del apagado de luces @TonyAguilarOfi
??Pocoyó,@Clan_tve, ‘embajador’ infantil
?https://t.co/g8DWvLnwR2 pic.twitter.com/Eo9C7Mi9yf— RTVE Comunicación (@RTVE_Com) March 28, 2019
Preview party line-ups continue to grow
This year’s preview season is almost upon us, and the three biggest events are continuing to grow their line-ups on a near daily basis. Amsterdam’s Eurovison in Concert has confirmed 28 2019 acts so far, with Armenia’s Srbuk being the latest. The last remaining tickets for London’s Eurovision Party go on sale at 10:00 tomorrow. Their most recent booking is Sweden’s John Lundvik. Meanwhile, Denmark’s Leonora and Austria’s Paenda were announced for Moscow yesterday. (Padraig)
The kick off of my European tour! First stop – The Netherlands, Amsterdam! See you on April 6th, during Eurovision in Concert , the largest Eurovision pre party in Europe. Looking forward ??? #srbuk #eurovision #eurovisioninconcert #esc2019 #amsterdam #walkingout https://t.co/b0FKVbQpOj
— Srbuk (@SrbukOfficial) March 29, 2019
That sounds familiar…
Masterchef Australia has revealed its theme for 2019 — “Dare to dream”. One commenter on the TV Tonight website writes:
“I dislike and refrain from using the term dream as even though it can refer to wishes and aspirations, nightmares are also dreams too.”
Additional contributions from Angus, Jacintha and Oliver.
Will you listen to “Kruna” in English? Do you watch Masterchef Australia? Let us know in the comments.
God, goosebumps again when listening to Duncan Laurence. It just touches me so much: ex-boyfriend that took his own life by jumping in front of a train, current boyfriend with autism. And me, with dysthymia and depression-attacks. However, there’s always hope. That’s what this song is representing for me, at least.
Umm.. how does the fact that your boyfriend is autistic relate to the song’s message?
Considering Moje 3 had an English version of their song (which was awesome btw), I fully expected Nevena to release one, too. Might as well show everything you can do whilst you have the attention of the continent, right? 😉
Yes, it would interesting to hear also version with symphony orchestra 🙂
Nevena said she had plans to film a music video for the English version for “Kruna”. Also, she’s marrying a Montenegrin basketball player on 20 April.
Where did you get that he is basketball player? He is pilot.
I was a little confused. Either way, I’m hoping Nevena films a music video for the English version of “Kruna” before her wedding.
They just shared the way the televote announcement will change. They’re gonna go in order from the bottom of the jury vote, not from the last place of the televote.
Yeah, it’s so dumb. Oh well.
It sounds messy and confusing, but it might actually serve to heighten the tension, as there would be more countries potentially still in the race for us until a later stage.
Don’t know how dramatic it could be. For example, last year we would have Cyprus 5th from the end receiving its points and then Israel 3rd from the end. But if you have a country that gets almost the points that winners from previous years get, then surely you can guess where is heading i.e. if we had Israel last year getting 300 points from public (just an example) and Cyprus had already got say 280 well what would be the chances of Austria getting more than that? Generally, nothing beats the excitement IMO of the current system where each… Read more »
Audiences know they will hear their country’s name, but they kept on biting their nails, how many points their country would get, right? It’s good, but kind of making televote winners looking invisible inside of this mess.
It makes a lot of sense, except to those who don’t understand & haters.
Gosh, I read “Michela: Queen of the Desert” and thought she will post a photo eating ice-cream 😀 Sorry! I need some chocolate ice now! Anybody else? I’ll give a round in may…
Does that mean that we can hope for Kate Miller-Heidke’s visit in one of Masterchef episodes?
so Kruna in english but i hope she’ll go for the serbian version to eurovision
she can’t change it at this point.
Good. Keep it Serbian. 🙂 A bunch of contenders in recent past (mostly Albanian) went English and flopped.
Miki looks really hot on that pic lol
I cant wait for Amsterdam pre party, im sure its gonna be awesome, looking forward especially for Duncan, Srbuk and Katarine 🙂