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 Saturday 6 April.
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Tamara Todevska reveals her staging directors
Staging has been North Madedonia’s Eurovision undoing on many an occasion. But this year, Tamara Todevska is leaving nothing to chance. She’s recruited two Swedes to transfer “Proud” from studio to stage — Mari Forsman Ryberger and Tine Matulessy. Ryberger has plenty of Eurovision experience and came up with staging for Sanna Nielsen, Frans and Robin Bengstsson. Matulessy’s credits include Belarus 2014 and a spot supporting Malena Ernman in 2009. (Padraig)
First day of rehearsals with the amazing Tina and Mare. We can't wait to show you what we have prepared for May 16th. ?#proud #teamtamara #esc2019 pic.twitter.com/8g0kMuoPCh
— Tamara Todevska (@TamaraTodevska) April 5, 2019
Bilal teases “Roi” revamp as he dances to 42 Eurovision 2019 songs
He might not be attending Eurovision in Concert, but France’s Bilal Hassani is most certainly in the mood for Eurovision. Yesterday, he filled his Instagram stories with clips of himself and his friend Benjamin Herbez dancing to all 42 Eurovision 2019 songs — he didn’t forget about Maruv! In the midst of it all, he even teased the “Roi” revamp — skip to the 8-minute point. (Padraig)
“Soldi” dominates Italian radio
His seven-week reign atop Italy’s FIMI chart came to an end last week. But we doubt Mahmood is too concerned. “Soldi” currently sits at a far from shabby #5 and it’s refusing to budge from #1 on the radio charts. The Sanremo winner shared his gratitude on Instagram, writing “I DON’T KNOW THAT SAY THANK YOU 💖💖💖”.
Elsewhere, Mahmood graced the cover la Repubblica’s weekly Il Venerdì supplement. He was joined by a number of his musical peers with the paper writing:
“Now that the song of the Sanremo winner has entered everyone’s ears, we have brought together him and twelve other rappers and trappers in Milan. To talk about the country in which they were born or raised. And then of Salvini and Rami, Tufello and Gratosoglio, mothers and fathers.”
Read the feature here. (Padraig)
John Lundvik unplugged
Mahmood isn’t the only one loosening a long-held grip on the charts. Hip hop group Hov 1 has displaced John Lundvik from number one on the Sverigetopplistan after four weeks. In other news, the “Too Late For Love” crooner was at Mix Megapol radio studios on Thursday to record an unplugged session. He was joined by his mammas — aka his four backing singers from Melodifestivalen. During a 20-minute set, he performed both of his Melfest songs and favourites like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. Skip to the 10-minute mark to see John and his gals. (Padraig)
Mix Megapol Unplugged med John Lundvik LIVE
Posted by Mix Megapol on Thursday, April 4, 2019
Conan does GQ
Conan Osíris is slowly but surely taking over the newsstands of Portugal. Earlier this week, he graced the cover of Cristina magazine. Now, he features in the pages of April’s GQ. The man is is a visual feast. (Luis)
Katerine goes downtown
It’s not just Conan who’s becoming a regular in glossy magazines. Greece’s Katerine Duska has done yet another fashion shoot, this time for the monthly publication DownTown. (Padraig)
Darude calls into Armada
He’s in Amsterdam for tonight’s Eurovision in Concert. But on Friday, Finland’s Darude called by the HQ of his current record label, Armada. Alas, the dance label’s co-founder DJ Armin van Buren wasn’t in the building. Nonetheless, he got to spin the decks and tinkle some piano keys. (Padraig)
Sergey is crowned singer of the year
The biggest and brightest stars of the Russophone music world were out in force last night for the Xhara Music Awards. Sergey Lazarev was amongst those in attendance, taking home the Best Male Singer gong. Other prize winners included Ani Lorak (Best Concert), Philipp Kirkorov (Best Music Video for “Mood Color Blue”), Loboda (Best Female Singer), and Dima Bilan (Best Song for “Молния”). (Padraig)
Bang! Sergey stans Maruv
Maruv was also at the party. On the same day as she released the “Siren Song” music video, the Ukrainian stunner performed her supposed-to-be-Eurovision entry. And she had a very special fan in the audience: her former The Voice coach Sergey Lazarev. In a series of stories, Sergey uploaded Maruv’s full performances of “For You” and “Siren Song” while cheering along. And when the moment to know Maruv’s secret came, Sergey was also yelling “bang!” (Luis)
Maruv: Wanna know my secret?
Sergey: BANG! ?
Si lo quiero más, exploto. ? pic.twitter.com/wEDndxQZC5— Narusuke-kun (@Narusuke09) April 5, 2019
Additional contributions from Luis
Is Sergey indeed the best male singer in Russia? Are you excited for the new “Roi? Let us know in the comments.
Bilal is an experienced youtuber, good at PR, he did his homework, even created choreography with his colleague. Good for him. Other artists didn’t even listen all songs. I’m impressed by Bilal.
Poland sounded amazing at Eurovision in Concert
King Duncan, only great performance at EiC this year, wow it truly shows how worldclass arcade is and perfect compared to the rest of the mediocre field
vote for Netherlands or else
downmarking me how pathetic
just vote 100 times or more for duncan, he is the all time best eurovision artist, a true god
Dare to dream
hahaha, my dreams never come true lol
anyways i come in peace, that was my last over the top message on here, i will continue to read along on here but maybe i just shouldn’t post anymore
i don’t hate any of the songs, feel free to like and vote for whoever you guys want yourself, don’t let me force you to vote for who i want you to vote for
Duncan is great and the song is a little masterpiece, but it doesn’t mean that the others are mediocre. Call “mediocre” Kate Miller-Heidke, Jonida Maliqi, The Lake Malawi, Tulia or Kobi Marimi is a thing that only a sniveling baby could do: even though they aren’t in my Top 10, they are true artists and yesterday slayed.
While the songs are deemed underwhelming by fans, the EiC performances shows we got a LOT of competent performers in 2019. This is, once again, gonna be an interesting year.
The Amsterdam show usually exposes a lot of the entrants vocally.
Not finished watching them all yet but from what I’ve seen, some of the vocals have blown me away. Even some of the songs that I am not particularly fond of….
Probably the best EiC so far. And it seems to have a larger audience compared to the past ones.
lol, only great performer is Duncan, all the others are a bunch of amateurs compared to this god
To be honest, Duncan himself was an unknown name and is an amateur performer, although he got one good performing capabilities. Much of the performers are indeed new, emerging artists. The considerably big performers in the concert are Kate Miller-Heidke, Jonida Maliqi, Oto Nemsadze. Nevena Bozovic, and Joci Papai.
i am sorry for my behaviour but i have nothing to lose anymore, and i cannot redeem myself either anymore so
it is just a first again for me supporting my own country since 2003 and 2004, those songs (one more night, without you) i also found great, too good to come from our country same as i have with arcade
You dont even speak dutch
I just watched Australia’s performance , and Kate is a real contender for the Top 10. They will change the staging from the NF, I guess it will be classier and less wacky.
We need a good line-up of performers, I’m still recovering from the trainwrecks of 2017.
I feel we had this on hand this year. Eventhought they’re mostly young artists, their performances are mostly convincing, even amazing.
If only Bilal came to Eurovision sans wig.
Where’s the problem with the wig? every year there are singers who wiggle their hair extensions in all directions and oddly it is no problem. Oh yes! it’s a guy, the only extra capillarity allowed would be to wear a gorilla costume, there everyone would find it awesome.
It’s completely fine to come with a wig. He just looks way better without one.
Sadly doubt about Eurovision, but I was done before Festival da Cancao even started and everyone was hyping him up.
He is too much for you, we know…
Conan and Katerine are getting gorgeous photoshoots for a lifetime during the last couple of months.
From the snippets Wiwi have posted on Insta, most of the artists people have worried about in terms of performing live have stopped all the fears. In particular, from what little I saw, Kate, Srbuk, and Ester sounded excellent. No trouble hitting any of the big notes in their songs. Couldn’t hear Eliot or Katerine super well but they also seemed to be fine.
I wouldn’t call any of them borderline anymore. All of them sound amazing.
Katherine’s performance wasn’t that great, to be honest. Not just me but a lot of commenters watching Eurovision in Concert pointed her vocals could have been better – some are saying she is feeling sick though.
Anyways, hope she improves since she has a nice song.
Also, Eliot had a good performance this time
Seeing her in the studio, you know she has those notes in her. She’s probably just slightly under the weather (and not in a Sennek “she’s a little sick now but I’m sure she’ll sound great the night of” kind of way).
Again, I’m going on much less than you, but it doesn’t feel like there are many more unpleasant surprises. Everything’s pretty much what we’ve come to expect or better. The only one I’m super curious about now is Paenda. The clip sounded great, but do you think the overall package as is could be enough to get her to qualify?
As a package, that might be enough. But Austrian staging team might have better ideas, perhaps? We will see in May’s rehearsals, and I hope Paenda can wow us even more!
She was sick, just listen to fire away, slow and somebody and youll be surprised. She has those notes inside her, she can deliver and she WILL deliver in the Madrid eurovision preParty.<3
I was blown away by Kate’s vocals – a song I previously considered too gimmicky but now in my top songs again. Meanwhile, I had been raving about Greece’s song to everyone and was disappointed with the live performance. I found myself watching some of her previous live performances of other songs and found the vocals here also to be a bit shaky (beyond the initial amazing sound of her voice), I just don’t think this is going over well on the big live stage in Tel Aviv – still a good studio version song to listen to.
Wanna know something funny? So the results of the Euro Jury are running on Euro-voix rn. They’re pretty neat, by and large, since each jury features contestants and others involved in Eurovision as the best way to determine who’ll do well. They’re only showing the countries that were voted for, with the top three in bold, and the full results aren’t coming out until later. So far, pretty credible, nice spread of voters. Except one thing. Cyprus just voted, and their jury consisted of Minus One and Alex Panayi. Which would be fine choices…except Alex is the vocal coach for… Read more »
Picking random people to vote isn’t really something accurate. Each jury panel in Eurovision has five members, who might vote according to their personal tastes or any other different criterion, and they could also be biased.
The best way to predict the jury vote is consulting history, e.g.:
We know Sweden, The Netherlands and Greece will probably do very well with the juries, however Iceland and Norway won’t be among their favourites.
I mean yeah, no doubt. Plus it’s counting every single entry when we know each jury only has a set group of songs they can vote for (Cyprus, for instance, can only pass judgment on the songs from the first semi and the final; what they think about the songs from semi two is moot unless those songs qualify). I talked a lot in another thread about who I’d choose for a jury, although I was thinking mostly in terms of a national selection rather than the contest itself. It definitely isn’t totally accurate, especially since if a band is… Read more »
I find the Eurojury more accurate than both OGAE and polls. Of course some results are off but they know their stuff. Last year the actual result was closer to Eurojury than anything else.
Katerina Duska you are the Queen!!
If North Macedonia manages to nail the staging, that would probably be the first time. Ever.
She’s my second fave, I really want her to go through
From the staging designs listed above, seems it’s going to be a play of minimal lighting. I can’t wait to see how this turned out!
LMAO why should they bother, they are doomed against King Duncan anyway
Conan Osiris is HOT.
we all stan Maruv
She better represent Russia next year
Yeah! lets represent country where goverment with bloody dictator attacks your own country , occupied your territories and killing your people, Maruv isn’t that stupid… and she already said she is not gonna represent any country if its not Ukraine
Bloody dictator? Have you ever been in Russia? Have you at least a friend from Russia? What makes you state smth like this? News? Twitter? Facebook? Have you ever tried to think that smth is wrong when all the media sound the same? I moved to Russia after Ukrainian government gone wild, my children are happy here, they study, get medical treatment for free, we ukrainians feel safe in Russia. We don’t think how good or bad Putin is. We live our happy lives. So shut up, or come to my place.
I’m so happy for all the success Mahmood is archiving ^^ I honestly have real feelings for him and i can’t help it lmao 😀
Isn’t it Zhara Awards in Latin script instead of Xara Awards?
Can we watch EiC live? From where and how? Please answer me
yes i am interested too. is there a way to watch it all the show live?