🇧🇪 Blast from the past: Belgium 1996

The Eurovision Song Contest is celebrating its 70th anniversary. That is a wonderful milestone. We at Eurovision Universe love diving into the history of the contest. That is why we are taking a closer look at the contests of the past 70 years. 1990 Eurovision was held in Zagreb. The hosting proved to be quite a challenge. When hosts Oliver Mlakar and Helga Vlahović discovered that a much younger duo was ready to replace them, they called it quits. It took the Yugoslav broadcaster considerable effort to get the two back. The Norwegian Ketil Stokkan participated for the second time. After 1986, he now sang about the “Brandenburger Tor”. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a striking number of songs were built around the theme of peace. The German entry was titled “Frei zu Leben” (Free to Live). Italy sang about the unification of Europe in “Insieme: 1992” (In Together: 1992). The Finnish group Beat sang “Fri?” (Free?), and the Austrian Simone sang “Keine Mauern mehr” (No More Walls). The latter did not even win the national final. The winning duo, Duett, was disqualified because it turned out that the song had already participated in a German national final.  The show started in a peculiar way. Spain was allowed to open, but after the intro, the ladies of the duo Azucar Moreno walked off angrily. The backing track had been started incorrectly. The ladies had to start over. The uptempo number by the Icelandic duo Stjórnin also stood out. It achieved a fourth place. Honking cars drove down the streets in Iceland as if the country had won. Joëlle Ursull represented France with a song by Serge Gainsbourg: “The White and Black Blues”. There was cheerful drumming on oil drums. Ursull came second, but had to share that place with the Irishman Liam Reilly. Seated at the piano, he sang “Somewhere in Europe”. And we do not want to leave Tajči unmentioned. She was a sort of Yugoslavian Marilyn Monroe, who managed to score quite nicely with the cheerful “Hajde da ludujemo”.  Toto Cutugno But Italy’s European song, “Insieme: 1992”, won. The singer, Toto Cutugno, was certainly no stranger. His biggest hit across Europe was “L’Italiano”. He finished high at the San Remo festival several times. In 1990 he did not win, but the numbers one and two were not interested in participating in Eurovision. When he won, all sorts of things happened. Champagne was poured over his head, causing the black dye to start dripping from his hair. That was very visible because he was wearing a white jacket. Someone in a black jacket quickly rushed over to solve this problem. Out of enthusiasm, Cutugno crawled into the audience during the encore, followed by a whole horde of journalists. For the public, the whole thing was not really safe. But Cutugno hadn’t noticed any of that, he said later. 1991 The entire 1991 Eurovision Song Contest can be summed up by one word: chaos. It started with the venue itself. The contest was supposed to be held in San Remo, but after the outbreak of the Gulf War, that proved not to be safe enough. It became Cinecittà, the studio in Rome where the spaghetti westerns were filmed. The set looked mostly like a collection of props that hadn’t been put away. The Italian broadcaster RAI decided to invite the two former winners, Gigliola Cinquetti and Toto Cutugno, as hosts. While Gigliola tried to keep things on track a little bit, Toto Cutugno was mainly an unguided missile. He didn’t listen, talked over jury chairmen, and started talking about something completely different at unexpected moments. At the end of the evening, scrutineer Frank Naef, usually an eloquent man, sat behind his table, turned red with annoyance. The songs Thomas Forstner returned for Austria. He had been successful in 1989, so he hoped to finish in the top 10 once again. It was quite disappointing: no one had points for him. The group Just4Fun from Norway included former Bobbysock Hanne Krogh and former Icy member Eirikur Hauksson from Iceland. Stefan Hilmarsson participated for Iceland itself; he was one half of the duo Beathoven. Malta was back! Not having participated since 1975, the duo Georgina & Paul Giordimaina was back. Surprisingly, their ballad “Could It Be” finished sixth. That was Malta’s best score ever up to that point. The Israeli Duo Datz also stood out, particularly with their typical Israeli dance. Sergio Dalma from Spain lived up to his reputation as a crooner with a fourth-place finish. And then there was Atlantis 2000 from Germany. They had bypassed the televoter and let a panel of a thousand people choose the song. Not a good idea, as it turned out. Singer and face of the group, Hermann Weindorff, sang so badly that his solos were distributed among the other group members to salvage what could still be salvaged. The group Clouseau, wildly popular in Belgium, also failed to do well, despite an Italian newspaper labeling them as the big favorites. The Belgians received no support from the Netherlands, where the group was also very popular. The Netherlands had to withdraw due to a remembrance day. And then there was Greece. Sophia Vossou’s song “I Anixi” featured a saxophone solo. Unfortunately, the young saxophonist from the orchestra was replaced at the last minute by an older gentleman. He couldn’t manage to get his fingers on the saxophone at the right moment. The sax solo went completely wrong. Carola At the end of the show, there were two winners. France and Sweden had the same number of points. The countries also received 12 points equally often, but Sweden received 10 more frequently. Sweden therefore won in the end. France had scored well with a singer from Tunisia. That was clearly audible. The song contained many Arabic influences. Singer Amina knew how to capitalize on her participation. Her song “Le dernier qui à parlé” became an international hit. But it was Carola, also