🇧🇪 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. 2018 For the first time, Portugal was the host. The festival was held in the Altice Arena in Lisbon. Sílvia Alberto, Daniela Ruah, Catarina Furtado, and Filomena Cautela presented the event. Russia participated again, and there were no dropouts this year. The songs She didn’t really make a return, but the Russian Julia Samoylova, who missed out on participation last year, was present this time. Julia sang “I Won’t Break,” requiring a lot of support from the backing vocals. She herself did not really have a strong voice. Waylon participated for the Netherlands again. And a real Eurovision winner was also present: Alexander Rybak. Using virtual reality, he won the semi-final with “That’s How You Write A Song,” but finished in fifteenth place in the final. In the final, we saw the Ukrainian Mélovin with a burning fake piano. Cesár Sampson, who had already performed twice as a backing vocalist for Bulgaria, now represented his native Austria. His gospel song “Nobody But You” won with the professional jury and finished third overall. The British SuRie had also sung in backing choirs before, but for Belgium. At Eurovision In Concert in Amsterdam, she already showed she was capable of a lot: she stepped in for her French colleague who was ill. During the live broadcast, someone snatched the microphone out of her hands. She bravely continued singing, although she later admitted to having been traumatized by it. Michael Schulte brought Germany back to the top with a song about his father. The duo Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro finished high for Italy. And then there was Eleni Foureira for Cyprus. No one expected a high position for her “Fuego”. But once the act had been seen after the first rehearsals, Foureira slowly but surely rose to first place with the bookmakers. Netta She alternated that first place with the Israeli Netta. Immediately after the release of her song “Toy,” she was first in the odds and never relinquished that spot. With an act featuring Japanese lucky cats, the so-called Maneki Neko, she ultimately took first place. Israel achieved its fourth victory with Netta. “Toy” was a song with a message. Inspired by the #metoo movement, Netta sang that she was not a toy. Remarkably: although Netta’s charisma and performance had contributed significantly to the victory, composer Doron Medalie felt that Netta owed everything to him. Apparently, he hadn’t quite understood his own lyrics. 2019 The Eurovision Song Contest was held in Israel for the third time. That caused some trouble. The festival could not be held in Jerusalem, and the favorite in the national final had to withdraw due to rehearsals on Shabbat. That was a problem in itself. The EBU had to force things. “Either rehearsals take place on Shabbat, or the festival will not be held in Israel,” they stated. It eventually became the Expo Hall in Tel Aviv, and Erez Tal, Bar Refaeli, Assi Azar, and Lucy Ayoub were allowed to present it. Bulgaria did not participate. Ukraine did have an entry, but it turned out that the singer had performed on the peninsula after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. She was disqualified, and after the tightening of national rules, no one in Ukraine was willing to participate anymore. So, no Ukrainian entry. For some strange reason, we are not allowed to embed the second semifinal. However, you can watch it here. The songs Serhat participated again for San Marino, but this time he did make it to the final. Joci Pápai did not make it to the final for Hungary. Sergey Lazarev represented Russia for the second time. When the song “Scream” was released, Sergey immediately lost his number one spot with the bookmakers. With a slick act, Lazarev managed to secure third place once again. Tamara Todevska was the woman who once started Macedonia’s streak of failed finals. Now, she did the reverse. She even won at the jury. With a seventh place, her “Proud” achieved the best score ever for North Macedonia. One of the favorites was gospel singer John Lundvik. With “Too Late For Love” for Sweden, he was expected to be in the running for the final victory up to the very last moment. However, he did not receive enough points from the televoter. Keiino did; this Norwegian group even received the highest score from the televoter. And if you are wondering what that special chant is that can be heard in the song “Spirit In The Sky”: it is the joik, a traditional song of the Sami, who live in Northern Scandinavia. Iceland came up with a BDSM act. The group Hatari made no secret of being pro-Palestinian. During the scoring, they showed a Palestinian shawl. For France, the androgynous Bilal Hassani was the contender. He received many hateful comments in his own country regarding his feminine appearance and his open homosexuality. This prompted presenter Assi Azar to stand up for Bilal and offer him encouragement online. Switzerland was back after many lean years: Luca Hänni came with the swinging “She Got Me”. The song was originally going to be called “Dirty Dancing”, but that was not allowed. Copyrights were attached to this title. Watch the final here. Duncan Laurence It was Common Linnet Ilse Delange who discovered Duncan Laurence through The Voice. Now it was also Ilse who suggested him as a contestant and guided him in Tel Aviv. She had devised the act. “Arcade” was the overwhelming favorite in the odds. However, the performance was quite disappointing during the first rehearsals. A new light was needed, and the camera work had to be different. Ilse Delange repeatedly informed the press present that ‘little things’ needed to be improved. This was to conceal the fact that there was