October 2008 Archives

Happy Hallowe'en! Boom Bang a Blog was thinking about the scariest Eurovision entry there has ever been to give you the appropriate chills this October 31.

We've already done Jemini (we don't like to repeat ourselves), it would be far too cruel to unleash the horrors of Celine Dion's skirt from 1988 on you, so instead we plumped for this.

This is Vampires Are Alive, the Swiss entry in 2007. Hotly tipped to take the title last year, it ended up very close to the bottom of the scoreboard at the semi final stage so didn't even get a shot at the trophy on the Saturday night. Mind you, the Serbian lady who won, Marija Serifovic, looks like the sort of woman who'd be absolutely terrifying if you crossed her.

Anyway, here's DJ BoBo with Vampires Are Alive. You may need to send any children in the room behind the nearest sofa. His performance really is that bad.

Don't have nightmares.

Here's some slightly encouraging news. Following a recent Lord-related announcement, Irish bookmakers Paddy Power have given odds of 9/1 of the UK winning the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, as well as a 3/1 chance that the song Andrew Lloyd Webber pens for Blighty hits the top of the charts.

This is all a lot more positive than the bookies' odds posted in the run-up to Belgrade.

THIS lady and this gentleman are due to appear at Southport Theatre on Thursday, October 30, with a good old Cocker-nee knees-up singalong show called Roll Out the Barrel.

But, you may ask, what connects this singing twosome with Le Concert of Song? (We knew you were asking, we could hear you).

Don't worry. We are going to tell you.

Lord Andrew Sir Lloyd Webber (LASLW) has been chatting to those trendy types at Radio 1 about the Eurovision challenge which lies ahed of him in the coming months.

LASLW has some interesting things to say about the Your Country Needs You process - including some rather surprising info about the type of song he has in mind.

In addition to the news of Lord Lloyd Webber's national songwriting duty, Oswald Moseley's paper of choice, the Daily Mail, has announced that the Lord may join forces with lyrical powerhouse, Sir Tim Rice, to write next year's UK entry.

They haven't worked together since finishing Evita in 1976. If the reports are true, then Eurovision really is living up to its raison d'etre of unifying warring factions via the gift of song.

Sigh...

Rowetta, Charlotte Church, Beverley Knight and Heather Small... please make a note of the website address this man is about to give out.

Chanelle off Big Brother, Jordan, John Barrowman and anyone with zero experience of singing live in front of a huge crowd... under no circumstances watch this video and promise that you will never watch it, or follow the instructions given within it by this musical Lord of the realm, ever.

Ever, ever. Swear down, no lie.

And don't cross your fingers behind your back.

...but a number of countries are already going public with their preparations for the 2009 Song Contest in Moscow.

Earlier this week, Swedish Tv carried a live broadcast of the announcement of all-but-four of the song titles and composers which will battle it out in Melodifestivalen 2009 (we said the Swedes took it seriously). There'll be four 'wildcard' acts, Swedish household names who get a direct ticket in to the line-up to make the public extra-keen to watch, announced a bit later on.

Greece has already announced who'll be singing for them in Moscow. This year's bronze-medalling nation will despatch 2004 bronze-medaller (and 2006 Contest co-host) Sakis Rouvas (pictured) to Russia in May. At a press conference this week he made plenty of rumblings about anything other than first place being failure. Rouvas got the UK's douze in Istanbul with an extremely dodgy vocal to the rather limp song Shake It! (what were we thinking?)

If you were watching that fateful evening, you may remember him whipping his jacket off halfway through the performance to reveal his vested torso (he used to be one of Greece's national athletes), before he started spinning around like... well, a big girl, if we're honest.

But nobody, nobody, comes close in the 'early doors effort' stakes than Bulgaria...

A fair old source of juicy gossip sprang into being at this year's Euro Bash in Birmingham - and tragically - Boom Bang a Blog was strolling around the Bullring when it was revealed (how slack).

Don't fear - we have been retrospectively filled in (we asked the Council for permission) and can reveal all.

It's about the swinging sixties, the BBC and an act of cold-melodied revenge.

Bet you can't wait to read the next bit...

You'll recognise the man on the right - it's Mr Danny Lynch, the intrepid soul who tried his damnedest to get some backstage gossip at last month's Eurovision Dance Contest in Glasgow for Boom Bang a Blog, but was thwarted by a lack of internet access.

But never mind about all that - that's me and 'im on the darncefloor of one of the function rooms at Birmingham's Jury's Inn on Saturday night for Eurobash 2008. It's a wonder some of the enthusiastic souls bopping away to Eurovision classics didn't crash in to us while we posed for a pic.

Jury's Inn Birmingham: Welcome to the dream factory

Boom Bang a Blog is very excited. Can you tell?

Tomorrow, I shall board National Express's finest in order to spend an evening in Birmingham's Jury Inn where I shall join fellow sufferers Eurovision fans for a day-long celebration of all things Contest.

Well, I say day-long, I'm only going to the disco bit at the end of the night.