On the 9th of April 2016, the 8th edition of Eurovision in
Concert took place in Amsterdam, the capital city of The Netherlands. A total
of 26 acts performed their song for Stockholm, a record number that just beats
the previous record of 25 in 2013. Agnete from Norway and Iveta from Armenia
were due to perform but withdrew at the last minute due to illness and war in
their home country.
I didn’t personally make it to the event, though I did have
the joy of watching interviews from other sites and recorded performances. Here
I will give an overview of what I saw of the concert. The hosts Hera Björk
(Iceland 2010) and Cornald Maas introduced the acts, as well as Hera performing
some songs herself including Je Ne Sais Quoi, her own Eurovision song.
In terms of best
performances, France really strengthened their 1st place position in my top 43.
As well as his catchy bilingual song “J’ai Cherché”, his live vocals are almost
just like the studio version. His song is so feel-good with a catchy hook in
the chorus, his stage presence is so lively and he seemed to enjoy every
minute. The crowd loved Amir, and I feel as though people watching in front of
their TV screens will feel the same way in May.
Another performance that wowed
me was Iceland’s Greta Salome with Hear Them Calling. She started off with a
short yet impressive violin solo and transitioned into her song. This is
another artist that sounds similar live and in the studio versions of her song,
which I find is impressive and something to look for in a performance. She had
her silhouette dancers projected onto the screen behind her which I think added
some excitement to her performance, yet just like Amir, she goes full-out and
seems to enjoy herself, which is the best thing to watch out for.
One performance that surprised me has to be Serbia’s Sanja
with “Goodbye (Shelter)”. She’s so vocally strong, yet I prefer listening to
the live version over the studio version of her song. You can see how much
emotion she puts into her song, and is such a strong and confident performer.
This song has really grown on me after seeing the live performance as opposed
to the preview video.
Unfortunately, along with the good performances there were a
few “bad” ones. One that wasn’t particularly bad, but I found underwhelming was
Croatia’s Nina Kraljic with “Lighthouse”. It’s a song with so much potential,
but I feel as though her vocals are a little weak, especially on the higher
notes and so it doesn’t have as much impact. It’s certainly not a bad song
though. As well as Croatia, I think that Slovenia’s ManuElla with “Blue and
Red” was outshone by some other performances. Her performance wasn’t too bad on
its own, but I’d say it was one of the least interesting ones in the line-up.
Overall, Eurovision in Concert continues to be a major
success for the artists in that they got their songs heard by thousands, as
well as having that extra experience of being on stage and working on different
aspects such as live vocals and stage presence. Their performances are still
available to watch on YouTube for you to judge for yourselves. Before the
Amsterdam event, there were pre-parties in both Riga and Moscow, yet we still have
“Israel Calling” in Tel Aviv, Israel, and the “London Eurovision Party” in
London, United Kingdom to go!
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| ManuElla will represent Slovenia this year. |
Emily x
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