Is anyone following the Eurovision Song Contest 2016?

I must say I'm not a fan of the Eurovision Song Contest, but strange enough most of the time every year I happen to watch a part of it.

Here's 'our' Dutch submission from 'Douwe Bob' called 'Slow Down Brother). I actually love his entry!



Do any of our European fellows follow the 2016 contest?
Cheers!
Marti

I haven't followed it since I moved back to the USA. The last I watched, I forgot his name, was the guy with a beard wearing the dress. If I could ever get a good translation of one of my songs into German, I would try to get my niece to sing it. She's always had a good set of pipes going back to when she was a bald headed little baby.
I just admire how you guys who are not native English speakers do all this so well .
Vince

Ah okay Vince, you mean Conchita Wurst with 'Rising like a Phoenix' back in 2014?
If you're looking for translations to german maybe @fischermans or @Mark Luto can help.. Is your niece on SoundCloud? I want to hear it!!
Yeah Douwe did a great job, let's see how this will end!! Lovely song isn't it?

https://soundcloud.com/vincentaylor/acapella-von-die-mia

Here is a link to the one I have she recorded it on her Dad's cell phone. She sings in a choir and currently taking drum lessons. And yes that would be Conchita.
V

Hey Vince, thanks for sharing! Ow yes she certainly has singing in her genes!! Wonderful!
Haha and she is taking drum lessons and on the picture with an electric guitar... Will she be our new rock-star once?
Cool!

Thank you - that's my Strat she holding - it's bigger than she is. But yes she's definitely gonna be kitchen material. Oh, I forgot to say - that the Netherlands may have a chance if it's based on the music.

Haha yes the strat is bigger than her for sure ;-) Lol, got to add 'kitchen material' to our vocabulary here..
Yes I like Douwe's song, especially in the light of the other contestants.. This one was as pure as it can get (for a 'studied in' thing where every second of camera work has been practiced and pre-determined) imo. For Russia (a big favorite) I found the effects distracting from the music. Some kitcheners from Germany, France, UK, Sweden and Malta  (probably I forgot some) may be watching Douwe win next saturday!! 

Cheers!
MM

I only had time to watch about three or four songs! They all seemed crazy! haha! Ireland perform on Thursday even though I must admit I haven't listened to the song yet! I quite like the Netherlands entry. I remember a few years ago the Netherlands had a really cool entry, but I can't remember the name of the song now only that it was a guy and a girl playing guitars!

Hi Evan, wow of course then I'll watch Ireland's entry next thursday!!
Cool to hear 'Douwe' is doing a good job in your ears this year. 2 years ago 'our' Ilse deLange and Waylon played this song:



I'm sure you're referring to them...

I remember Ireland's entry from 2009:



from Sinéad Mulvey & Black Daisy

Not sure what their results were...

Cheers my friend!
MM

YES! That is the song! I will listen to it again! I seen them play on some British music programmes since that! Nice song.

Black Daisy yeah they didn't do well as far as I can remember but Ireland hasn't been doing so well in recent years! This years entry is one of the guys who used to be in the boyband Westlife, I'm not sure if you would have heard of them.

Hey Evan, ah okay, had to google a bit but this should be the Irish entry from Nicky Byrne:



Seems like our 'Douwe' has some competition!!
Cheers and good night from the Netherlands!
MM

Is anyone following the Eurovision Song Contest 2016

No

I haven't watched it since I was living in the UK - it seems much bigger now - with twice as many countries.

Including Australia???

I remember when Isreal won it, thinking I didn't know Isreal was in Europe but it's a lot closer than Australia

We've had ads on TV here showing our Australian representative - which is a bit surreal.

My kids love it and get very excited when it's on....


I remember when I was their age, everyone watched it - it's not such a big thing I think these days and Ireland have done very badly the last few years.. This is the first year that they did a closed internal song selection as they're trying to get "back in".. I was on the selection panel one year for the finalists (this was a long time ago and many years before I'd written a song) and it was tortuous - a real case of kissing lots of frogs before finding anything resembling a prince.. Must have listened to 100 songs to come up with a shortlist of fairly dodgy songs (as far as I remember)..


So I may well be watching, but only "for the children"   


I remember clearly watching (in a pub) the year when Riverdance was performed for the first time and finding it completely enthralling.. The music was written by a very talented composer and the band playing included some of my musical heroes and well the whole thing was quite something...


Z

i watched some of it, and actually found some of it pretty good...better than i thought, to be honest

i mean many melodies that stick to the brain like glue instantly, which is what they are trying to do and have to do to be able to win.....