It was a last minute decision to attend this concert, but I am very glad I did. A small set of past Eurovision performers, including a former winner, graced the stage of a compact, intimate venue near Kings Cross (The Water Rats pub) and took the opportunity to each give us a set of songs, including, of course, the songs they sang at Eurovision. My friends and I took a few pics and vids of course which you can see here…
I had a really good evening – all the performers were great and on good form.
Esther Hart, who represented The Netherlands in 2003, kicked off proceedings with a medley of Dutch Eurovision hits, including my all time fave, “Hemel en aarde“.
Scott Fitzgerald, who narrowly lost out to Céline Dion in 1988, was delighted to be back on stage (he told us in the bar later it was first time he had performed on stage in 5 years!) and as well as giving us his own contest entry, also performed Cliff Richard’s 1973 Eurovision entry “Power to All Our Friends”.
Lindsey Dracass, UK’s 2001 entrant (when she was just 16) performed several UK entries as well as wowing the crowd with her vocals on Dami Im’s 2016 entry for Australia “The Sound of Silence”.
A surpirise guest next, as London-based John Karayiannis popped up to perform his entry and slow version of Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley.
Ovi and Paula Seling (Romania 2010 and 2014) performed a number of their songs, before finishing with their two Eurovision hits – not surprisingly they finished with “Playing with Fire”, to a huge reaction of course. I managed to get a photo with Ovi later after the show!
And finally Linda Martin came on, Eurovision royalty, and utterly bonkers, belting out songs as well as engaging with banter with the crowd. She never disappoints!
The performers came back on stage to sing together, covering several big Eurovision hits.
Overall I really enjoyed it, and the size and informality of it meant the performers were accessible in the bar after, especially dear Scott Fitzgerald who one of my group talked to for ages!
A selection of images from the evening – some taken by me, some by my friends:
And here is a playlist of videos I took at the show – not every song of course, but I tried to at least catch part of the performance of their own Eurovision entries: