The 7th edition of Eurovision Gala Night took place last night at the prestigious Casino 2000 in Mondorf-les-Bains in Luxembourg. Sixteen amateur singers took part in the Song Contest, singing past Eurovision songs. They were judged by 16 members of an international jury all from a different country, and seeing as this event was a charity event, all the ones in the Casino were invited to “vote” by donating money to charity, by putting money into one of 16 boxes, one box for each of the singers.
There were four special guests during the Eurovision Gala – Luxembourg’s Eurovision entrant from 1992, Marion Welter, and she was joined by three Eurovision winners: Norway’s Alexander Rybak (Eurovision winner from 2009), Ireland’s Linda Martin (Eurovision winner from 1992), and Sweden’s Loreen (Eurovision winner from 2012).
Marion Welter was the first Eurovision star on stage, and she performed her Eurovision entry from 1992 – “Sou frai“. She also said how Eurovision is a fantastic event, how much she enjoyed it, and also said that Luxembourg needs to come back to the Contest.
Alexander Rybak said it was his first time in Luxembourg, and sang three of his songs. His first song was his big hit “Roll With The Wind“, and then he performed the song he has written as a soundtrack for Dreamworks’ “How To Train Your Dragon 2”, the song titled “Into A Fantasy“. To round it up, Alexander sang the song he won the Eurovision Song Contest with – “Fairytale“, which got the audience on their feet.
Linda Martin was on next. She said how she remembers her first visit to Luxembourg in 1984, when she represented Ireland for the first time in the Eurovision Song Contest, and the Contest was held in Luxembourg. Apart from singing her own Eurovision entries “Terminal 3” and “Why Me?“, she also sang two Swedish Eurovision entries – “Take Me To Your Heaven” and the English version of “Framling” – “Stranger“, as well as the well known hit “Self Control“. The Minister of Culture of Luxembourg was also present in the venue, and in between her performances, Linda said that Luxembourg should be back in Eurovision Song Contest. As she asked whether the Minister is “in the house”, she got promised that Luxembourg will be back!
The third international guest was no other than Loreen, Eurovision winner from 2012 in Baku. She started off with the song that she performed at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest held in Malmo – “We Got The Power“. She followed up with a remix of “Everytime” from her album “Heal”, and then her first entry in Melodifestivalen – “My Heart Is Refusing Me“. She ended the night with “Euphoria“, the song that brought Eurovision to Sweden in 2013, and everyone present at the venue was on their feet.
After all the Eurovision stars have performed, it was time for the results of the contest. Each of the 16 international jury members had to read their votes Eurovision style, and then the Minister of Culture of Luxembourg read the votes of the audience in the venue, who donated money to charity, by putting money into a box of their favourite contestant. The audience votes counted five times as much as the votes of one jury member (25% of the total score). One girl won it all! It was Ines Pinto, who sang the Portuguese Eurovision entry from 2008 – Senhora do mar. She collected a total of 160 points from the jury, and another 60 points from the audience. With 220 points in total, 92 points ahead of the second placed Emilie Duval who sang Celine Dion’s “Ne partez pas sans moi”, Ines was declared the winner!
ESCBubble would like to congratulate OGAE Luxembourg, and all of the organisers of this fantastic event! We strongly recommend to all Eurovision fans around Europe to visit Luxembourg and attend this Gala night in the future, as it is great fun, a truly fantastic event, which brings back the Eurovision spirit before the Eurovision season officially kicks in!
You can check out all the performances from last night on our official Youtube channel (click).
