2015 is almost over and a new year is almost upon us, in fact, the Eurovision season has already begun with our first Eurovision song for 2016 having been chosen for Albania!
To celebrate the end of a fantastic Eurovision year, and ESC Bubble’s first full year in operation, I asked all our editors for their personal highlight of the 2015 Eurovision season. Here are some of the team’s highlights!
ERVIN
My highlight of the year would be Hungary’s national selection A Dal. I attended all six shows this year, and met and worked with some amazing people. This competition has given the Hungarian music scene some fresh and new acts like Passed, and made various hits – ‘Mesmerize’, ‘Woke Up This Way’ by Timi Antal, ‘Ne engedj el’ by Kati Wolf, and ‘Give Me Your Love’ by Ádám Szabó. A Dal is actually more popular than Eurovision is in Hungary, and as long as this remains as it is, I think this competition will keep giving us good songs and plenty of hits.
DARIA
This year was not the most spectacular in Eurovision for me, but I’ll keep some good memories for sure!
One of my favourite highlights came from Amsterdam and its popular event for our community – Eurovision in Concert, which as usual was amazing! It’s great to see so many acts perform in one venue and get to meet our Eurovision friends again, some of whom I hadn’t seen since Copenhagen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFXsRi0L7sg
MACIEJ
For me, my personal highlight is Bojana Stamenov! I loved ‘Beauty Never Lies’ from the very beginning but the stage performance impressed me a lot. It’s actually not about the choreography nor the trashy outfits but about the audience reaction! The hall went crazy at the moment the song changed tempo! I love to watch this performance over and over again to see the whole Europe jumping and waving flags!
AHMAD
My highlight of 2015 was meeting Nadav Guedj from Israel. During the press conference, I got to ask him a question about helping to build a bridge between Israel and Lebanon and suddenly I was on stage hugging him and we were waving both of our flags! It was so crazy! The Israeli media were asking for me to do interviews. It was nice being in peace for a while.
They took me and Nadav to one of the interview rooms and we sat talking for ages. He is such a wonderful guy. Israelis and Lebanese have more in common that the rest of us can or want to admit!
DANNY
My own personal highlight for 2015 was the German National Final. This was for many reasons. Firstly, it introduced me to the terrific band Laing who performed two very different but outstanding songs ‘Zeig deine Muskeln’ and ‘Wechselt die Beleuchtung’. Half the time I had no idea what was happening on the showbecause of the confusing format, but when the winning announcement came and Andreas Kummert had won and then instantly denounced his title and gave it to Ann Sophie, I had no idea what to think! Kudos to the host Barbara Schöneberger who managed to hold the whole thing together. (Just look at her face in the picture below in the YouTube video!) Truly a moment that will go down in history as a classic Eurovision moment, along with Linda Martin’s ‘Oudious little man’ from the 2014 Irish national final! I’m hoping that the 2016 National Final season will also bring us some more memorable gems!
Tomorrow, the rest of the team will share their top moments with us! Until then, the whole team at ESC Bubble wish you a Happy New Year and hope that you have a fantastic 2016!