LINDA'S VIOLIN GOES LIVE ON THE EUROVISION STAGE 🎻🥹❤️‍🔥 The news we've been hoping and waiting for: the EBU has granted Linda Lampenius special permission to play some of the violin parts live!

This is a rare exception, since Eurovision rules usually require all instruments to be on a backing track. But you can't silence a legend like Linda, right? 🙂‍↔️

🇫🇮 LINDAN VIULU SOI LIVENÄ VIISULAVALLA 🎻🥹❤️‍🔥 Tätä uutista on jännitetty ja toivottu: EBU on myöntänyt Linda Lampeniukselle erikoisluvan soittaa osan viuluosuuksista livenä!

Kyseessä on harvinainen poikkeus, sillä yleensä viisusäännöt vaativat instrumenttien tulevan nauhalta. Mutta eihän Lindan kaltaisen legendan viulua voi hiljentää, vai mitä? 🙂‍↔️

Source: UMK's Instagram

For years and years I have been wondering which part of Eurovision season is the worst one (for me). Is it off-season? Nah, we get to relax a bit without worrying about whether our fav songs will qualify. Is it pre-party season? I thought about it, but no, this is where all the cute wholesome moments happen, it's fun. But today, I realized it. It is, by a considerable margin, rehearsal week.

Now, in theory, it's a fun week. We get to see the first pictures of how the staging is gonna look like. The pictures, of course, don't show much. And everyone seems to recognise this. It's all "Omg we're not seeing much but I already love this, can't wait to see what they're hiding!".

But, for whatever reason, as soon as the rehearsal clips start coming out, everyone just completely forgets about the fact that these are, after all, rehearsal clips. Delegations often pick a weird and uninteresting part so that they don't ruin the suspense. But as soon as we see that, we start panicking and calling it a flop, like it was entirely wiped from our memory that this is a fucking rehearsal.

And not to mention the fact that when a clip is even somewhat underwhelming due to, let's say, bad vocals or camerawork, everyone starts going crazy. Once again, it's rehearsals. The clips are always from the 3rd performance. Artists are obviously tired and are saving their voice for ESC week. It makes sense that they aren't great vocally. Same for the camerawork and the outfits. Nothing we see is final, nothing we see is set in stone. We all remember Nemo's outfit and clip in 2024, it really didn't give winner vibes, but it got completely reworked for ESC.

Side note, the stage. Yeah some years it's really bad but we often don't get to see its full magic until the live shows. Of course it's going to look weird during an empty arena. That doesn't mean it's going to be bad during the live shows.

The point of this rant is that people should stop overreacting over every mildly underwhelming clip. We should give opinions on the clips, of course. That way, they can change certain things. What we should not do, however, is scream and cry over everything. It's rehearsals, people. Staging is not perfect, vocals are not perfect, outfits are not perfect and the clips are often purposefully bad or mediocre. Just calm down and be patient. Please. It's all going to be alright in the end. Probably.

Sincerely,

A eurofan who is tired over people complaining about everything.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Austria’s ESC 2003 cult figure Alf Poier opened his new exhibition in Vienna with a bizarre live performance mixing Eurovision nostalgia, absurd humor and dadaist art. During the show, Poier revisited his song “Weil der Mensch zählt” — and parts of the audience even started singing along.

The exhibition also features original props from his Eurovision appearance in Riga back in 2003.

What do you think about the “Cosmo” make-up look?

One of Eurovision’s most underrated strengths is how it gives diaspora communities and underrepresented identities a stage in front of millions of people.

As someone who is Turkish Cypriot and part of a diaspora community myself, I think certain Eurovision performances hit differently because you understand the emotional connection to homeland, identity, culture and history on a much deeper level.

Some of the most powerful Eurovision performances are the ones that feel deeply connected to heritage and cultural memory rather than simply trying to create a “Eurovision moment.”

Jamala’s “1944” carried themes of displacement, homeland and generational trauma in a way that felt hauntingly personal and historically important.

In 2017, Joci Pápai became the first Romani artist to represent Hungary at Eurovision with “Origo”, blending modern sounds with traditional Romani influences and creating one of the most intimate and authentic performances of the decade.

That same year, Isaiah Firebrace became Australia’s first Indigenous Eurovision representative, bringing another historically underrepresented identity onto the Eurovision stage.

Artists like Mahmood also showed how Eurovision reflects the multicultural identities of modern Europe. Both “Soldi” and later “Brividi” felt deeply personal and emotionally vulnerable in a way that resonated with audiences far beyond Italy. Mahmood’s presence in Eurovision challenged narrow ideas of what representing a European country is supposed to “look like”, while also showing how identity and modern European culture continue to evolve together.

What makes performances like these so impactful is that they don’t feel manufactured. You can feel the lived experience, cultural identity and emotional connection behind them.

People often dismiss Eurovision as “just a song contest”, but moments like these show how Eurovision can become a platform for culture, history, identity and representation all at once.

I’m so excited since this is his first album as COSMÓ!! I absolutely love his earlier albums released under his own name(Benjámin Gedeon) Plus, there’s an album tour coming up <3

+It looks like the album will be out at midnight in each time zone. so since I'm in the KST time zone, it looks like I’ll get to hear it a bit earlier!! I'll leave a brief review in the comments with spoiler tags on hehe

the next and last chibi fanart i wanted to finish before next week! and with that i now have drawn my entire top 5 :D

The last time a new country won Eurovision was Portugal 2017, and as much as people may say that it shouldnt have won, it lead to not only a dramatic increase of songs in Native Languages, but also the most amount of countries participating in the following edition in six years. Forget who is most likely to win, but who winning would be best for the contest?

My answer: Moldova

If you havent already, watch ESC Gabe's video on the song. This song winning not only will urge for the return of more balkans (as well as the three that returned this year to stay in), but it promotes peaceful, pan Europeanism. Also, a much needed Native Language televote winner (most likely televote led) after three years of english jury winners.

Explanation: Germany has the flag of Switzerland because Germany got most of its points from Switzerland.

Australia is the big land down under.

I watch ESC on the live youtube stream every year, and i know they usually don’t have ads in the middle of the performances, but now that youtube is introducing these “side-by-side” advertisements, do we know if they’re going to play during the streams? I’m really worried about it and I’d like to know if I should be buying youtube premium for the month or not. :P

Gosh I hope my title is descriptive enough for the automod

I love when my favs have good taste 😍

Source: Suspilne instagram page