Yesterday we watched the Norwegian Sports Gala 2010 where all the glorious sports heros from the Land of the Vikings and the Midnight Sun got their fair share of well deserved honor. Plenty of Olympic gold medalists and even a road cycling World Champion, the God of Thunder Thor Hushovd! And let's just be crystal clear, pre-written jokes awkwardly performed by dolled up athletes pulled out of their natural habitat makes up for plenty of embarrassing hide behind the pillow moments. We made new nominations for the Barbara Dex Award like every other minute.
But let's give the athletes a break, they were after all not the main reason why we watched the show. A major Eurovision alert went off at the GEE Head Quarter when we got the word that Haddy N’jie and Erik Solbakken would reappear as the hosting couple. Haddy looking as fab as ever and Erik cheesy and charming as usual. This year's MGP-hostess Anne Rimmen practiced her presenting skills on stage, apparently with welded-on hair imported from London. We like the sound of that, clearly a new Diva in the making.
And since Eurovision Diva Maria Haukaas Mittet has been nowhere to be seen for like the last five minutes it was about time she claimed back her rightful place in the limelight! Maria performed the official song for this year's Nordic Ski World Championship in Oslo. Our favorite Schlagerboys seemed to like it a lot!
But behold, Maria was not the only Eurovision Diva in the running to perform the World Championship song! It turns out Didrik had a go at it as well. Can we detect a change in media strategy for Didrik? It seems like he's been everywhere lately, and he's even funny, in his own cheesy way. Kudos Didrik, we never knew you had it in you!
Aaah, Didrik. Not again. Please don't show up in the media one more time telling us how you know what to do when your brand new album flops. And how you were afraid of winning Eurovision because of the money it would cost Norway and how you don't think you will have a pop music career. What are we supposed to do? Feel sorry for you? Now that won't sell any records.
We are just so tired of all your twaddle. We can't be bothered to hear your whining anymore. And we can't be bothered to make yet another remark about it. We actually find ourselves at the point where we really wish you stood up for yourself, telling us what you are good at, DOING what you are good at. Which certainly isn't blabbering away to journalists.
We are so on the verge here now that we really want you to find yourself. Just do it fast and a little less painful, will you?
OK, let us continue writing about the Norwegian tv show Beat for Beat, because it seems to be the place where Eurovision people hang out while waiting for the real action to start. Last night we encountered an a-team and a b-team in its purest form with our not so beloved Didrik representing the latter.
Finally prime time tv gave in to Astrid's continous wish for Jostein Hasselgård on a friday night.
Didrik Solli-Tangen of course made sure he got to sing the first song as the not so entitled primadonna he is. And we can't really decide whether he reminds us of a spoiled little brat who flipped through his father's LP collection and wanted to sound exactly like one of those 80s' macho men or if he just reminds us of Don Johnson. Nonetheless not good. Definitely not good. We're pretty goddamn embarrassed when Didrik starts up the opera, but would even say there's blasphemy going on as he delivers our beloved Frøken Frantzen in the end. And let's skip the screaming cougar with the jacket of horror and shoes of the porn star next door, who btw suits him pretty well.
The contrast is huge to our all time favorite hunk Jostein Hasselgård paired up with Eurovision choir chick pro Åshild Stensrud. Now this man is just too good to be true, and can do just about any song better than the original. Also just love how he cuts off Didrik when he tries to be something that could sound like a beatbox. Guess he just shares our idea of Beat for Beat, which is having fun with music and singing well, not just clinging to your somewhat vanishing celebrity status.
So in the end nothing changed during this hour of Beat for Beat, except maybe for the fact that Jostein stole A1's Beat for Beat throne. We still have a major crush on mr Hasselgård and still have no respect of Didrik whatsoever. But hey, there's always a reason to spend some time with Jostein. And there's even a Eurovision medley in there for you to decode. Click here to watch the whole show or watch one horrible part of it below.
OMG, we really can't believe Norway is still wondering why Didrik Solli-Tangen didn't win ESC this year. But as we try to make people see the notion of quality, another question of ridicule hits us wham in the face: Why didn't Didrik's new single "Best Kept Secret" reach the top 20 or iTunes top 100? Seems like everyone are just super shocked Didrik didn't make money doing what he doesn't like doing. Wow, can you not just participate in ESC and then become a super star no matter what you sing? Really?
Take the musical manager of Norway's largest music radio channel Petre, Mats Borch Bugge, for instance.He thinks the single isn't selling online because people rather would buy the whole digital album when it's released. Er, sorry, what? Those tendencies are new to us. Along with Norway largest radio channel P1, Borch Bugge also confirms he won't be playing Didrik's album on air, but still he thinks it's gonna sell? Come on, what desert is your head buried in, man?
While Didrik tells us he doesn't care about the reception of the song (could see that coming), Universal's only comment is that the single isn't selling, basta cosi. And Didrik's manager Eivind Grøstad is again showing his brilliance telling us they have to work really hard to get air time on radio and that they have to compete with international artists. Oh, good luck with that, hon.
So what should we learn from this? Definetly that quality and dedication is needed, not just a free pass to participation in ESC and some so called good friends. And perhaps also that Per Sundnes doesn't have that sense of quality and that we do hope Eivind Grøstad never will be manager of anything we care about.
Enough with the ostrich mentality here, people. Didrik sucks. Get over it.
This year it was all about sharing the moment. Join us for a quick recap on the most embarrassing moments we experienced during ESC. We had moments where we cringed in embarrassment and other moments when we almost cracked our hips as we fell on the floor laughing our heads off.
Norway running out of champagne
GEE had a fab time at the Official Opening Reception in Oslo City Hall. Who wouldn’t love to stroll up the pink carpet, squeezed in among the delegations from Azerbaijan, Poland and Belarus? It was however quite embarrassing to find out that Mayor Fabian Stang and his crew ran out of pink champagne nearly one hour before the party was supposed to be over. Snappy head waiters shouting at their assistants as well as at the prominent guests who were trying to elbow their way to catch the last drops didn’t make it any better. GEE had to execute major damage control by telling international guests that this is what happens when you offer Norwegians free booze. Speaking of, we do however suspect that the Butterflies from Belarus were also partly to blame for this situation…
Being robbed at Euro Café at broad daylight
GEE hung out at Euro Café one afternoon trying to recover from previous night’s party and getting prepared for yet another night of more partying (Yeah, ESC life’s a bitch, we know!). We are still in shock after having paid 78 NOK for a coke and a bag of potato chips. And we didn’t even get a full bottle, we got whatever was left in a small bottle that was first opened God knows when! And the bag of chips was tiny! Yeah, we get it, Norway is an expensive country, but this is just ridiculous. We can reassure all international readers and fellow guests at Euro Café during ESC that it is indeed possible to treat your hangover at a much more reasonable price than this just about anywhere else in Oslo. Shame on you, Euro Café.
Belarus' Butterflies being too drunk to sing
Need we say more? This actually happened at a gig they were supposed to perform at a week before the final. How very professional of them, and how funny for the rest of us!
Didrik + Per Sundnes = car job
Oh, we are trying really hard to think of what is the MOST embarrassing thing about the Didrik and Per relationship, but there is just so much material! Guess the worst part, anyway, must be the fact that Per Sundnes' husband decided to give Didrik a vintage car that has been in his family for a long time. Ok, so Didrik is a part of your family now, Mr. "supposed to be kinda neutral self acclaimed leader of MGP"? Please, people, stop courting.
Picking your audience more carefully
During the final in Telenor Arena, GEE was sitting next to a man claiming to be able to predict the votes from the different countries. He proudly showed us pictures on his phone of all the five ESC celebs he had met recently (GEE acted all surprised and impressed) and predicted that Israel would give Germany 12 points and Armenia would give 12 points to Azerbaijan. We recommend him to start reading newspapers (and our blog!) and maybe redo 3rd grade history before sitting next to us again.
Harel Skaat inviting people to lipsync him
While many of the contestants this year have been very good with their use of social media in marketing, Harel Skaat and his gang spent most of their time on their so called lip sync competition. AKA send in your video where you lip sync Harel's song. We were too embarrassed to watch the whole videos, but please take a look at one of them, at least for amusement. The PR people of Israel really wanted us to market it on our blog, so now we did. You're welcome.
Someone trying to trash Lithuania
Trying to trash Lithuania in the face of some of their most dedicated fans wasn't such a good plan. The Dutch TV commentator, who we by the way loved very much, tried to tell us Jurgis from InCulto was arrogant. Nope, you really missed something elementary there, we thought, and decided to introduce them to each other. Never heard more about that. When will we be hired as your PR agents, InCulto?
Moldova behaving kinda tacky
Grabbing GEE bloggers' asses turned out to be a hit, especially among Moldavian contestants. Have to say it's not the smartest of moves among blogger girls who, surprisingly enough, are no fans of groping, yet love to trash people in public.
Today the Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet brings an interview with Didrik Solli-Tangen, stating no one came to the party he decided to host in his own hotel room straight after the final. Apparently Didrik went around at the official party at Plaza asking people to join him in his hotel room, but none of the participants from the other delegations came. Poor little thing. We would like to give him a little piece of advice in case he would ever be in this position again:
If you don't go to anyone else's party, they won't be in yours
If you are the host at the grand party, you don't go around asking the guests to move to your private gathering somewhere else.
If you behave like an ass, not talking to anyone, not recognizing anyone, not liking anyone when you're supposed to be the host, chances are they won't come to your party.
If you party and work for a long time, you will be exhausted. The rest of the delegations actually did work, you see, AND they showed up at the previous parties because it was a part of their representational work. Kinda like the host nation should be doing.
Representing your country is about being present where you are supposed to be present. That is not in someone's hotel room, but in the official parties.
If you explain the lack of people in your hotel room with the winner not drinking, you are even more stupid than we think.
Telling the newspapers you are hungover and that your hotel room looks like a whore house is not cool, just pathetic.
If you need a mentor, we'll gladly recommend just about any other Eurovision participant this year. The are way ahead of you.
Eurovision is over now, Didrik. You did a lousy job, but at least you got a car out of your sugardaddies. Now stop whining and go back to school.
The Norwegian ESC delegation is being beaten around in national press these days for bad media strategy and for mixing up business with pleasure. We asked the most professional musicians we know how it's like being an artist in our country.
A1 happily accepted their new band member
Many people were surprised when they heard the big stars of A1 were moving to Norway. Well, we do know there is a certain woman inspiring a certain man, but what is the point of moving your careers out of the UK pop heaven and into our small territory of farmers and pop hobbits?
The slow burner nation
The hunky men of A1 ensure us moving to Norway was due to working with many Scandinavian producers, not just the lovely ladies we present them with. The Brits are not that happy with their decision, though. “We get a lot of fan mail from people in the UK every day asking us when we’re coming back. Many are angry and want us to come back home”, Ben Adams says. We do get that. In Norway we feel extremely lucky to have such huge stars walking among us. What perks do they get out of it?
“Norway is much more of a slow burner. While everything has to happen real fast when launching a record in UK, here you can take your time and do stuff before the new music is launched”, Mark Daniel Read tells us. Also Christian Ingebrigtsen thinks it's good for A1 to work from his home country. “Norway is such a strong territory and living here has really boosted our confidence. We have actually received more fan mail after moving here. People are so keen on hearing what's happening”, he says. “Yeah, we've gotten a lot of new fans, like all these children and their parents”, Ben adds, pointing towards the 1500 choir kids that were off to sing with them in the concert house in Oslo Sunday. Those were some pretty lucky kids, we'd say.
Ben Adams sang us his toilet song before starting the interview
Hitting the Norwegian Eurovision stage and loving it One of the things that have been going on, is A1 participating in the Norwegian MGP – the national finals for Eurovision. Wow, we thought when we heard. How did Norway manage that?
“We were invited by the committee to write a couple of songs, so we submitted a few”, Mark tells us. Lucky committee, we think to ourselves, as there are three great song writers sitting in front of us. But A1 feel like they were the lucky ones, as they have gained a lot from participating. “Actually, we didn't plan on participating ourselves”, Mark continues. “But now we are happy we did. It has been a great experience that has presented us with the opportunity to reach new fan bases traveling around the country. Even if we are an established band, we find it beneficial to participate”, he stresses.
In Good Evening Europe we can't help but wondering what happened when young car mechanic/opera student Didrik Solli-Tangen beat glorious A1 in the grand final. But to A1 it was perfect to be the runner up. “Yeah, of course we would have loved to represent Norway in ESC, but we had so many plans already, winning would have messed up our schedule and made it hard to change everything around”, Christian says.
Would never participate for UK But why not participate for UK? They seem to struggle to find someone who can perform a decent song over there. “No way, we would never participate in the UK”, Ben almost shouts. The boys seem to agree that while the UK finals for ESC are very cynical and low key, Norway has a much more healthy focus on the actual song contest with good contestants and high standards.
A1 don't even think their participation in MGP is well known over there on their British home turf, since they didn't do any press on it there, but of course the UK Eurovision fans know. Mark, Ben and Christian are moved by all the comments saying they should have won and esctoday.com awarding them with the “Best mid tempo song” prize.
Still, A1 don't think they will participate in the contest again as performers, but maybe they'll submit a few songs again. “Yeah, Eurovision is great for exposing your music”, Mark says. If you are an artist, get in line for performing A1's material, we'd say.
No need for private parties
In Good Evening Europe we thought A1's manager, Christian Dyresen, was really brave when telling our largest tabloid, VG, he believes there are too tight connections between the winners of MGP and our main emperor of MGP, Per Sundnes. Didrik has been attending Sundnes' private dinner parties, he got a vintage car from Per's husband and to some it seems Didrik was the internal favorite long before the final. What do A1 think about the importance of knowing the right people?
“It’s difficult to get away from the fact that everything in this world is based on human relations”, Christian Ingebrigtsen says. “Most people get jobs through people they know, for instance. But we think it’s important to not focus too much on this. It’s the people at home who does the voting, and we just approached the finals from the outside”.
No need for Didrik to be all dogfaced, though. His buddies in A1 think he is a great artist and believe he could do really well. A1 will in fact host their own private ESC party next Saturday together with one of the other MGP finalists this year, Bjørn Johan Muri. And they will all be cheering for Norway, not UK. “Nope. How could we be proud of UK when they present such crappy songs?” Ben says. His glamorous girlfriend Sara Skjoldnes adds she has done a lot of dancing and singing with Didrik while growing up in the same town. She gives him the best of recommendations stating he’s a very nice fellow. Well done charming the stars, Didrik!
A1 will launch their new record in October. In the meantime we can enjoy listening to their MGP contribution:
Today we have been to a reception with the Estonian embassy and the Estonian participants Malcolm Lincoln, followed by a Norwegian party at Ballroom. Here's a couple of hightlights:
Malcolm Lincoln had a small selection of people, among them us, over for a concert. How lucky were we to see glorious Robin Juhkental swing the microphone over his head and even another couple of hotties in the back there. We now love the Estonian song even more.
-I wanna be a fool, not cool, Robin said as this picture was taken. We thought it was a tremendous idea. Check out our interview tomorrow.
At the Norwegian party, Alexander Rybak did an amazing performance and swung his fiddle like only he could do it. Whatta man he is.
And here's another fantastic fiddler, Moa Meinich. Even though Alexander sings about loving her in his new single, he claims they are not a couple. But won't you look at that connection? We think Alexander should get around to this very sweet girl if he hasn't already. Because we love you Moa.
Not bad connection here either, as buddies Alexander Rybak and Didrik Solli-Tangen dreams away the Everly brothers way.
Didrik did the final version of My hard is yours - with choir for the first time. It did wonders to the song, and we are starting to believe Norway might have a good chance in the final.
And yay, there's Michael von der Heide, the Swiss Sweetheart! He told us that Switzerland might consider withdrawing from ESC if the country fails to qualify for the final again. Now we can't have that happening, can we. We will cast a vote for the Golden Boy next Thursday!
Posing effortlessly with our buddies from Eurovisionnorway.com. Lookin pretty fly with their glasses on!
Twinkle, twinkle little star. How we wonder WHERE you are.
Here we are giving you some of the hottest men of Eurovision. They are sexy, shiny, twinkly, funny and just so damn nice. But why won't we give you Didrik, you might ask. Well certainly because Alexander Stenerud is a better Norwegian option. But also because, honestly, we don't know where Didrik is. And neither does the majority of the Norwegian press.
What goes around, wins around. That's the sentence of truth for most artists, and perhaps even more so for Eurovision participants. Most of them travel around Europe for months before the finals presenting themselves and getting to know their thereby rapidly growing group of fans. All the while Didrik stays at home mending his cars, talking to the local newspaper of 200 readers and being grumpy on his own blog. He's just mad at journalists for being interested and trash-talking his buddy, last years winner Alexander Rybak, to anyone who cares to listen. And his management is busy telling people Didrik is too busy to talk to them before the finals. The only thing our Eurovision star is doing in the media, it seems, is trying to pick up the Swedish contestant. 1-0 to Sweden and a lot of embarrassment to Didrik there.
So no Didrik for us and no Didrik for you. He had such a good starting point as Europe was getting acquainted with the charming young boys of Norway. He certainly represents both the looks and the fit bodies we love. Paired up with his confident flirtations with the camera what could have gone wrong? His hard was ours, for crying out loud. Yes, all the wet panties of Europe could have voted for Didrik's shiny eyes, but as he disappeared into the inner woods of Telemark, the fans probably turned to Harel Skaat instead. We do not blame them for a second. Because so do we. Watch out next week.
Our hard verdict:
This is so soft we can't even see it. A little twinkling of the eye to the big camera doesn't help much when Israel is on in every channel. Plus if Didrik actually have time to show up for the finals. Minus for just about everything else, including the lame website of typos someone decided to throw in our face a month before the final and Didrik's grumpy attitude. Shame on you, Didrik. You are not our winner after all. But hey, best of luck.
There is really nothing more to say about this sad, little fellow.
Astrid and Guri have shared their passion for Eurovision for years. They both grew up in the beautiful middle of nowhere, and as kids, the annual Eurovision final was their only share of glamour. Life has later become somewhat more glamorous, but still nothing can beat the extravaganza of the Eurovision grand final.
Eurovision moments are, as this years slogan is telling us, meant to be shared. With this blog we give you our thoughts on the songs, the artists, the show, the costumes, the drama and everything else which makes this contest so absolutely wonderful!
Yesterday we watched the Norwegian Sports Gala 2010 where all the glorious sports heros from the Land of the Vikings and the Midnight Sun got their fair share of well deserved honor. Plenty of Olympic gold medalists and even a road cycling World Champion, the God of Thunder Thor Hushovd! And let's just be crystal clear, pre-written jokes awkwardly performed by dolled up athletes pulled out of their natural habitat makes up for plenty of embarrassing hide behind the pillow moments. We made new nominations for the Barbara Dex Award like every other minute. 
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