An Xtra Happy Birthday; March 16th

Since we had so much fun with the five birthdays we celebrated yesterday, we decided to do it again! Therefore we’re gonna give you another five Eurovision birthday stars to celebrate today! One is a winner, one finished dead last and one has become the biggest star in his home country. We give you Páll Óskar!

Bettina Sorriat, 51

Bettina represented Austria at the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. She performed the song “One Step”, which despite the English title is mainly sung in German. Bettina finished in 21st place out of 25 perticipating countries. This was not however her first time on the Eurovision stage. In 1996 she was one of George Nussbaumer’s backing singers.

Páll Óskar, 48

Páll Óskar, internationally known as Paul Oscar, represented Iceland at the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. He performed the song “Minn hinsti dans”, finishing in a rather disappointing 20th place. A lot of people have speculated that if he had taken part later, or that all the countries had used televoting, he would have done much better. Possibly even won. What is for sure, however, is that almost all of the points he did receive came from televoting countries.

Awa, 39

Awa represented Finland at the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest in Athens. She did so as part of the heavy metal band Lordi, winning the contest with their song “Hard Rock Hallelujah”.

Linda Lepomme, 63

Linda represented Belgium at the 1985 Eurovision Song Contest. She performed the song “Laat me nu gaan”. She finished dead last of the 19 participating countries, reveiving a mere seven points.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vh1NzRdAqQ

Sandhja, 27

Sandhja represented Finland at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm. Along with her very bright and happy dancers and backing singers, she performed the song “Sing It Away” from starting position 1 in the first semi-final. She did not however finish first. In the end, she only managed to reach 15th place out of 18 semi-finalists, thereby failing to qualify for the grand final.

All of us here at escXtra want to wish all of today’s birthday girls and the birthday boy the very happiest of celebrations!