An Xtra Happy Birthday; Week 5

This week there are plenty of reasons to celebrate. Because we have in total 24 Eurovision Birthday Artists. We have three Eurovision winners this week. Is one these song on your top all time songs? Here is a small heads up Dario Campeotto is turning 8o years old this week. January 28th Today there is one Hungarian Eurovision artist that has a birthday. He sang a emotional song at the contest which got great results. András Kállay-Saunders, 33 Hungary selected András in 2014 to go on their behalf to Copenhagen, Denmark. Therefore he performed the song “Running” at the second semi final where he placed 3rd. He also do quite well at the final, because he got 143 points which gave the song the 5th place. That is Hungary’s best placement since 1994, where Frederika Brayer scored 4th place. Kállay has since his Eurovision performance taken two times part A Dal, Hungarian national selection. That is in 2016 and 2017. https://youtu.be/T_RxJZ3N9kE January 29th Now we have two Eurovision Performers, and both of them have also written the song. The older one has taken part at Eurovision two times, the second time as a composer. Liam Reilly, 64 On his second attempt at the national selection in Ireland for Eurovision. Liam made it to Eurovision in 1990, with the song "Somewhere in Europe". His song did really well and reached joined second place at the contest. Reilly, took part the following year as a composer. He wrote "Could It Be That I'm In Love" which was performed by Kim Jackson. That song did well, that is shared 10th place. https://youtu.be/PMu-NKZKJXw Jon Gregory, 48 Cyprus picked Jon Lilygreen & The Islanders with big margin in 2010. But Jon is the producer of the their song, as well as being the drummer. That is the got full score from both the professional jury and the televoters. Therefore they sang there song “Life Looks Better In Spring” on stage in Oslo, Norway. The song made it from the semi final to the final. Unfortunately the song was 21st out of 25 countries. https://youtu.be/ZGNtoR2hom4 January 30th The greetings of the day goes to Netherlands. Dries Holten, 83 Netherlands selected the duet, Dries and Sandra Reemer in 1972 to go on their behalf to Eurovision. That is why they performed "Als het om de liefde gaat" at the stage in Edinburgh. Which did well, despite the scary green outfit, that is got 104 points and landed the 4th place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1M6DbTwj98 January 31st Today is a really busy birthday, six Eurovision Stars have a birthday and two of them are Eurovision winners! Dave Benton, 68 Dave represented Estonia at the 2001 Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen. He did so alongside Tanel Padar and the boy band 2XL. They won the contest with their summery, Cool and the Gang inspired “Everybody”. https://youtu.be/wri72BfnGh4 Benedikt Brynleifsson, 40 Benedikt represented Iceland at the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest in Dusseldorf. He did so as part of the group Sjonni’s Friends. Benedikt is the group’s drummer. They finished 4th in the first semi-final, thus sailing through to the grand final. There however, they didn’t do quite as well, finishing in 20th place. This was Benedikt’s third time on the Eurovision stage, as he played the drums both for Eirikur Hauksson in 2007 and for Euroband in 2008. https://youtu.be/apc_qJf3nws Helena Paparizou, 37 Helena Paparizou represented Greece at Eurovision both in 2001 and in 2005. The first time, in Copenhagen 2001, she was part of the duo Antique. They finishethird with their song “Die For You“. At the time, this was the best result Greece had ever achieved in the history of the contest. Helena herself was the one to change this, with her victory in 2005. In her return to the contest, on stage in Kyiv in 2005, she brought Greece the country’s first, and so far only, Eurovision win. Her song, “My Number One” turned out to be a lot of people’s number one, and she received a total of 10 12 points. https://youtu.be/ghQZojJWxKI Kalomira, 34 Like Helena Paparizou, Kalomira also represented Greece at Eurovision. She did so in Belgrade in 2008. And like Helena in her first attempt, Kalomira also finished 3rd. Her song “Secret Combination” was a huge favorite among the fans, but in the final it was defeated by Russia’s Dima Bilan and Ukraine’s Ani Lorak. https://youtu.be/4HIk_7ZTBkM ManuElla, 30 ManuElla represented Slovenia at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm. She competed in the second semi-final with her song “Blue and Red”. There she finished 14th, thus failing to qualify for the grand final. https://youtu.be/ulI3F1T82is Nina Sublatti, 24 Nina represented Georgia at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. She performed her song “Warrior” during the first semi-final. There she finished in fourth place, thus qualifying for the grand final. In the final she received 51 points, landing her in eleventh place. https://youtu.be/gWgDzQ0mWTg February 1st Today we have five reasons to celebrate! Dario Campeotto, 80 Dario represented Denmark in the 1961 Eurovision Song Contest in Cannes. He performed the song “Angelique”, finishing in a very respectable fifth place. His wonderful, though rather un-Danish name comes from the fact that his parents were originally Italian. https://youtu.be/OdhVPUcimAM Nico, 49 Nico represented Romania at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade. She did so as half of the duo Nico and Vlad. They performed the song “Pe-o margine de lume” in the first semi-final. They finished 7th, thus qualifying for the grand final. In the final they finished in 20th place. https://youtu.be/o_mvrGKbbqU Soetkin Collier (Urban Trad), 42 Soetkin represented Belgium at the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest in Riga. She did so as part of the group Urban Trad. They performed the song “Sanomi”, finishing second, thereby giving Belgium their best result since Sandra Kim’s victory in 1986. https://youtu.be/jFrO6QUl61k Sara Tavares, 41 Portugal selected Sara to go on their behalf to Eurovision in 1994. Therefore she performed her song "Chamar a Música". The beautiful song did really well, and thus reached the 8th place at the end of the show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwyHY0Ogz7g Hersi, 29 Hersi represented Albania at the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen. She performed the song “One Night’s Anger” during the first semi-final. There she finished 15th out of 16, thus failing to qualify for the grand final. https://youtu.be/Ahu_K_Jh2vc February 2nd Today we have three Eurovision Artist that celebrate their birthday. Including one winner! Dana International, 47 Dana International represented Israel at both the 1998 and 2011 Eurovision Song Contests. In Birmingham in 1998 she won the contest with the song “Diva”, just six points ahead of the UK entry “Where Are You?”. When she returned in 2011, however, she didn’t have the same success. In the second semi-final, she finished in 15th place out of 19, thus not qualifying for the final with her “Ding Dong“. https://youtu.be/Fv83u7-mNWQ Jessica Wahls, 42 Jessica represented Germany at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade. She did so as part of the girl group No Angels. They performed the song “Disappear”, finishing in a rather disappointing 23rd place out of 25. https://youtu.be/bCk419FVaj8 Nina Zilli, 39 Nina Zilli represented Italy at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku. She performed the amazingly cool “L’amore e femmina”. She finished in 9th place, thereby giving Italy it’s second top 10 result out of two possible since it’s return to the contest the year before. https://youtu.be/v0kGpDEvtbQ February 3rd And once again we have six Eurovision Birthdays! Willeke Alberti, 74 The Netherlands chose Willeke to be their representative at Eurovision in 1994. The song is called, "Waar is de zon?", and is more valid question for rainy countries, because it means, "Where is the sun". Unfortunately the song only caught the attention from the Austrian jury and therefore only getting 4 points. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHPYpEtUcoI Markku Aro, 69 Markku Aro represented Finland at the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. He did so alongside sisters Anja and Anneli Koivisto, calling themselves Koivistolaiset. Their performance of the song “Tie uuteen päivään” earned them 84 points, thus landing them in eighth place. Although Markku participated in the Finnish pre-selection six times between 1969 and 1981, he was only successful in 1971. https://youtu.be/V_11CcVeSH0 Marcel Palonder, 55 Marcel represented Slovakia at the 1996 Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo. This was the country’s second participation in the contest. Marcel performed the song “Kým nás máš”, finishing in 18th place out of 23 participating countries. To this day, this is Slovakia’s best result at Eurovision. Marcel tried to win the Slovak ticket to Eurovision again, in 2010. He did not succeed however, when his song, “What About You”, failed to reach the national final. https://youtu.be/CFP1-f7Yv-s Tijana, 43 Tijana represented Macedonia at the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen, performing “To the Sky” in the second semi-final. She finished 13th out of the 15 semi-finalists, thus not qualifying for the grand final. This was not Tijana’s first attempt at Eurovision. She tried to represent Serbia and Montenegro back in 2006. She was not however very successful, when her song, “Greh”, only reached 8th place in the national final. https://youtu.be/2BqLPMF8Xdc Sophie McDonnell, 43 Sophie McDonnell represented the United Kingdom at the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest. She did so as part of the girl group Precious. They performed their song, “Say It Again”, from starting position five on the night. Despite being among the pre-contest favorites, they finished in shared 12 place with Belgium. https://youtu.be/oWaBZXn7zQA We all here at ESCXTRA would like to wish them the best on their special day.

January 28th

András Kállay-Saunders, 33

Hlynur Sigurðsson

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