An Xtra Happy Birthday; Week 6! (February 4th-10th)

Last week we had 24 Eurovision performers that celebrated their birthday last week, including three Eurovision winners. However this week we celebrate one more. That is 25 Eurovision Stars. One of them is Véronique Müller. February 4th Today the greetings go to a guy from Portugal. Who made two attempts for Eurovision, one of them that succeed and gave him 7th place. Jose Cid, 76 Portugal selected Cid to be their representative in 1980. Therefore he performed his song “Un grande, grande amor” on the stage in Hague, Netherlands. There he got 71 point, that is he reached 7th place out of 19 countries. Like mention before, Jose also took part in Festival da Canção in 1974. Then he sang with a group called Green Windows with the song “Imagens“. https://youtu.be/i2PzdZ61HD4 February 5th Today there are four Eurovision ladies that have a birthday. One of them is a winner... of the Barbara Dex Awards. Agnetha Munther, 73 As part of the group Family Four, Agnetha took part on behalf of Sweden in 1971 with the song “Vita Vidder”. The band also participated the following year with the song “Härliga Sommardag“. Both songs did rather well, as the first placed 6th and the second finished in 13th place. https://youtu.be/Mq10KQ77dnY Alexia Vassiliou, 55 Alexia represented Cyprus both at the 1981 and the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest. Her first time was also the country’s first participation. This year she competed as part of the group Island. They performed the song “Monika“, finishing in a very respectable 6th place. In her second participation however, which was in 1987, she performed on her own. For the second time she gave Cyprus a top 10 result, this time with the song “Aspro Mavro”. https://youtu.be/MoVBmWY_Ia4?t=53 Trijntje Oosterhuis, 46 Trijntje represented the Netherlands at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. She performed the song “Walk Along” in the first semi-final. There she finished 14th, thus failing to qualify for the grand final. She did however take home a victory, as she won the Barbara Dex Award https://youtu.be/O_fs4SPGyF0 Kejsi Tola, 27 Kejsi Tola represented Albania at the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow. She performed the song “Carry Me In Your Dreams” in the second semi-final, finishing in 7th place. Due to this result, she qualified for the grand final. In the final she ended in 17th place. https://youtu.be/w6Ori4A4ATo February 6th Like yesterday we also have four Eurovision Stars that have a birthday. They all had rather good results, and one holds her country their highest placement at Eurovision. Claes af Geijerstam, 73 "You're Summer (You Never Tell Me No)" Geijerstam took part at Melodifestevalen in 1973 along with Göran Fristorp as the duo Malta. They won the section with song "Sommar'n som aldrig säger nej" and therfore earned the right to go to Luxembourg. The duo thought it would be better to have the song in English: "You're Summer (You Never Tell Me No)". Which placed 5th at the contest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpCgiswUrqQ Piret Järvis-Milder, 35 Piret as ts a part of the Estonian group Vanilla Ninja took part on Switzerland’s behalf in 2005. She is one of the singers as well as being gitarist and a song writer.But they also tried representing their home country in 2003 and 2008 but did not win the national selection. But as mentioned, there time was in Kiev with the song “Cool Vibes”. You cans say that the vibes worked and because the group made it to 8th place at the contest. For s time Piret was involved in Eesti Lau as a host. https://youtu.be/OJX8RWJg7y4 Sofia Nizharadze, 33 In 2010 GPB internally selected Sofia to represent Georgia at the Eurovision. Nizharadze song six different songs at the national final. Where the song “Shine” won the show. Therefore she performed that song in Oslo, Norway. She was third in her semi final, thus moving to the final. Where she got 106 point, which gave Georgia the 9th place. Which is Georgia highest placement at Eurovision since the they joined. https://youtu.be/y5yTMGxFiPw Justs Sirmais, 24 After winning Supernova in 2016, Justs got to go to Stockholm, Sweden. Where he performed the song “Heartbeat” which was written by Aminata, Latvia’s representative from the year before. Like Sofia, Justs advanced to the final, an where he got 132 points which gave him the 15th place out of 26 acts. https://youtu.be/o-2Lt7zzlBU February 7th Today we have two Eurovision Stars, quite a big difference in their age, that is 44 years apart. There is also big difference in their placement at the contest. Svante Thuresson, 82 Along with Lill Lingfors, Svante won Melodifestivalen in 1966 with the song," Nygammal vals". Therefore they performed their entry in Luxembourg, where they did really good. That is placed second at the contest. Svante tried Melodifestevalen again in 2007, then a duet with Anne-Lie Rydé, where they finished 3rd with the song "Första Gången". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3HRr9G9c_s Evdokia Kadi, 38 Cyprus selected Evodkia to be their representative at Eurovision in 2008. Therefore she went on stage in Belgrade, Serbia. Where she performed the song “Femme Fatale” at the second semi-final. Unfortunately for her, the entry placed 15th at the semi-final and did not advance to the final. https://youtu.be/sgXN54P_E9o February 8th On this day there are three Eurovision singers that have a birthday. Two birthday ladies and one birthday boy. Two of them have that in common that they both finished in 8th place at the final.null Claudette Pace, 51 Malta picked Claudette to be there representative at Eurovision in 2000. Therefore she performed at the stage in Stockholm, Sweden. The fun sounding song “Desire” did well, that is it got 73 points at the final. Which was good enough to reach the 8th place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BZzVxBlCx8 Lars Fredriksen, 47 Norway selected Lars in 1998 to go on their behalf to the Contest in Birmingham, UK. That is why he performed the love song “Alltid sommer” on the stage. Like Claudette Pace, Fredriksen did well at the stage and also landed the 8th place out of 25 acts. https://youtu.be/pfMXlzT9vTU Svala, 42 Svala won Söngvakeppnin with a big margin in 2017 and therefore represented Iceland in Kyiv, Ukraine. She entered with her own song “Paper”, which she performed at the first semi final. Despite Iceland having big hopes for Svala, the song did not reach the grand final. She has a entry for Söngvakeppnin this year as composer and a songwriter of the song, “Nú og hér/What Are You Waiting For?” sung by Þórdís. https://youtu.be/UPlm18-AlGg February 9th Today is a busy Eurovision Birthday, since there are seven artist that celebrate their birthday! They had different results, but the one with the two songs, Véronique Müller, had the best results out of these seven. Joe Grech, 84 Joe represented Malta at the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. This was their debut year, and Joe performed the song “Marija l-Maltija”. It wasn’t just the firs song to be performed in Maltese on the Eurovision stage, it was also the first time a song was performed in ant Semitic language. It did not achieve great success, however, as it finished dead last. https://youtu.be/JSbHt3hcmnY Gerard Lenorman, 74 Gerard Lenorman represented France at the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. He performed the song “Chanteur de charme”, finishing in tenth place. https://youtu.be/uy2FT0avgGo Véronique Müller, 71 Switzerland picked Véronique as their representative at Eurovision 1972. She performed the song "C'est la chanson de mon amour" in Edinburgh. Where she reached the 8th place. Véronique also participated at Eurovision in 1980 for Switzerland, then as a co-writer of the song "Cinéma". Which was performed by Paola and the song landed the 4th place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtP7dogfAUc Frederik Ndoci, 59 Frederik represented Albania at the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki. He performed the song “Hear My Plea”, in the most difficult semi-final in the history of the contest. Since only ten out of 28 competing countries would qualify for the grand final, Frederik’s 17th place wasn’t good enough. Due to this, he didn’t reach the final. https://youtu.be/rP2OECgTA5k Ledina Celo, 42 Ledina Celo represented Albania at the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv. She performed the song “Tomorrow I Go”. Due to their good result in the previous year, Ledina Celo was directly qualified for the final. In the grand final, she finished in 16th place. https://youtu.be/0W-vu5G5PEE Vukacin Brajic, 35 Vukacin represented Bosnia and Herzegovina at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo. He performed the song “Thunder and Lightning” in the first semi-final. There he finished 8th, thus qualifying for the grand final. On the Saturday night he finished in 17th place. https://youtu.be/IPBo9vaN9Vc Theofilos Pouzmpouris, 28 Theofilios represented Greece at the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen. He did so as part of the duo Freaky Fortune. In addition, they were joined on stage by rapper Riskykidd. In the second semi-final, they performed the song “Rise Up”. They finished in 7th place, thus qualifying for the grand final. There, they reached 20th place. https://youtu.be/c9y6A1uXLn8 February 10th Now we have four Eurovision Ladies. They appeared at Eurovision it all in different decade's, that is the 70s, 90s, 00s and 10s. Carita Holmstörm, 65 Finland selected Carita to go on their behalf to Eurovision in 1974. That is why she sang the song “Keep Me Warm” on the stage in Brighton, UK. Where she was one point away from finishing last. That is she had 4 points, but the last four songs bottom songs all had 3 points. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FzCy1n7-P0 Sandra Studer/Sandra Simó, 50 Switzerland picked Sandra to go on their behalf to Eurovision in 1991. Therefore she went with the italian song, "Canzone Per Te to", to Rome. The song did well, that is it finished in 5th place. She has then been connected with Eurovision both as a host for national finals and as provided commintary for the german speaking in Switzerland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOkdJSli5Gc Natasha St-Pier, 38 France selected the Canadian singer Natasha to be there representative at Eurovision in 2001. Thus she went on the stage in Copenhagen, Denmark with her power ballad “Je n’ai que mon âme”. St-Pier did really well and received 142 points, which means she placed 4th. https://youtu.be/ZpKIIGr2Q0Y Poli Genova, 32 Like mention at the beginning one the three birthday girls represented her country two time. Bulgaria chose Poli Genova go on their behalf in 2011 and again in 2017. Her first entry was “Na inat“, which she performed in Dusseldorf, Germany. Unfortunately for her the song did not managed to advance the final. https://youtu.be/NuenJb-vw9A Poli got a second chance at Eurovision in 2016, where she performed the song “If Love Was a Crime”. This entry did really well, not only did it reach the final but finished in the top 5. That is she got 307 points which gave her the 4th place. What a great comeback! https://youtu.be/PQqUTigWKHY We all here at ESCXTRA would like to wish them all a wonderful day and future success.

February 4th

Jose Cid, 76

Hlynur Sigurðsson

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