An Xtra Happy Birthday; Week 8 (February 18-24th)

Just like last week we have a week packed of Eurovision Birthdays.One of the birthday ladies, Inger Berggren, is turning 85 this week.And I might has well tell you there is one Eurovision winner this week. February 18th Today there are three Eurovision Artist that celebrate their birthday. And all their acts will be know for the performance on the stage. One of them had actually had a party crasher. Cezar, 39 Cezar represented Romania at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö. He did so with the song “It’s My Life”. Performing his song in the second semi-final, he made quite the impression on both juries and televoters. “It’s My Life” finished in a very respectable 5th place in his semi, thus qualifying for the grand final. On the Saturday night, however, he didn’t do quite as well, finishing in 13th place. Although the song in itself made quite the impression on people, there are many who more than anything remember the performance! https://youtu.be/VgHWFiavqjA Rebecca Kontus, 35 Rebecca represented Estonia at the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv. She did so as part of the group Suntribe. They performed the song “Let’s Get Loud” in the semi-final. Despite their colorful and happy performance, they only finished in 20th place out of 25 countries, thus failing to qualify for the grand final. https://youtu.be/mqvOUfdwQtw SuRie, 30 As the UK reprecentative, SuRie went straight to the final last year in Lisbon with her song "Storm". During her performance one of the audience climbed upon one of the stage bridges and came running to the center of it and interrupted her song. SuRie managed to keep the show going and finished it like a true professional that she is. Despite this, her song landed in 24th place out of 26 acts. https://youtu.be/n0ydtXG-tqY February 19th Today Birthday Stars might share the same date, but they did not bring the same genre of music to the show. That is rock music and pop performed by a boy band. Ola Salo, 42 Sweden selected Ola Salo and the band The Ark to go on their behalf to Helsinki, Finland. That is why they performed the glam rock song “The Worrying Kind”. Which received 51 points, and therefore landing in 18th place. https://youtu.be/lvKUpmyakAQ Ony (Antonio Martos Ortiz), 38 Spain chose the band D’Nash to go to Eurovision in 2007. Ony was one of the members of that band, the blond guy. There performed their song “I love You Mi Vida” all energetic in white outfits. The song did slightly worse then Ola Salo’s song, that is it was in 20th place out of 24 acts. They had a comeback at the Spanish national selection in 2016. https://youtu.be/ze5uXuSSqgg February 20th Today we send our greeting to one Eurovision birthday girl. She came very close to winning the show as a part of a world famous duo. Julia Volkovass, 34 Volkovass was a part of a very successful Russian band called t.A.T.u. with Lena Katrina. The two of them where selected to perform at Eurovision in 2003 in Riga, Latvia. “Ne ver’, ne boysia” is the name of their entry, and reached the 3rd place, only three points lower then the winning act. https://youtu.be/uBEBGt8DTT4?t=35 February 21th Today there is one Eurovision birthday boy. He performed with his wonderful voice and a banjo in is hand. Does anyone know how many Eurovision songs have used banjo in their act? Kali, 60 In 1992 France selected Jean-Marc Monnerville or better known as Kali to be their representative at the Eurovision Song Contest. Therefore he went on stage in Malmö, Sweden. Where he performed his song soothing song “Monté la riviè “. The song stood out from the others and was partly performed in Antillean Creole and French. First time at Eurovision that a French act was not completely in French. He finished in 8th place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTeI98arY2I February 22nd There are seven Eurovision performers that share this day. The oldest of them is one of the four winning acts of 1969. Lenny Kuhr, 69 Only once in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest have we witnessed more than one song being crowned the winner. This happened in 1969, when no less than FOUR songs shared first place. One of the winners was Lenny Kuhr. She represented the Netherlands with her own song “De Troubadour”. https://youtu.be/7NDkJsPdLN8 Alf Poier, 50 Alf Poier represented Austria at the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest in Riga. He performed the song “Weil der Mensch zählt”, finishing in a somewhat surprising sixth place. He used his song and performance as a way of making fun of Eurovision, thus very likely securing votes from tv viewers with a critical attitude towards the contest. https://youtu.be/nZJt6Gv4XPk Sebastien Tellier, 44 Tellier represented France at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade. Sebastien, who is very popular and respected on the European electronica scene, drove onto the stage in a golf cart. His performance included him inhaling helium from a globe beach ball. Unfortunately his backing singers started out all wrong, thus the performance turned out quite the mess. He received only 47 points for his masterpiece, “Divine”, thereby finishing in a very disappointing 19th place. https://youtu.be/CZQjBCvFd9E Jenny Frost, 41 Jenny Frost represented the United Kingdom at the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest. She did so as part of the girl group Precious. They performed the song “Say It Again”, finishing in 12th place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_DdRvoViLo Bobbie Singer, 38 Like Jenny Frost, Bobbie Singer participated in Eurovision in 1999 in Jerusalem. She was selected internally to represented Austria with the song “Reflection”. She finished two places ahead of her “birthday sister”; thus making it into top 10. https://youtu.be/usqO0lwX9_4 Cristina Caramarcu, 31 Cristina performed with the band "The Humans" in Lisbon on behalf of Romania. She also performed with army of mannequin's all over the stage. They performed the song "Goodbye" at the second semi final. Unfortunately their song did not advance to the final. Which is the first time Romania has failed to reach the final since the semis where introduced (not counting 2016). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGR4S3y7qcw Robin Stjernberg, 28 Robin represented Sweden at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest on homeground in Malmö. He performed the song “You”, finishing in a somewhat disappointing 14th place. Four years later he returned to the contest, this time as a songwriter. He co-wrote Robin Bengtsson’s “I Can’t Go On”. https://youtu.be/jBUJ0u7ZVaE February 23rd Today we have four Eurovision Birthdays Stars. The three ladies had more success then the birthday guy at Eurovision. Inger Berggren, 85 In 1962, Sweden selected Inger Berggren for Eurovision. She therefore performed "Sol och vår" in Luxembourg, where she finished in 7th place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP5G3bzqLsg Maxi, 69 In 1973, Ireland selected Maxi to represent them at Eurovision. Thus sang "Do I Dream" in Luxemborg, where she landed the 10th place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRkZdgOxjuk Lise Haavik, 57 Denmark selected Haavik and Hatting as the group Trax in 1986 to go on their behalf to Eurovision. Therefore Lise performed "Du er fuld af løgn" in Bergen, Norway. The song did well, that is placed in 6th place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EzShFBsIvA Duilio, 46 ,Switzerland picked Duilio as their reprecentative for Eurovision in 1994. That is why he performed "Sto pregando" at the stage in Dublin. The song, unfortunately for Switzerland placed close to the bottom. Which means it lost the right to compete at Eurovision the following year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ert0NMleT9A February 24th Today we have five Eurovision Birthday people. That is two birthday girls and three birthday boys. Well one of them actually did not make it but we at ESCXTRA enjoyed meeting him at London Eurovision Party. So we decided so also include him . Monique Melsen, 68 Monique Melsen represented her homecountry Luxembourg at the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. She performed tha song “Pomme, pomme, pomme”, which among many fans has become a classic! Monique finished in 13th place out of 18 participating countries. https://youtu.be/0dG17UpqzNw Caren Wood, 66 Caren represented the Netherlands at the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest in Zagreb. She did so as part of the duo Maywood, the other half of which was her sister Alice May. They performed the song “Ik wil alles met je delen”, finishing in 15th place. https://youtu.be/WrRS-9I6uhE?t=1 Plastic Bertrand, 65 Plastic Bertrand represented Luxembourg at the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest in Brussels. He performed the song “Amour Amour”. He did however only finish in 21st place, beating only Turkey https://youtu.be/LBZ5aJvY_8A?t=95 Stig Rästa, 39 Stig Rästa represented Estonia at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. He performed this own song “Goodbye to Yesterday” alongside Elina Born. They finished in a fantastic third place in their semi-final, thus qualifying for the grand final. There they finished in a very respectable seventh place. Stig is a real Eurovision fan, having tried his luck in the Estonian pre-selections several times before finally going on to winning the ticket to Vienna. In 2016 he was one of the songwriters behind Jüri Pootsmann’s “Play”, and he is also returning to Eesti Laul again in 2018, trying his luck again with “Home“. https://youtu.be/Xsx_dIJOtgI Ovidiu Anton, 36 Ovidiu was selected as the representative for Romania in 2016 with the rock song "Moment of Silence". However he did not make it to Sweden. Because Romania was forced to to redraw from the contest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpfCufKRrcA We all here are ESCXTRA would like to wish them all great happy birthday and our readers that share their day!

February 20th

Julia Volkovass, 34

Hlynur Sigurðsson

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