Fun!

An Xtra Happy Birthday; May 17th!

After celebrating three Eurovision birthdays yesterday, we return with a staggering seven (yes, SEVEN!!) today. The oldest was born all the way back in 1933, while the youngest was born only 27 years ago. One of today’s birthday boys is very popular among Eurovision fans; we give you Ott Lepland! 

Thérèse Steinmetz, 85

Thérèse represented the Netherlands at the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. She won the Dutch pre-selection with “Ring-dinge-ding”, after having performed all six entries in the contest. At Eurovision, however, she wasn’t as successful, only finishing 14th out of the 17 entries.

Angelica Agurbash, 48

Angelica represented Belarus at the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv. She won the national pre-selection with the song “Boys and Girls“. However, after the song’s poor reception by fans all over Europe, the broadcaster decided to replace the song. They ordered two songs, from the composers of “Diva” (Israel 1998) and “Die For You” (Greece 2001) respectively. Angelica chose the Greek up-tempo track “Love Me Tonight”, entering the contest as one of the favorites. She did however only finish 13th in the semi-final, thus failing to even qualify for the final.

Laura Voutilainen, 43

Laura represented Finland at the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest in Tallinn. She performed the disco track “Addicted To You”. Despite being among the pre-contest favorites, she only finished in 20th place out of 24 entries. Five years later Laura attempted a return to Eurovision. She participated in the national pre-selection in 2007 with two songs, “Kosketa Mua” and “Take A Chance“. The latter made it to the final of Euroviisut 2007, where it finished fourth out of 12 finalists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eHKcBQwEeU

Erica Jennings, 38

Erica Jennings represented Lithuania at the 2001 Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen. She did so as part of the group SKAMP, performing the song “You Got Style”. They finished 13th out of 23 participating countries. Erica was supposed to participate in the 2018 national pre-celection in Lithuania with the song “The Truth“, but decided to withdraw from the contest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_C3bKR1X3A

Simon Mathew, 34

Simon represented Denmark at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade. He performed the song “All Night Long”, finishing third in the second semi-final. Because of this he sailed through to the grand final. On the Saturday night, however, things didn’t go quite as well, as he finished 15th in a field of 25 entries.

Ott Lepland, 31

Ott Lepland represented Estonia at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku. He performed the beautiful ballad “Kuula” in the second semi-final. In the semi he finished fourth, thus qualifying for Saturday’s grand final. There he ended in 6th place, which is at least four positions too far down on the list (yes, personal opinion again…sorry, not sorry 😉 ).

Moran Mazor, 27

Moran represented Israel at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö. Being a big pre-contest fan favorite, she performed the song “Rak Bishvilo” in the second semi-final. She did however fail to qualify for the final, as she only finished 14th in the semi.

All of us here at escXtra wish all seven of today’s Eurovision birthday stars the very happiest of celebrations! 
 
 
 

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