Eurovision looks to unite Europe

This was no contest.

Shut down by the coronavirus crisis, Europe’s annual musical spectacular that pits countries against one another instead sought to unite them yesterday.

The Eurovision Song Contest whose final was scheduled for yesterday was cancelled amid restrictions aimed at reining in the global pandemic.

So rather than judging songs from 41 artists from Albania to the United Kingdom and having countries allocate points to elect a winner, organisers created a two-hour show called Eurovision: Europe Shine A Light.

Underscoring the effects of the coronavirus, the show opened with a montage of videos of the deserted streets of European cities before cutting to an almost empty studio in the Netherlands.

It was a stark contrast to the frenetic scenes of flag-waving, screaming fans that form the backdrop for normal Eurovision finales.

Part of the Ahoy convention center in the port city of Rotterdam that was to have hosted the contest was transformed earlier this year into a makeshift care centre to ease strain on regular hospitals treating Covid-19 patients. At the end of the show, it was announced that Ahoy and Rotterdam will host the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest.

Yesterday’s show featured appearances by past favourites as well as the artists that were to have taken part in this year’s competition jointly performing 1997’s winning song, Love Shine a Light.

From humble beginnings in 1956, the contest has become a vector of camp and kitsch with almost 200 million viewers tuning in for the finale.

Johnny Logan of Ireland, who won twice as a singer and once as a writer, opened the show with a performance of his 1980 winning song, What’s Another Year, accompanied by Eurovision fans on screens like a Zoom meeting and the three Dutch presenters of the show. Organisers called it “a huge Eurovision choir.”

Snippets of the 41 songs that were to have taken part in this year’s contest were played throughout the show with recorded messages from the performers.