IN THE SPOTLIGHT
‘Eurovision that never was’ has fans pining for golden times
BRUSSELS » Over its many years, the Eurovision Song Contest has come to be a sign of the times. So it is perhaps fitting that, in coronavirus times, nothing will be happening today at the scheduled venue of the Ahoy Hall in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.
In 1974, it was ABBA that ushered in a new era for the once-staid and conservative song contest; in 2020, it is another acronym, COVID-19, and everyone hopes its reign will be brief.
Despite the cancellation of the contest that’s wildly popular in Europe and beyond, the evening of today’s finale will bring some respite for diehards, with a remote television show bringing to over 40 nations many of the artists who normally would have been vying for a career-changing victory.
“We’re, like, 41 people that are all in some kind of weird little club that didn’t, like — the Eurovision that never was,” said British entry James Newman.
Belgian Eurovision expert Peter Van de Veire feels particularly sorry for Iceland’s Dadi Freyr, and his quirky and danceable “Think About Things.”
“Iceland had a top song and it could well have won, had the contest gone ahead,” he said. “They might have had something of a global hit.”
The satisfaction now is all internet driven, and Freyr should still have lots of it.
“I never expected that it would be as much as it is,” he said. “Like, now on TikTok, there are, like, 44,000 videos using the song.”