Engelbert Humperdinck, the veteran singer who represented UK at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest has been touring Belgium for several concerts in the past week.He has also given comments for several Belgian media outlets about his experiences at the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku.

Belgium was the cradle of Humperdincks success. The music career of Engelbert Humperdinck started in 1966, in Knokke (Belgium) after he won a song contest. Only one year later Engelbert became a famous singer after he released his successful single Release me.

Last week, the 76 years old singer gave several concerts in Belgium. During his stay in the country Engelbert enjoyed much attention from the national and local media.

He appeared at the Flemish broadcaster Canvas at the show ‘Reyers Laat’, where he talked about his career and his love for Belgium. He also talked about his Eurovision experience. The singer who represented UK at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Love will set you free, has his own theory about his bad results at Eurovision:  ‘The way how televoting system worked, is the main problem. The public at home had only 15 minutes time to vote for the songs. Around 125 million people watched the show and they all could vote for the songs. How can you have results in such a short time? There is no computer in the world that can do that.’

‘Eurovision  Song Contest should be a ‘song contest’, I mean Russian ladies who were baking bread on stage‘, stated Humperdinck on ATV, the regional TV of Antwerp.

I was very honoured to represent my country but I was uninformed about the Eurovision Song Contest. I had no idea it was a political show. I had to compete against the Russian ladies who sung out of tune and never had scored a hit, said the experienced singer for the local newspaper GvA. Engelbert also appeared at the show ‘Voor de show’ on VTM

Humperdinck promised his fans in Belgium that he will come back to sing again for them. He also revealed some information about his future plans. Next year he is going to release a new album with duet songs. One of the duets will be with the singer Elton John.

Engelbert Humperdinck represented the United Kingdom  at 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan with the song Love will set you free. Engelbert came in 25th place out of 26 finalists.

Some TV interviews on Belgian TV (mostly in Dutch)

source: Canvas, ATV,GvA
picture: Bert Hulselmans (GvA)