�Big Three� host unplugged Party

by Benny Royston 320 views

Last night, one of the biggest parties of the Eurovision Song Contest week took place in the nightclub of EuroClub. The delegations of the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Monaco joined together to put on a huge show. Last year, they hosted an �unplugged� night without backing tracks to show off the vocal talents at the Contest. At this years event, dubbed �Unplugged 2� by French commentator Bruno Berberes, no less than twenty of this year�s artists came to perform. Pictures and video reports will be available on the home page.

With a free bar from the start and canapés being passed around, everyone was well fed and rather merry by the time Paddy O’Connell, BBC3 presenter for the semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest, came on stage to start the stage show. First up on stage was Monaco’s Lise Darly to open the performance with her Eurovision entry Tout de moi. She was followed by birthday girl Shiri Maimon of Israel who performed Time to say goodbye to a thunderous ovation from the crowd with many Israeli tourists in attendance. Next up was one of the party’s hosts, the Spanish performers Son de sol, to sing Brujeria. Again, this lifted the crowd who were clearly determined to dance the night away and enjoy the Eurovision feast being laid on for them. Following the three beauties from Spain, another host, Javine came on stage to perform Touch my fire. It was the United Kingdom fans’ turn to lead the cheers and get behind their representative in Kyiv. Performing with John Themis, composer and guitarist, she granted the crowd the encore they were chanting for with her take on the anthem Natural woman. Following Javine, came FYR Macedonia’s Martin Vucic singing Make my day and then Switzerland’s Vanilla Ninja arrived to sing Cool vibes for the crowd. In fact it was more like Vanilla Ninja listening to the crowd sing for them. Chiara from Malta followed to sing Angel with no accompaniment, she then performed The one that I love, her third placed song from 1998. The remaining hostess to perform came to the stage next. Ortal gave a multilingual hello and thank you before performing a short acoustic set of Lady marmalade and moving into Chancun pense a soi. She made way for Turkey’s Gulseren to perform Rimi rimi ley with her backing group on the drums. Suntribe from Estonia then performed an accapella version of Let’s get loud. One of the highlights of the evening was Austria’s Global.Kryner. They once again took a great song and came up with a great Austrian folk version, this time performing Wild dances and Black Eyed Peas’ Shut up. They were followed by three time Eurovision Song Contest veteran Constantinos Christoforou of Cyprus singing Ela, Ela!. Feminnem from Bosnia and Herzegovina were next, performing Lady Marmalade before launching into an accapella harmony of Call me in Spanish and English. Martin Stenmarck of Sweden followed, performing a soul version of Las Vegas. He was joined on stage by Ireland’s Joseph McCaul to perform a duet of Suspicious minds. Alexandros Panayi , the Cypriot entrant from 1995 came on stage to perform his entry Sti fotia . He was followed by Nuno Resende of Belgium who then performed briefly before Marian van der Val of Andorra came on stage to perform La Mirada interior and announced that finally she could see men screaming for her. Then another performer from the 1995 Eurovision Song Contest, Anabel Conde of Spain performed the song that took her to 2nd place, Vuelve conmigo. Finally, Ortal and Son de sol came back to the stage to thank everyone for making the night such a huge success. Son de sol gave another rendition of Buljeria, and Ortal joined in with Chancun pense a soi to create a great accapella mix. The evening was a huge success, with partying going on until 4 o’clock in the morning. Many of the delegations had left by 2am, leaving the fans to enjoy the rest of the night with the DJ playing popular Eurovision Song Contest anthems of the past and some of this year's upbeat songs. Tonight, it is the turn of Greece to hold their official party.