The first Eurovision Night took place in the Go Planet Entertainment center in Enchede, Netherlands on Saturday 27 november. The night was strongly supported by several Dutch Eurovision Song Contest performers from recent years and two-time winner, Johnny Logan. Esctoday.com was there to cover the event! Read Rene Romkes' review of the event and watch the video highlights below.
After a warm-up session by a dj, the public was treated to the performance of Maribelle who represented The Netherlands at the 1984 contest with the song Ik hou van jou. She performed her Eurovision-evergreen twice and it was well received by the fans.
After a short break, Daniel Dekker, a well known Dutch radio dj and host of the night, introduced the Dutch participant of 1998, Edsilia Rombley. She gave a stunning performance, and of course she also sang Hemel en aarde, the song that reached the 4th position back in 1998. She also made clear that she wouldn’t ever take part at The Eurovision Song Contest again."Eurovision isn’t the same anymore. I’m still extremely proud of my fourth position. I don’t think I could do it any better these days. She also performed her latest single Dan ben ik van jou from her forthcoming Dutch album.
After that, it seemed a difficult job for the Eurostars to exceed Edsilia’s energetic performance. The Eurostars is a group of former Dutch representatives who have performed together since 2005 and was founded by Franklin Brown. The group is made up of Mandy Huydts – member of Frizzle sizzle, (Alles heeft ritme, 1986), Maxine & Franklin Brown (De eerste keer, 1996), Marlayne, (One good reason, 1999) and Esther Hart (One more night, 2003). Unfortunately, Mandy Huydts couldn’t make it last Friday, she was replaced by Linda Wagenmakers (No goodbyes, 2000).
The Eurostars blew the audience away, and their performance became a big ‘sing along’-party. Of course, all Eurovision Song Contest entries mentioned above were performed. In addition, they sang some other well known Eurocvision songs like Waterloo, Take me to your heaven, Congratulations and Nel blu dipinto di blu.
Special guest of the evening was Mr. Eurovision, Johnny Logan. He performedthe up tempo versions of his 1980 and 1987 winning songs What’s another year and Hold me now. Next to that, he also sang the winning 1992 song he wrote for Linda Martin, Why me. The reprise included an acoustic version of Hold me now.
The event was a huge succes and the organisers announced there will be another Eurovision party within a couple of months. We’ll keep you informed!
Thanks to our partner website, 12points.be, you can see the highlights of the night by clicking the 'play' icon below:
