Belarusian national final Eurofest took place on Friday night, but something strange happened with song number 14 in the running order” It was a completely different song and band to the one announced by BTRC, and on the BTRC website, and in fact as introduced on the show!
Song 14 was due to be I Don't Know by Natalia Lapteva& XXXLight, or as credited in some places, VFSix, or as originally announced, the song Tears… even before this part of the scandal happened there was a big mess over this song! The band were introduced as XXXLight, with the biography and pictures from the BTRC site announced over their introductary postcard. However, what happened next is something which has never been known to happen at a Eurovision national final before…
3 girls appeared on stage, bearing no resemblance to the people on the pictures that we'd just seen, and sang a completely different song to I Don't Know, the mp3 as given on BTRC's site or confirmed in the 'running order' press release published earlier that day.
The group ended only 11th in the televoting, and weren't selected by the jury to proceed, so they are out of the running for Helsinki. But, the mystery remains as to who these girls were, and what the song they sang was! You can see the mystery group along with the opening intro clip of the act that was supposed to appear by clicking the play icon below.
The Belarusian jury will now choose between Dmitry Koldun, The Project and Diana Gurtskaya for Helsinki, with announcement due for January 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWT4aRPCtFw
