“Selecţia Naţională-Drumul spre Eurovision” was the national competition organized by Romanian Television (TVR), to select the country's entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki. The winner of the selection was the group formerly known as Locomondo (referred to as Locomondo in the article until the new name is announced later today) and their multilingual song “Luibi, liubi, I love you“.
Locomondo, appeared on TVR, the Romanian national television, on Dan Bitman's show "Danutz srl" and they revealed everything about their participation to this year's Eurovision Song Contest. They started the show by singing Liubi liubi I love you and afterwards, Dan Bitman, the host of the show, asked them questions about everything and especially about their name change.
They said that they talked with the Greek band Locomondo who wished them good luck with the contest and kindly asked them to change their name. The matter was publicized through Esctoday.com and more than 300 name suggestions were offered by our readers. As Locomondo told Dan Bitman's show it is higly possible that one of these names will be chosen and with this name they will participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. The band also said that they already have lots of invitations to appear on several shows throughout Europe, including Spain, Ukraine and Greece.
After winning a most controversial national final, Locomondo became the most important issue all over Romania. Everybody is talking about them. "Love them or hate them, you can't do otherwise" declared Dan Manoliu, the Romanian Coordinator for Eurovision.
Last year though an entirely kind of group, the Finnish heavy metal band Lordi won the Eurovision Song Contest to Athens with a song that taled about demons. "This year people will prefer love." declared Andrei Stefanescu, member of Locomondo. "We all sing about love and when we tried to make our lyrics tougher we failed. Each one of us has his own kind of madness but we are very sensible guys." added Andrei.
"The melody of our song Liubi liubi I love you is sufficiently simple and very easy to remember from the first hearing, and this is very important for the Eurovision Song Contest" explained Vlad, the second member of Locomondo.
"On stage we are very natural and simple like someone walking in the street" said Ciro. "The song is very different and we hope this difference to bring Romania to the place she always wanted to be for so many years. We have to risk. It's all or nothing. Love it or hate it. You give it a try or you touch the bottom. We are like the "Titanic", but we haven't found the iceberg yet." declared Kamara.
Locomondo won the national selection for Eurovision song contest after a lot of coincidences considered by them to be divine signs. They entered the competition after Andreei Balan withdrew. Afterwards, the two songs, Dracula my love and Well-o-wee which were considered favorites, were disqualified from the final.
They compare themselves with Denmark's national football teamin 1992. Originally, Yugoslavia qualified for the final stage, but due to the Yugoslav war, the team was disqualified and their qualifying group's runner-up Denmark took part in the championship and won the championship.
Romania has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest eight times, but they have never won so far. Debuting in the 1994 contest their best result came in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005, when Luminiţa Anghel and Sistem ranked third in the final.
TVR confirmed to esctoday.com that the final decision about the new name will be taken today. So stay tuned for the latest information.
A very special thanks to Aris Kalimeris for the submission of the article.
