2023-05-13 23:35:11
With its seventh ESC victory, Sweden is now the successor to last year’s winner Ukraine, which was unable to host the world’s largest music show in its own country due to the Russian war of aggression, which is why Great Britain stepped in as host. With a clear victory in the national juries, Loreen just relegated Käärijä from Finland to second place, which clearly won the audience rating. While Sweden received 583 points, Finland ended up with 526. Israel’s Noa Kirel follows at a distance in 3rd place.
Austria’s duo Teya & Salena, which started with the number “Who the Hell is Edgar?” Starting place 1 did not end up in the top ten previously forecast by the betting shops, but only in midfield with place 15. The two artists particularly convinced the juries, as the Austrians were able to score 104 points here, which they then only shared 16 joined by the audience.
This is the end of a song contest week in which Liverpool presented themselves as the best ESC hosts in recent years. The city, which markets itself as the “City of Music” thanks to the history of the Beatles, embraced the song contest like perhaps no host metropolis before it. An estimated half of all bars and shops in the city center were clad in Eurovision emblems or Ukraine colors. In addition, EU flags not only dominated the cityscape, but also a good part of the audience in the M&S Arena. This year’s ESC motto “United by Music” was not only understood as a sign for Ukraine, but also as a vote against Brexit. After all, the port city of Liverpool voted 58 percent against leaving the EU in the Brexit referendum.
Liverpool weren’t stingy on stage either, presenting Queen legend Roger Taylor as the percussionist for the new song “Mountain” by last year’s runner-up Sam Ryder. On the other hand, Liverpool also took a step back and incorporated numerous Ukrainian elements into the show week in order to give the stage to last year’s winner.
The various regions of the country were shown in the clips before the individual contributions, and eleven artists from the country attacked by Russia performed in the course of the evening – including the Kalush Orchestra with a new interpretation of its winning song “Stefania”. Not only musical legend Andrew Lloyd Webber, but also Great Britain’s Princess Kate at the piano could be seen in small additions.
And after the end of the official performances, the hall provided a goosebump moment when the audience joined in when the Dutchman Duncan Laurence sang the classic “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, best known as the FC Liverpool anthem, which was also the case that evening was understood as a gesture to Ukraine. Russia, on the other hand, was excluded from the ESC because of its war of aggression. However, a video message from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi banned the EBU as organizer, citing the non-political nature of the show.
(S E R V I C E – www.eurovision.tv)
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