Greek-Turkish Youth Orchestra to Perform in Rhodes and Marmaris in September

greek-turkish-youth-orchestra The Greek-Turkish Youth Orchestra (GTYO), composed of 50 talented young Greek and Turkish musicians aged ...

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China Philharmonic Orchestra performs under Acropolis of Athens

Thousands of Greeks and foreign visitors enjoyed a magnificent performance by the China Philharmonic Orchestra under the Acropolis hill in central Athens on Wednesday evening.

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Famous Folk Songwriter Kostas Virvos Passes Away

Kostas Virvos, a well-known Greek folk songwriter and lyricist passed away at the age of 89, after suffering from serious health problems and a severe stroke. Virvos was born in 1926 in Trikala, Thessaly. He graduated from Panteion University in Athens, Greece. In the early 1950s he started working as a folk music songwriter, and

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Greek music with some stunning twists

This summer is full of surprises. A range of your favourite Greek artists of different genres are awaiting for you this weekend with unique performances.

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Weekend in Istanbul: Greek music, a rock festival and a silent concert

Istanbul gets set to offer a wide range of events this weekend ranging from Greek music to a silent concert and a rock festival

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Concert in Honor of Mikis Theodorakis 90th Birthday

A concert in honor of Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis will take place on Wednesday on the occasion of his 90th birthday. The popular orchestra “Mikis Theodorakis” will participate: piano Yiannis Belonis, bouzouki Thanassis Vassilas and Yiannis Matsoukas, guitar Vangelis Kontaratos, cello Marilisa Papadouri, accordion Lefteris Grivas, bass Stavros Kavalieratos, drums Nikos Skomopoulos, percussion Stefanos Theodorakis-Papangelidis.

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Review: Culture Club delivers nostalgia-rich Greek show

"It's kind of cold," the vocalist remarked to the crowd assembled at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on a rather chilly Saturday evening. "But hopefully ...

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Manu Chao’s Message to the Greek People

Spanish singer Manu Chao performed in Greece at the Terra Vibe stage in Malakasa on July 21, in front of thousands of people who attended the concert, despite the difficulties that the country is facing at the moment. The famous singer performed at the Rockwave summer music festival, celebrating its 20-year anniversary. While on stage,

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Full Moon Concert in Delos on August 1

When the sun sets on Saturday, August 1, something magical will happen. A Full Moon Concert will begin at 9:00 pm on the largest archaeological site in Europe – the Greek island of Delos. Singer Fotini Darra will perform with composer Dimitris Papadimitriou, transporting the audience on a mythical musical journey created particularly for this unique

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HRF, Mikrokosmos Make Beautiful Music for Greece

Some 480 tickets were sold at $50 for An Anthology of Greek Song with Grigoris Maninakis and the Mikrokosmos Ensemble to help Greece. The post HRF, Mikrokosmos Make Beautiful Music for Greece appeared first on The National Herald.

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Tsipras urges 'no' vote, says 'no matter what' Greece in Europe

Large rally in front of Parliament ends and concert begins with song featuring lyrics with .."drachma"

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Taylor Swift may have triumphed, but Apple will still call the tune

The tech giant’s retreat over paying artists during trials of its music streaming service looked like a defeat. In fact, it may have cleared the way to successWith the launch of the Apple Music streaming service just two days away, the music industry has been indulging in cliffhanger negotiations worthy of Greece and its creditors.Few can have missed the recent public announcement by Taylor Swift, one of the biggest-selling artists on the planet, that she would not be allowing any of her music to be streamed on the service, because Apple was not planning to pay artists for songs streamed during the free three-month trial it would offer every user.Apple is too important for the labels to cut if off but won't get the same largesse from them as it does now Continue reading...

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European Music Day: More Than 500 Artists and Bands Performing Across Greece

This year, the European Music Day events will coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Charter of Budapest signing that created the European Network of the Music Day Organizers (EMD) but will also mark the 30th anniversary since the 1st European Capital of Culture that was established in Athens by the Greek Culture Minister at the time, Melina Mercouri, in 1985. Considering those very symbolic opportunities, the Greek delegation proposed the organization of a special European framework of activities and events for the celebration of the important anniversaries in Greece. June 21 will be a day filled with traditional and modern music, as well as emotion, which will remind people across the nation of Greece’s cultural wealth. More than 4,000 people, including operators, technicians, volunteers and artists will be participating in this year’s events that will take place in various parks, squares and pedestrian roads. During a period darkened by difficulties, tensions and uncertainty, the power of art and music will once again prevail in 33 Greek cities and 26 Municipalities with the participation of 15 municipal cultural organizations, 40 cultural institutions, 90 media sponsors of 170 co-organizers, 285 companies and production partners, 300 volunteers and about 450 bands or joint orchestras who will unite to send a strong message of unity, harmony and hope.

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Sufi Music For The Spotify Generation

Lahore-born, Brooklyn-based artist Arooj Aftab is redefining Sufi music for the modern world. Arooj Aftab is attracting attention, despite her best efforts. The New York-based artist -- “one of the biggest stars” of Pakistan’s underground scene, according to the country’s main newspaper, Dawn -- sings esoteric ballads that can’t be found on Spotify or iTunes. Like so many of her peers, Aftab takes issue with the balance of returns to artists offered by the listening world’s biggest platforms. Unlike many of those peers, however, she withholds her music to make her point, denying herself a wide breadth of listeners (not to mention music to listen to herself). Despite this handicap, Aftab’s self-released debut album, "Bird Under Water," is making noise. Critical acclaim has risen since the album’s launch this spring, from unlikely corners -- from the Swedish press to MTVIggy (the American network’s global music arm) to the Financial Times, where a fittingly economical four-star review praises Aftab’s deft handle on both Sufi and jazz traditions. On Bandcamp, the online music site whose direct-to-artist pay model convinced Aftab to host her album there, listeners seem pleased. “If we had to listen only to one album for one year in a row,” wrote one fan in the comment section, “this album would be it." Bird Under Water by arooj aftab Aftab’s music is tricky to access for reasons other than logistics. Sufism, generally thought of as a soft offshoot of Islam, has inspired poets and musicians since at least the founding of the Nizamuddin Auliya shrine in Delhi in the thirteenth century, where haunting notes of qawwalis still radiate during weekly concerts. Still, general knowledge is low, especially in the West. Sufism may be trendy in an ambient sort of way -- everyone loves a Rumi quote -- but 30-year-old Aftab finds her thrills in the woods of Sufi history, where the work of lesser known poets live. With the help of friends in Pakistan, she mines the bazaars of Lahore and Karachi for Sufi texts by which to understand the journey single lines of poetry have taken throughout the centuries, finding their way from the stage to hit radio, in the care of various poets, male and female. As the Financial Times squib implies, Aftab's training is in American traditions, having studied at the venerable Berklee College of Music in Boston. She calls her brand of fusion -- shot through with jazzy trumpets and imagistic Urdu lyrics -- neo-Sufi. Recently Aftab sat down with The Huffington Post to discuss the neo-Sufi life, in a Brooklyn bar full of (we’re guessing) casual Rumi lovers. As she unveiled the dense reality of Sufism, she also touched on Spotify wannabes in Pakistan, Islamophobia, and her unusual research tactics. How did you get into Sufi music in the first place? I always had a very solid sense for sound production. I went to Berklee with the intention to study that. I felt like it’s really important to have a skill in the industry to survive. That has proven to be 100 percent true. I’ve worked at MTV. I worked at Vice doing sound and video and a lot of music supervising. Everybody who works at Conde Nast [where Aftab currently works, in video production] has something else going on -- they’re a comedian, or they’re a writer... At the same time, because of [this specialization], I was missing music, and so I was listening to thumris. Just organically, not even thinking about what I was going to do to define myself as a musician. I was just feeling like I needed something to feel close to. You were homesick. You could say that. Just listening to thumris by [prominent Hindustani singer] Begum Akhtar, I got addicted. I’ve always been sort of like, "What’s going on when they start going maniacally like aah for five hours? What does that mean?" Somehow I was listening and it started to make sense to me. And then I had a phone conversation with my dad. He explained some elements of it to me really beautifully, so I really got it. Can you recall that conversation? He said a lot of that vocal stuff that they’re doing that doesn’t make sense -- that sounds like repetitive turkey wailing -- it’s about the give and take of notes between performer and listener. The change in volume, dynamic. It’s like, "This one is for you. This one is for me." Is that a formalized idea? There’s a specific moment where it happens in [any Sufi] piece. More toward the end. The beginning is where they establish the raag [a melodic scale], improvise over it for 30 minutes, move into the actual verses, repeat the verses, repeat the same line. Every time they repeat it, it’s a variation, and I really loved that. I found myself listening to this thing for so long and not getting bored, and realizing that [Akhtar's] still saying the same thing. She hasn’t moved onto the next point. Rare video footage shows the late Indian singer Begum Akhtar, popularly known as Mallika-e-Ghazal, or the Queen of Ghazals. I really related it to minimalists like [Erik] Satie. How do you use three notes and build an entire long thing? My classical Western studies were kind of meshing with me obsessively listening, not knowing anything about my own classical traditions, and cracking this code on my own. And really it is amazing. You have this skill and creativity that you can literally say one line 30 times and it sounds like a new line every time. Is the message typically about God? Not always. A lot of Sufi stuff is about distance and time and travel. The journey that you take as a singular self searching for love within yourself. In a lot of Sufi poetry that I’ve read the God part is very vague. Are those themes ever metaphors for religiosity, as in South Indian classical forms? It depends which Sufi area you’re looking at. The people around the Mughal Empire were kind of experimenting with the changing of the gender phrases and moving away from traditional Islam. How rogue did they go? People say Sufism is the open loving version of Islam, non-practicing almost. But then there is so much practice in traditional Sufi orders. Even the fact that it’s called Sufi orders. People ask me if I’m Sufi and which order, and I’m like, "That’s not the kind of Sufi I am." I was born Muslim but that’s the thing. Sufi is a state. It’s how you feel. My music is Sufi not because it’s saying something about God. It’s actually just because it’s very relaxed. If you’re stressed out, it makes you breathe better. It makes you introspective. That’s what Sufi-ness feels like to me. Are there other practitioners of neo-Sufi? I feel like I’ve been working on creating a new genre for the last four or five years and then I called it neo-Sufi. Thumri -- a North Indian style of singing -- differs from Sufi music primarily in content. Where Sufi poets trace back to Islam, thumri singers typically extol the love between the Hindu god Krishna and his consort Radha. What makes your work “neo-”? It kind of strips away a lot of the organized parts. Traditional Sufi music is repetitive, drone-based. There’s a lot of chanting involved. Mine is not traditional classical Sufi music but it definitely has those elements of trance and meditation and repetition. It has those open jazz influences too. It takes from a lot of different styles which is why to me it’s neo-. There’s thumri -- that’s not Sufi, that’s just a classical form. There’s ghazal; there’s like a reggae song that’s written with the lyrics of Rumi in English, for example. Sufism counters the notion of Islam that prevails in much of the Western world, yet the two traditions aren't linked in popular understanding. That’s not the narrative most of the media wants to hear. It’s always such a thing. "Oh my gosh, you’re from Pakistan. You ran away from that terrible place and now you’re here and you’re saved." It’s an extremely Muslim country and everything is all fucked up but there’s a lot of civil problems. Problems that haven’t had to do with terrorism until recently. But fundamentalism takes center stage in outside minds. I often find that people get really excited about this narrative with me. "Let’s talk about how she is part of this really unaccepting culture and found her way. Tell us how hard it is for you." Most of the media want to hear that story. The other story, about how it’s just like a regular person trying to figure out how to be a musician, is so much harder to get across. I was once asked how hard it was for me to get my parents to be down with me studying my music. I was sitting there, in my mind, realizing that everyone in my band -- from the German to the Canadian to the Greek person and American from Maine -- all have these stories about parents flipping out and worrying about their future. But no one would ask them a question like that. Can you talk a bit about how you find inspiration for your work? I look at books, historical books from old bazaars. I have friends in Pakistan who I ask them to keep an eye out for anything to do with the Mughal Empire. Music in the fifties, a lot of it ends up being in Urdu. I basically have minions [laughs]. Friends who are journalists or academics, who go to libraries in Pakistan. It’s hard though. Everybody’s on a schedule. They haven’t fully understood what it is I’m doing and I don’t even know until I can physically read the work. Aftab's writes original work rooted philosophically in the centuries-old tradition that fascinates her. How does your research translate into your work? When I write these compositions, it’s really important to me -- since i haven’t been classically trained in this style of music -- not to be dishonoring the tradition. If something was written in this way and sung in this way in this period of time, what was happening in the Sufi realm informs the way that I’ll write the song. When you tell someone that you’re a South Asian Sufi singer and your music is ambient they’re instantly going to have this idea of what that sounds like. I don’t want to be some Buddha Bar cliché. Does a sensitivity to tradition inhibit creativity? I pretend that I am one of those poets. It’s like a "What would Jesus do?" kind of thing. The thoughts actually do come. I never have this process where it’s like, I have to sit down now and write a song about this. In a way, it's kind of a Sufi idea. Don't stress. On Twitter, you recently butted heads with Patari, a site that bills itself as the “largest portal of Pakistani music under the sun.” They’re building the Pakistani music Spotify. My problem with that is there’s so many Pakistani music websites that just kind of steal the artist’s music and put it online for free. You can’t stop them. It’s in India, it’s in China. It’s everywhere. There’s always going to be a way for you to rip something off YouTube, and people putting up licensed stuff over and over again until they die. This company making this product, it’s like young folks who should know better. Meanwhile, they did the same thing, where they just took my music and put it on their application. They’re like, “We haven’t launched yet. It’s in beta testing. It’s invite only and we will eventually pay the artist.” I was like, "I’m the artist and this is not a good way to start this!” They were like, "Talk to our CEO." And I was like, “You motherfuckers have a CEO? You’ve figured out your entire infrastructure. You’ve done everything, basically, except handled the part where the artist gets paid. That should be the first thing you do." What was the reaction in the Pakistani music community? A couple of other musicians got on board and a whole bunch of us were talking about it on social media. Their application hasn’t really taken off, but it doesn’t matter whether they become big or not. It’s just, that’s not ok. I have stopped using Spotify. It’s really hard because as a musician you also do want access to music. The problem with these streaming mechanisms is that they will pay the royalties for streaming to the label but then the label is screwing the artist over as well because they’re keeping a whole chunk of it and at the end of the day we’re getting one cent per song. That’s just how this system is structured. What I was getting annoyed about is that Pakistan doesn’t have that [system in place yet]. These guys have the opportunity to do something great. Make it right, you know? You’re actually 99 percent there. Why are you screwing us over? This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. .articleBody div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;} .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;} div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;} -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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A Greek Summer Music Festival for Every Taste

Greece has always been associated with summer, amazing beaches and crystal clear waters. Still, many people opt to travel to other countries during the summer months in order to attend one of the numerous music festivals that take place across Europe and the rest of the world. However, Greek music festivals are growing and quickly becoming the place to be during the summer months. Thanks to the country’s amazing weather, the outdoor summer festival season starts in June and ends in September, while the numerous festivals can satisfy every taste. EJEKT Festival Ejekt Festival takes place annually at the Olympic Water Polo Complex in Faliro, Athens (Plateia Nerou). This year, on July 15, Parov Sterllar will take the crown on an electrified musical journey, along with American electro house musician Steve Aoki, Swiss band Kadebostany, Glasgow band Glasvegas and Moon Duo, consisting of guitarist Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada. The final lineup for the festival will be announced over the next months and it’s expected to include more bands and solo artists. Rockwave Festival Rockwave Festival is an event that takes place in Malakasa, Greece, just a short drive from Athens. What started out as a small rock festival in 1995 has turned into one of the most popular festivals in Greece. Rockwave’s popularity increased significantly in 2004 when the organizers found a permanent space to host the even at TerraVibe Park in Malakasa. The 20th Rockwave Festival will take place on May 30, June 20, July 4 and July 21 while its lineup will include The Black Keys, Robbie Williams, The Prodigy, Manu Chao and Judas Priest. River Party River Party is one of the oldest music festivals in Greece and this year will celebrate its 37th anniversary. It’s a five-day camping event that takes place in Kastoria, northern Greece, on the coast of Haliacmon river. It usually features great artists from the Greek music scene, as well as foreign artists. It was established by the locals in Nestorio, Kastoria, and over the years it became more and more popular. The festival is usually attended by a total of 50,000, many of whom camp near the river bank for a whole week in order to enjoy the musical feast. Some of the most notable names in this year’s lineup include: Slovenian electronic artist Gramatik, Greek hip-hop group Active Member and several Greek singers such as Giorgos Mazonakis, Kostis Maraveyas, Sokratis Malamas and Alkinoos Ioannidis. Plisskën Plisskën Festival – the successful event that started out in 2010 in Athens – prides itself for its genre-defying philosophy and aims to embrace music from a diversified background. The festival has grown over the years, while it has featured more than 130 international artists during its four-year run. It usually starts in the evening and continues until the small hours, while guests have the opportunity to choose between various stages. This year, Plisskën will take place at the Foundation of the Hellenic World on June 5 and 6. Greek and international artists including Brodinski, Mogwai, The Horrors, Ariel Pink, Beardyman and Mudhoney will be featured in the 2015 lineup, promising a magical journey to music lovers. Dreamland Dreamland was established in 2014 and it’s one of the most recent and successful festivals, following in the footsteps of Tomorrowland, an annual electronic music event that takes place in Belgium. In Greece, Dreamland takes place in the area of Ancient Olympia from Thursday, July 23, to Sunday, July 26. More than 40 artists from Greece as well as abroad will be performing during the four-day event, including Ace 2 Ace, Agent Greg, Argento, Angel Stoxx, Bang La Decks, Cayetano, Christos Fourkis, Future Keys, George Siras, House Twins, Leon Segka, Manolaco, Mikee, PapNik, Postriper, Pasquale, Zenn and 12 Tones. Matala Beach Festival Matala Beach in Crete is the perfect place for a summer laid back music festival. Admission is always free while people who decide to camp during the three-day festival, will have to pay 9 euros per person. For the fifth consecutive year, the organizers have assembled an impressive lineup, including foreign and Greek artists that will excite the audience and offer a magical experience. From Friday, June 19, to Sunday, June 21, Matala Music Festival will welcome artists such as Lakis Papadopoulos, Nikos Ziogalas, Dub Inc, Imam Baildi, Nikos Portokaloglou, Kostas Bigalis and Polina. Ardas Festival Ardas Festival was established in 1995 by a group of young Greeks, originating from Kastanies, northern Greece. The festival founders had a dream: to create a music-camping festival that would take place in the river bank, near the three-border area between Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria that would become a cultural meeting place for young people from the three countries. Twenty one years later, their dream still lives on, while Ardas Festival is becoming more popular each year. The event will take place from July 21 to July 26 and the final lineup will be announced in the coming days.

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On Faith: Greek music, dance and lamb on tap for St. Barbara fest

Greek music and folk dance performances are not the only attractions at St. Barbara Church's Greek Festival on Saturday and Sunday, June 6-7.

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On Faith: Greek music, dance and lamb on tap for St. Barbara fest

Greek music and folk dance performances are not the only attractions at St. Barbara Church's Greek Festival on Saturday and Sunday, June 6-7.

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Greek Eurovision Song Tops BBC Radio 2 Fan-Favorite List

Helena Paparizou’s song “My Number One” was first on BBC Radio 2’s list of the best Eurovision winning songs in the last 60 years. The British radio station invited its audience to vote for their all-time-favorite Eurovision winning song. “This was Greece’s first ever victory in the competition back in 2005 and it actually led to mass celebrations on the streets of Athens. After the show, nationals descended on the streets to wave their flags and sing her song. The folk-dance love song then went on to gain top 40 chart positions in countries across the world, was later covered by a heavy metal band and was even featured as a soundtrack in a karaoke video game,” noted BBC Radio 2 about the song. The list also included ABBA’s “Waterloo” (Sweden) in second place, followed by Loreen’s “Euphoria” (Sweden), Dima Bilan’s “Believe” (Russia), Bucks Fizz’s “Making Your Mind Up” (UK), Alexander Rybak’s “Fairytale” (Norway), Conchita Wurst’s “Rise Like A Phoenix” (Austria), Sertab Erener’s “Everyway That I Can” (Turkey), Lordi’s “Hard Rock Hallelujah” (Finland) and Lena’s “Satellite” (Germany). Paparizou is a Greek-Swedish singer and songwriter, born and raised in Sweden to Greek parents. During her childhood she was enrolled in various art schools before launching a career in Sweden in 1999 as a member of the Greek folk music and Eurodance duo Antique, who participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2001 and afterwards became popular in Greece.

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Eurovision Song Contest 2015 – live blog

Will UK entry Electro Velvet fare better than our last duo Jemini, who got nul points in 2003? How will special guest Australia get on? Follow all the action from Austria 10.18pm BST Oh god. It took ages for me to think up that acronym, and we’re still only halfway through the recap. This is never going to end, is it? Never ever. 10.17pm BST You may now vote for anyone you like. Anyone. Vote for anyone you like.LookAbout now it’sTime that youVampires picked up the phoneI am adamant that this is what you should doActually. 10.14pm BST Which means you’d better brace yourself for about 400 years of padding. And/or speed-couriering of bodyhair to Broadcasting House. 10.13pm BST And that’s the end of Eurovision. BYE THEN. 10.12pm BST I’ve just worked out what this performance reminds me of. It’s the bit in The Devil’s Advocate where Al Pacino turns into Satan. 10.11pm BST Now, this lot would win Britain’s Got Talent. Suck it, Sweden. 10.11pm BST Right, I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here. From what I can tell, Italy found the DNA of a vaguely anonymous boyband member trapped in amber and cloned it in a disastrous Jurassic Park-style mangling of God’s will to produce this band. No wonder they all look so bloody anguished. 10.10pm BST THE LAST SONG! It’s Italy: Il Volo, Grande amore. No fire. What a massive bloody anticlimax. 10.09pm BST Remember, it’s not too late to get in touch with Nigella Lawson and convince her to read out the UK scores in a Conchita beard. If she doesn’t have a beard, she just needs to say. I’m pretty sure I can shave off the vast majority of my body hair, stuff it into a jiffy bag and get it couriered over to her if she needs it. 10.07pm BST Well, this is lovely. I haven’t quite been able to catch all of the lyrics, but from what I’ve heard it’s almost definitely the loveliest song about botched vivisection that I’ve ever heard. Full marks, Albania. 10.06pm BST Now for Albania: Elhaida Dani, I’m Alive. It’s the penultimate song! She’s playing with dangerous machinery in the VT. All I’m really taking from tonight is that I’m going to buy a crapload of travel insurance next time I go to Austria. 10.05pm BST OK, there’s 143 million people in Russia. So a million voices represents an overwhelming minority of voices. This song would be better off being called 142 Million Apathetic Silences. 10.03pm BST This song seems to be about a million voices all coming together to call for peace. Hang on, let me do some maths... 10.03pm BST I think this dress might be our first legitimate fire hazard of the night. Thanks Polina Gagarina, and thanks to whoever wired your dress up like a Habitat showroom. 10.02pm BST Russia: Polina Gagarina, A Million Voices now. She’s just looking at some crystals in the VT. Presumably they ran out of video just before some Austrians attacked her with a barrage of flaming arrows. 10.01pm BST Incidentally, the hour of the wolf is 3pm-4pm. It used to be later than that, but Dracula wanted to swap his hour out because he had to go and pick his kids up from school. 9.59pm BST Also, is this a song about how much Elnur wants to have sex with a wolf? Because he should know that that’s illegal in many parts of continental Europe. I know this from bitter experience. 9.59pm BST First, it’s important to point out that those aren’t actually wolves that Elnur is dancing around with; they’re respectively Sia and Max Headroom. 9.58pm BST Right, we’re almost done. Azerbaijan: Elnur Hüseynov, Hour of the Wolf now. He’s combining fire and boats. Genuinely, one of the remaining acts is going to get full-on stabbed in their VT. 9.56pm BST Very strong Golden Age of TV theme this year, isn’t there? This woman is the third act to look a bit Games Of Thronesy, and there was that Heisenberg guy earlier. I hope this means that the next singer is done up like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or, I dunno, Alfie Moon. 9.55pm BST Seriously, we should probably just let her win; partly because she’s definitely going to kick off in a big way if she doesn’t, but mainly because if someone wins now I get to go to bed. 9.54pm BST Oh THANK GOD for Georgia. This is exactly what this song contest needs – a woman expressing her dual loves of Jessie J and The Crow in the most berserk way possible. This woman is TERRIFYING. 9.53pm BST Now! Georgia: Nina Sublatti, Warrior. In the meantime, I just heard from Australia. They just woke up. They slept through the show. This is not the first time I’ve been jealous of an Australian. 9.52pm BST They just rhymed ‘dissent’ with ‘punishment’. This song is so abjectly dull that the crowd just clapped a picture of a tree. A PICTURE OF A TREE. I’m starting to miss that nimrod who set his piano on fire. 9.51pm BST Subtle allegories clearly aren’t Hungary’s thing, because this song is called Wars For Nothing and there’s a knot of barbed wire in the background and the whole thing’s so heavyhanded that it’s like listening to a musical adaptation of a Bansky picture. Still, thanks for convincing me that war is bad, Boggie. I didn’t know that before. 9.50pm BST Next: Hungary: Boggie, Wars for Nothing. She is LITERALLY STANDING IN A FIRE. Austria just wants to kill people, that seems to be the key take-home message from tonight. 9.49pm BST Question: is this the dullest Eurovision Song Contest in living memory? I’m mainlining Haribo here, just to stay awake. Someone liven it up, for God’s sake. Or, at the very least, get Graham Norton to say my name on the telly. “Stuart Heritage, sitting at home by himself, in the dark”, he should say. And I would be happy. 9.47pm BST This is more like it. This is classic Eurovision. I don’t know if you’re playing the drinking game at home but, if you are, this woman is shouting into a wind machine so hard that you should all get mildly wasted. Extra points for her fruitless attempts to X-Men the audience away from her with her hands, too. 9.45pm BST And now Spain: Edurne, Amanecer. She’s being attacked by dogs, I think. 9.45pm BST The song ended with the singer going “Don’t leave the children behind”. And then they cut to a kid waving frantically. He’s totally been left behind. 9.44pm BST “You will be the reason to start all over again” this song goes. FYI, if they do start this song all over again, I’m taking none of the blame. None of it. 9.43pm BST This song’s a bit of a downer. A PREDICTION: in the aftershow party, this singer will gravitate towards the French woman, and everyone else will clear off. 9.42pm BST I’m no expert, but I’d guess that Voltaj is Romanian for Heisenberg And His Dad Band, because that’s exactly what this is. It’s Coldplay, basically, except there’s a 55-year-old man in a baseball cap. 9.41pm BST Song 20! Romania: Voltaj, De la capăt. They’re mucking about with horses. I bet, before the evening is done, we’ll see an act pogo through a minefield. That’s how dangerous these pursuits are. 9.39pm BST This is such a good song, isn’t it? You should all vote for it. For no reason. Ahem. 9.38pm BST Listen, don’t call a song Love Injected. You may as well just call it Giant Tatty Penis, because that’s what you’re all making us think of. That’s my only complaint about this song, though, because it is TREMENDOUS. It sounds like nothing else this evening. It’s a song I’d listen to outside the boundaries of a contractually obligated liveblog. I really, really want it to win. 9.37pm BST OK! Now for Latvia: Aminata, Love Injected. Remember that bet I said I placed this year? Me too. 9.36pm BST Ah, this isn’t actually too bad. There’s a heartbreak scene in an early-1990s rom-com that’s crying out to be soundtracked by this, for example. Oh, phew, it’s finished. 9.34pm BST This is an especially dull ballad, performed by a woman in a wheelchair. Now, this probably speaks to how tacky Eurovision is, but I’m slightly worried that she’ll mark a keychange by rising from the wheelchair in a demonstration of the transformative power of music. I realise this is a horribly cynical thing to think. But if it happens, I’m abandoning the liveblog. 9.33pm BST Now! Poland: Monika Kuszyńska, In the Name of Love. She’s making a cake. A lovely cake. 9.32pm BST If you want to recreate this performance at hime, by the way, you’ll need access to the Made.com lighting warehouse and an in correct memory of the Catherine Zeta Jones robbery scene from that film she was in. I forget which one. Look, it doesn’t matter, you’re not going to recreate this performance at home, are you? Because why would you? You might as well spend and evening driving staples into the soles of your feet. 9.30pm BST Germany has really gone over and above this year, by which I mean it’s reanimated the corpse of Amy Winehouse and made her sing a song about the baddie from Lost. I mean, it’s called Black Smoke. What else could it be about? 9.29pm BST Now! Germany: Ann Sophie, Black Smoke. 9.28pm BST “Is black slimming?” asked Knez. “Sure” his advisors replied. “What about shiny leather lapels?” he asked. “Um, we’ll have to look that up” his advisors replied. “Actually, scrap that, I’m just drawing a moustache on with a Sharpie” he said. His advisors all resigned. 9.26pm BST Still, it’s nice to see Montenegro giving work to Mickey Rourke. I’ve been worried about him too. 9.26pm BST Well, so far this is just a load of Scottish Widows doing interpretive dance in the sea. If I stop paying attention to this performance, it’s because I’ve become overwhelmingly preoccupied with the prospect of them all getting electrocuted. 9.25pm BST Now Montenegro: Knez, Adio. He’s fishing. There’s a lot of water in Austria, we get it. Stop showing off about all your water, Austria. 9.24pm BST Hey Greece, Celine Dion called. She doesn’t want her song back, though. She’s just asking for a pizza. I think she misdialled. It sounds like she’s crying. I’m worried about Celine Dion. 9.23pm BST “All I have is one last breath” she’s singing. God, imagine how hard she’s going to kick herself when she realises that she’s wasted it on this cack. 9.22pm BST Lady, either your diction is all over the place or this song is a meditation on how to treat sores with gongs. Either way, you look a bit like Shakira and you’ve proven your competency at shouting into windtunnels. So I guess there’s that. 9.21pm BST The next one is Greece: Maria Elena Kyriakou, One Last Breath. In the VT, she watches some kids do some colouring in. Europe really isn’t happy with Greece, is it? 9.20pm BST Ooh, a throwback to Sebastian Tellier’s 2008 performance. That was the last Eurovision song I truly enjoyed. Every one just then has just hastened my spiritual death. Even this next one. Especially the next one. 9.19pm BST Back to the backstage area, which tonight has been themed on the intergalactic parliament from The Phantom Menace. 9.17pm BST I just tried it. I can’t. Sorry for getting your hopes up, Europe. 9.17pm BST Oh wow. The singer just flicked his hand and his piano caught fire. What a neat trick. I wonder if I can do the same thing with his vocal chords. 9.16pm BST Bloody hell Austria, I know that the Eurovision Song Contest is expensive to host, but you don’t have to deliberately scupper your chances by basically entering Keane. At least the singer has a beard, which is vaguely Conchitaish. But that aside, this is like watching Kasabian’s dads have a knees-up in a Dignitas clinic. It’s like Radio 2 grew arms and legs and went on the rampage. No. 9.15pm BST Now for the home country. It’s Austria: The Makemakes, I Am Yours. They’re doing a Tough Mudder in the VT. Weirdos. 9.13pm BST This appears to be a song about what’d happen if we all died tomorrow. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d crawl to the nearest possible reflective surface and use my dying breath to loudly berate myself for liveblogging Eurovision for a living. 9.12pm BST A brave move by Belgium here. Not because it’s entered an ostensibly quite minimal song, but because the backing singers are clad from head to toe in unblemished white. Seriously, one mistimed hotdog bite and the whole shebang would have been utterly derailed. 9.11pm BST I think we’re almost halfway through now. Here’s Belgium: Loïc Nottet, Rhythm Inside. In other news, what do I have to do to get Graham Norton to read my name out on the telly? 9.09pm BST Also, can someone inform the International Olly Murs Manufacturing Plant that the Australian strain has escaped and gained the ability to cross borders. Please stop him, for the sake of mankind. 9.08pm BST Actually, you might win. Because this is pretty good, isn’t it? It’s a bit Tonight On ITV Be, but it doesn’t actively make me hate all music, which is about the best we can hope from these things. 9.08pm BST Still, OK, Australia, we’ve let you become part of Europe for the night. Best case scenario, you’ll win. Worst case scenario, you’ll stay here long enough to grow a mullet and develop a thing for double denim. 9.07pm BST Song 12! Australia: Guy Sebastian, Tonight Again! Please, feel free to make your dimwitted ‘Bur, Australia isn’t in Europe’ jokes now. 9.05pm BST Oh, now I feel bad. This isn’t actually a bad song. I mean, I’d never buy it or listen to it or spend any amount of time thinking about it, but it’s not that bad. 9.05pm BST A third thing you should have done? You should have avoided looking so much like the host of the Canadian food programme You Gotta Eat Here. Hope that all helps, John. 9.04pm BST And I’ll tell you another thing you should have done. You should have reconsidered switching from black and white to colour midway through the song like that, because it comes off like you’ve remade The Wizard of Oz about the magical adventures of a boring singer with a rubbish song. 9.03pm BST I’ll tell you one thing you should have done, John. You should have written a better song. 9.03pm BST Now for Cyprus: John Karayiannis, One Thing I Should Have Done. He’s paddleboarding. Again, a pursuit rife with danger. I don’t think I can ever go to Austria again. 9.01pm BST This is totally going to win. So thank god it’s on Eurovision and not Britain’s Got Talent, because it’d probably never get past the live semi-finals there. 9.00pm BST Obviously Sweden is going to win tonight, because this song is so muscular and self-assured that it makes mincemeat of almost everything else. However, I have two qualms: first, the singer looks a bit like BBC Three’s Russell Howard. Second, by dancing around with a cartoon like that, he reminds me of Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat’s Opposites Attract video, and anything that forces me to rely on lazy nostalgia as a commentary device certainly deserves to be penalised. 8.59pm BST Now: Sweden: Måns Zelmerlöw, Heroes. Spoiler alert, it’s probably going to win. In the VT, he wears a spacesuit because, as we all know, oxygen is a scarce resource in Austria. 8.58pm BST Now for a quick break, where the judges go and hang out with the audience. Nothing of note happens. You’re welcome. 8.56pm BST This song is called A Monster Like Me. These singers are definitely monsters. The sort of monsters who over-emote and are massively into musical theatre. The worst kind of monsters, basically. Worse than Draculas. 8.55pm BST This song is about a terrible thing that the singer did as a child. I know a teacher who once caught a toddler pushing Lego up his bum. I wonder if that’s what this guy did. That’s pretty terrible, after all. 8.54pm BST Next: Norway: Mørland & Debrah Scarlett, A Monster Like Me. They’re being cheered for rowing a boat. I can row a boat. Nobody ever cheered me for it. This, frankly, is an outrage. 8.53pm BST I just checked Twitter, and everyone’s going mad for this song. The motto seems to be that the best way to get what you want is to yell at people. Thanks Serbia! 8.52pm BST Actually, WHAT THE HELL? Let me retract that. She isn’t just shouting. She’s making a noise like she’s being flung around the engine room of a capsizing liner in a tropical storm. What a weird noise. Serbia, what exactly have you unleashed here? 8.51pm BST Serbia has submitted a song about the universal truth found in beauty, which makes me slightly worried that it’s actually a Nivea commercial in disguise, but whatever. Anyway, if you’re keeping count, there’s a woman shouting into a wind machine. 8.49pm BST Now it’s Serbia: Bojana Stamenov, Beauty Never Lies. 8.49pm BST ‘Put your hands in the air if you’re feeling the love’ the guy said. I didn’t put my hand in the air, because I’m busy liveblogging. Also I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT FEELING THE LOVE. 8.48pm BST They just kissed. Someone inform the International Same Difference Manufacturing Plant that the Lithuanian strain has escaped and started to breed. Please stop them, for the sake of mankind. 8.47pm BST This is already off-putting. It’s like watching a Monsoon catalogue go busking with the Zara clearance rail. The lyrics seem to be nothing but “I’m feeling love round and round in my heart”, which is something I can relate to, but only if you change the word ‘love’ to the word ‘cholesterol’. 8.46pm BST Next: Lithuania: Monika Linkytė & Vaidas Baumila, This Time. They’re bungee jumping. These Austrians are a properly devious bunch, aren’t they? 8.45pm BST Good lord, I think I might actually be watching some sort of globally-broadcast wiccan spell. No. No. No. No. No. NO. No. 8.43pm BST No. I do not like this. This is barely even a song. It’s like the opening number of a shortlived West End musical called Gust! or Dazzle! or Plep! or Blort! It’s like a load of grim reapers decided to make a Polyphonic Spree tribute band. No. No. 8.42pm BST Now: Armenia: Genealogy, Face the Shadow. In the VT, they’re all eating candyfloss. Again, a deliberate attempt to force them into a self-hobbling sugar crash. Nice try, Austria, but I’m wise to you. 8.41pm BST This is still a bad song, and far too long, but on the plus side you have to give these performers full marks for not accidentally going into autopilot and factoring ‘They’re waffley versatile’ into the lyrics. 8.39pm BST You know how sometimes The Asylum makes knock-off versions of current films in the hope that they can trick idiots into buying them? This is like The Asylum’s version of The Great Gatsby. The Adequate Gitsby, if you will. 8.38pm BST There is a chance that I may have been a little bit too mean about this song, which I said I hated when I first heard it. I still hate it but, now that I’ve heard the dirge that passes for most of the other songs this year, it doesn’t seem quite as bad as I thought. Plus it totally sounds like the Birdseye Potato Waffles advert, which never hurts. 8.37pm BST Now the moment you’ve all been waiting for: United Kingdom: Electro Velvet, Still in Love with You. In the VT, they get to play with drones. I assume this is to give them the illusion of control. 8.37pm BST “Why didn’t you wake me up? I’m pretty sure I would have told you to stop”. Those are actual lyrics and excuse me I have to go and scrub my mind and brain with disinfectant-soaked wire wool. 8.36pm BST This is a duet. There’s a woman who looks furious at her partner, possibly because it looks like he’s turned up for his date wearing a novelty One Direction wig. 8.35pm BST As has become traditional in these liveblogs, I’m about to betray my natural bias for Estonia by saying that this is one of the best songs so far. It’s like the theme for a James Bond film and not a Duffy B-side like you think. Hooray for Estonia! 8.33pm BST Who’s next? Estonia: Elina Born & Stig Rästa, Goodbye to Yesterday. In a word, skateboards. 8.33pm BST “If that doesn’t put a smile on your face, you are dead inside” said Graham Norton, as the camera cut to someone looking like they were trying to work out an especially painful poo. 8.32pm BST I wish he was the King of Shut Up. 8.32pm BST Also, he just said “Do you like my dancing?” and then wiggled his pelvis at nothing, like he was humping a ghost. Never trust a ghost-humper, that’s my motto and it’s served me well so far. 8.32pm BST Did he just call himself ‘The King of Fun?’ Because I’m not sure I can really get behind a man who thinks that novelty footwear is the epitome of good vibes. 8.30pm BST Mate, what are you wearing on your feet? You’re not Iron Man, you know. You’re essentially a Poundland Michael Buble. This, for those of you not watching, is genuinely dreadful. It’s like watching the death-throes of a 1990s boyband. 8.29pm BST Next: Israel: Nadav Guedj, Golden Boy. In the VT, Nadav opens a box and then graffitis a cable car with some sort of intimidating KKK Batman figure. 8.28pm BST Lisa’s singing in front of an unbroken shot of rubble, which is probably the perfect visual metaphor for this song. I’m not one to talk, but I think that France might have got the Eurovision Song Contest mixed up with the Woman You’d Least Like To Be Trapped In A Lift With Contest. Which she’d win by a MILE, by the way. 8.27pm BST Good old France. When the chips are down, you can always count on them to drag a sad lass onstage and make her act all glum. The title of this song translates to ‘Don’t Forget’, which seems like a stretch since this sounds like everyone’s third-favourite Ewan the Dream Sheep preset. 8.26pm BST Next: France: Lisa Angell, N’oubliez pas. In her VT, she has her makeup done and then hangs out with some taxidermy. This is a deliberately creepy effort on Austria’s part to undermine the competition, I guarantee it. 8.24pm BST Wind machine. Do drink up. 8.24pm BST This is just a hunch, but I’d guess that Maraaya’s headphones are playing a loop of positive affirmations. ‘Just get through tonight, Maraaya’ they’re saying. ‘You’re better than this, and everyone know it’ they’re saying. ‘And don’t forget, you’ve got a lively bit of fish in the oven when you get home’ they’re saying. 8.23pm BST Maraaya, pick a look. You can either be dressed as a bride or dressed as someone with an unhealthy obsession with Jennifer Lopez’s Play video. You can’t do both. Also, pick a backing performer. You can either have a violinist or a dancer. Having a dancer who mimes playing the violin is both greedy and weird. 8.21pm BST Here we go. The first act is Slovenia: Maraaya, Here For You. I missed the introductory VT, but it looked like it involved spinning around. Hope that helps. 8.20pm BST The middle host just announced that Eurovision is being broadcast live in China, and the two hosts either size of her just pulled the sort of triumphant faces that douchebags in deodorant adverts do whenever hot girls look at them. You know the face. It’s a kind of facial fist-pump. You know the face I’m talking about. I’m bored already. Can you tell? 8.18pm BST Eurovision. Bringing people together via the power of that one editing trick from that one Facebook video that your dad keeps showing you. 8.17pm BST Good news, everyone. There’s already another film. This one’s about the glorious power of social media. To reinforce this, I just checked Twitter and it’s just a load of people going ‘JESUS THIS IS BORING I AM DRUNK LOL PLS RT’. 8.16pm BST It’s too tiny. Imagine if there’d been a stage that size a few years ago. It would have never contained the unstoppable charisma of Andy Abraham. 8.15pm BST Man alive, that stage looks tiny. 8.14pm BST Right, that’s it. Goodnight everyone! 8.14pm BST I was wrong. This isn’t like the Olympic opening ceremony. It’s like the first part of Take Me Out. A version of Take Me Out where nobody ever finds happiness and spends all of their dates despairingly look out into the middle-distance, admittedly, but Take Me Out nonetheless. 8.12pm BST Oh no. No no. You don’t need to do an Olympics-style opening ceremony where all the acts get hauled on one-by one. Life is precious, guys, and time is short. Every time we’re watching a Norwegian singer stroll through an auditorium is time we don’t get to spend with our children. 8.10pm BST And now, a guy in a hat who I already hate. He’s like a one-man super-budget LMFAO tribute act. But one that you dreamed about after eating too much soft cheese on a rollercoaster. Tl;dr not a fan. 8.09pm BST And the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Or at least the members of the Vienna Boys’ Choir who can open their mouths the widest, because I feel like I’ve just undergone a brief dentistry course. 8.08pm BST And now last year’s winner Conchita Wurst is performing a song. But only a bit of it, because here comes tonight’s hosts. They’re three women and, from what I can tell, they all possess a basic level of functional competency when it comes to miming. 8.06pm BST OK, the show’s on the road. There’s a woman with a violin and a golfball on a bit of string. It’s this dizzying level of production values that makes the Eurovision Song Contest such a global draw time and time again. 8.05pm BST This is absolutely the longest opening montage VT I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Which is exciting, really, because if Eurovision needs anything it’s unnecessary padding. 8.03pm BST Tonight’s themes, apparently, are ‘bridges’ and ‘circles’. This follows last year, of course, which had the themes ‘carpeting’ and ‘open sores’. 8.01pm BST Ooh, I’ve been to this part of Vienna. Vienna is nice. Actually, why aren’t I in Vienna now? This is a ridiculous oversight. 8.00pm BST Ooh, Eurovision starts with a swanky BBC Music ident now. I mean, technically speaking, ‘Music’ probably should have been in inverted commas, but whatever. 7.59pm BST And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest. Good luck everyone. Dig deep. 7.50pm BST Also on BBC One, a National Lottery musical act that appears to be an abandoned Olly Murs prototype. I have a feeling that this is a deliberate ploy on the part of the BBC to make the rest of the evening seem more palatable in comparison. 7.49pm BST Meanwhile on BBC One: Nick Knowles is presenting a celebrity gameshow while wearing a suit that makes him look as if he’s riddled with glittery psoriasis. Guys, I think tonight might have already peaked. 7.45pm BST Oh, christ, I forgot to do a drinking game this year. How about this - drink whenever:*A woman screams into a wind machine 7.38pm BST Also, just to keep things interesting tonight – and to make sure that I don’t drift off during the voting section like I normally do – I’ve decided to place an actual monetary bet on one of the acts tonight. I won’t tell you who, or how much I’ve bet, but I will say that I stand to win £800 from it. So if my ship comes in, I’m basically just going to just abandon this liveblog and immediately go on a first-class round-the-world cruise. They cost £800, right? 7.29pm BST Before things get going, you know what you should do? You should take this Eurovision quiz I co-wrote, and then hang your head in shame because you got none of them right because I’m so much better at Eurovision than you. That’s what you should do. 7.25pm BST Hello, bon soir, accoglienza, vorsicht and lo siento – it’s The Guardian’s annual Eurovision liveblog!For many of you, your entire year has steadily been building up to this moment; after all, Eurovision is the one night of the year when too many countries get to spend too much time performing too many songs, before the same amount of time is given over to the intricacies of a bone-dry continent-wide numerical scoring system. Basically, it’s Christmas. Continue reading...

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Greek Eurovision Song Tops BBC Radio 2 Fan-Favorite List

helena-paparizou-eurovision Helena Paparizou's song “My Number One” was first on BBC Radio 2's list of the best Eurovision winning songs in the ...

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