Wow! What a week in Oslo. Massive amounts of fun, a great atmosphere and lots of sunshine! Big congrats to Germany for winning, it's great that Eurovision has finally entered the 21st century with a good song :)
I was really proud of Tom Dice's performance of our song 'Me & My Guitar', 6th place is the best Belgium have done in many years. From jamming out a little song together only a few months ago, to an audience of about 150million viewers! Ca raaazy! Many thanks to anyone that voted for us, especially Germany who gave us a sparkly 12 points :) WE LOVE U!!!
There were many parties, dress rehearsals, shows & jamming sessions, and I met loads of friendly faces - the guys that wrote 'Satellite', Lena Meyer, Stefan Raab, Graham Norton, Pete Waterman, Mike Scott, Sarah Cawood etc... It was a bit weird to meet so many cool cats in one place...
Lena had immense support from the German press and all her fans that travelled over. RESPECT! They were chanting her name in all the dress rehearsals and in the final. I've never seen press people chant like football fans before, surreal. She performed great on every occasion, a cheeky dance and a kookie little voice to match. I spoke to her just after she came off stage and gave her 'daumen drucken' for the calling of the results :)
When I realised that the songwriters of 'Satellite' were not allowed to sit with Lena in the green room or backstage, I was pretty gutted for them. I went for a drink with John Gordon and Julie Frost just before the show, and to my amazement they were uncertain if they would be allowed to watch the show from inside the Telenor Arena at all!!! Maybe record label bosses and tv presenters have more power than songwriters, but Eurovision is a song-writing competition right? Nevermind, I think in the end they managed to get tickets and had to watch the show from a stand with the fans. I just hope that this kind of attitude does not prevail in Eurovision 2011 when it comes to Germany. Mini rant over :)
It was nice to see some old friends that had written songs for the other countries, and it was also great to meet a few fellow UK writers. I found a great little Irish Folk Band in a random bar. We got chatting and ended up jamming until about 5am which was mental. Turns out the drummer plays with Seth Lakeman. He was bad-ass on a bodrun!
All in all, Norway put on a great show. It's a beautiful country, but musicians and student-types beware, it's MEGA expensive! Of course you can always act like a Viking and hunt for stags if you're hungry and have run out of Kroner, but getting a spear through customs could be quite a challenge!
