During the last, warm day of August, Eurovision fans from 41 different countries stepped aboard on M/S Silja Europa from Helsinki to Tallinn and back, to celebrate the annual Eurovision Cruise and its 10th anniversary. The cruise, arranged by OGAE Finland, has been a growing success and dozens of Eurovision artists have already performed their shows on the cruise.
Let it burn in the Firenight – Krista and Vicky open the show
The host of the cruise was Finland’s very own glittery ESC star and UMK hostess Krista Siegfrids, who presented her own show to start the musical night. Krista performed both of her Melodifestivalen entries, her ESC entry “Marry me” from 2013 and her brand new single “Let it burn”, which had just been released the previous day. In Krista’s words, the cruise was going to be amazing and epic – and that’s what it was proved out to be!
The second Finnish artist on the cruise was Virve ‘Vicky’ Rosti, who had represented Finland in the ESC in 1987. “Sata salamaa” is an ever-green and a fave Finnish entry for many fans. We could witness that Vicky’s voice and her red hair were just as fierce as they were back in the 80’s!
Hits and nostalgy from Iceland
Fans of Icelandic Eurovision artists were delighted this year, as this cruise was a real celebration to Iceland. Euroband (Friðrik Ómar Hjörleifsson and Regína Ósk Óskarsdóttir) had represented Iceland in 2008 with their eurodance track “This is my life”. They had also been on the very first Eurovision Cruise back in 2008, so they knew what to expect – hot and crazy fans who knew lyrics to their entry and all the other ESC hits that they performed during the night – of which many were in Swedish. I can confirm that an Icelandic accent in a Swedish song sounds very cute!
A first-timer on the cruise, Selma (Björnsdóttir) has represented Iceland twice: in 1999 with “All our of luck”, with which she ended as second in the final, and in 2005 with “If I had your love”. It felt wonderful to hear these great pop songs live sung by the original singer.
We can’t talk about Icelandic ESC artists without talking about Hera the goddess – Hera Björk! She started with “Someday”, her entry to Dansk Melodi Grand Prix in 2009 which almost made her represent Denmark as well. Hera’s ESC entry from 2010, “Je ne sais quoi”, could win the award for the most Eurovision-sounding Eurovision song. Hera told a funny story about the song’s lyrics: her sister-in-law has been singing the wrong lyrics – the lyrics she wrote – for 8 years. While Hera’s lyrics go “when I see your face I wanna follow my emotions”, her sister-in-law has been singing her own version: “when I see your face, I wanna swallow your explosion”. Hmm… how lucky we, all the fans were, to now hear Hera sing the second part of the song with such explosive lyrics!
The show went on and on, the artists performing many Eurovision hits together in different combinations, including a bit of Icelandic in the 1992 entry “Nei eða já”. It was a really good-mood show and the singers don’t look like a day older than when they were on the Eurovision stage.
The scandi fever continues with KEiiNO
The atmoshere got even higher when this year’s Norwegian trio KEiiNO (Tom Hugo, Alexandra Rotan and Fred Buljo) entered the stage. There was no doubt of who were the winners of the public vote this year – the group got massive cheering from the audience.
Besides of their ESC entry “Spirit of the sky” – which they performed three times in total – we heard KEiiNO’s new singles “Shallow” and “Praying”. They also performed “Vill ha dej”, a Swedish hit song by Freestyle and later covered by Drömhus, which will be released as KEiiNO’s new single on the 20th September! There were small technical problems during one song, but Alexandra was a smashing entertainer, kept the show going and started an acapella version of “Only teardrops” while waiting for the sound to get fixed.
As always, the cruise offered a Eurovision karaoke, Eurovision disco and on Sunday afternoon, a show by Jukka K & Marko Vainio (also known as Divet). The drag duo has performed on every Eurovision cruise and this time, they had an almost hour-long show with dancers.
The history of the Eurovision Cruise with 2018 throwback
As a bonus, we offer you lots of videos from last year’s Eurovision Cruise, when we had Kati Wolf, Mikolas Josef and the legendary Linda Martin performing.
List of Eurovision artists during the 10 years of Eurovision Cruise
- 2010: CatCat (Finland 1994), Euroband (Iceland 2008)
- 2011: Sonja Lumme (Finland 1985), Getter Jaani (Estonia 2011)
- 2012: Hera Björk (Iceland 2010), Ott Lepland (Estonia 2012), Vukasin Brajic (Bosnia-Herzegovina 2010), Laura Voutilainen (Finland 2002)
- 2013: Valentina Monetta (San Marino 2012, 2013, 2014 & 2017), Marion Rung (Finland 1962 & 1973), Krista Siegfrids (Finland 2013), Timoteij (Melodifestivalen 2010 & 2012), Birgit Õigemeel (Estonia 2013)
- 2014: Charlotte Perrelli (Sweden 1999 & 2008), Softengine (Finland 2014), Nicki French (UK 2000), CatCat (Finland 1994)
- 2015: Sonia (UK 1993), Ivi Adamou (Cyprus 2012), Sanna Nielsen (Sweden 2014)
- 2016: Mikael Saari (UMK 2013 & 2016), DQ (Denmark 2007), Donny Montell (Lithuania 2012), Eini (UMK 2016), Loreen (Sweden 2012) read more!
- 2017: Alexander Rybak (Norway 2009), Ruslana (Ukraine 2004), Norma John (Finland 2017), SunStroke Project (Moldova 2010 & 2017), Koit Toome (Estonia 1998 & 2017) read more!
- 2018: Hungry Hearts, Jasmine (Finland 1996), Eye Cue (FYR Macedonia 2018), Linda Martin (Ireland 1984 & 1992), Kati Wolf (Hungary 2011), Mikolas Josef (Czech 2018)
- 2019: Krista Siegfrids (Finland 2013), Virve “Vicky” Rosti (Finland 1987), Hera Björk (Iceland 2010), Euroband (Iceland 2008), Selma (Iceland 1999 & 2005), KEiiNO (Norway 2019)
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