VENUE Globen Arena, Stockholm		ENTRIES 24
HOSTS Kattis Ahlström Anders Lundin		DEBUTS Latvia

Welcome..Europe!. Oh my God, this is enormous!. And it's only gonna get bigger. By 2000 they had a big screen at the side of the stage for those guys in the bleachers who can't see the stage ( a screen which seemed seriously out-of-synch when it slipped onto camera  but I will happily stand corrected by anyone who was there). Co-presenter Kattis carried on the tradition of Swedish women in leather dresses after Ulrika two years earlier.

Was there ever a contest when you just knew, after a song, that IS the winner. "Fly On The Wings Of Love" was the classic case of a performance, just three minutes, changing everything you thought about a song. The lead singers charisma, the laugh, the vocoder bit, the light-pens in the audience, the fireworks, it was a tour-de-force that had me bowled over after I had only previously regarded the song as one that might steal a few of the wrinklies votes from Ireland's "Millennium of Cheese".

The most fascinating thing about Eurovision 2000 was the absolute chasm (we're talking Grand Canyon here) between those countries, mostly in Northern Europe, who are sent poppy, televoter friendly songs in English and those countries sticking with the traditional songs, that may well reflect their culture better, but are not going to vacuum up votes in the age of free-language and televoting. The sophisticated ballad that needs a few listens to kick in (like say France, Switzerland 2000) was being ignored in favour of crowd-pleasing instant catchiness. How the more traditional countries reacted to the challenge would be one of the more interesting aspects of Eurovision in the years to come. 

Voting

IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK:

An explosion in a fireworks factory in Enschede, Netherlands kills 22 people.

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