 Belgium has been a participant in the Eurovision Song Contest from the early beginning in 1956. Due to the fact that Belgium is divided into a French and a Flemish speaking part, the Belgian entry has always been alternated every year. So over the years there were the typical French styled ballads as well as the more progressive Flemish, which is closely connected to the Dutch music style. There were quite good ranks reached over the years, but only once Belgium took over the crown of ESC in 1986. The 15-years-old singer Sandra Kim convinced the juries with “J’aime la vie”. Since the semi finals were introduced, Belgium suffered from not qualifying. Since 2004 there were only two songs in the big final. Last year’s entry “Me and my Guitar” by Tom Dice received a very good 6th rank in the final. This was an extraordinary good entry, which even deserved a better position. “Me and my Guitar” has been in several charts afterwards and is still played in the radio. Tom Dice has been touring in Germany already. It’s another proof that a good song with a good singer can have a pan European success. Unforgettable Belgian entries are: “Baby Baby” by Nicole & Hugo (#17) in 1973, “A million in one, two, three” by Dream Express (#7) in 1977 and “Soldiers of Love” by Lilianne Saint-Pierre (#11) in 1987. This year, there was another big national final held from the French part (Wallonia). There were several outstanding songs, but the ticket to Düsseldorf got the vocal group called Witloof Bay without using instruments, but their voices. A-capella is neither nothing new in Eurovision, nor has it not been successful. Remember Latvia’s entry in 2006 “In your heart” by Cosmos ended up on rank #16. The song “With Love Baby” sounds similar to the band name, which might be a bit irritating and easy to mix up. In the video clip you can see the facility of the group members to push the song into the final. Based on the enormous competition in the second semi final, this song will have its difficulties to get enough votes for the final, it too weak and not catchy enough. Probably this song does not convince by first hearing, which is so tremendously import at Eurovision |
Participant(s): Witloof Bay
