Due to the fact that Belgium has two main regions Wallonia and Flanders the organizing alternates each year. This year Flanders has been organizing a great national festival called Eurosong 2014 with an outstanding stage design. The Belgian selection consisted of several shows and a grand final. There were several star guests such as former ESC winner Ruslana (Ukraine 2004) and also one of the most popular Belgian pop groups Clouseau, who also sang for Belgium in the ESC 1991 in Rome with “Geef Het Op” and came 16th.  Axel Hirsoux was one of the favourites right from the beginning. So it was not a big surprise that he received the majority of 50% from the televoters and even the maximum scores from the international juries.

Axel Hirsoux was born in Courcelles, close to Charleroi in 1982. He studied music theory and played the trumpet. Axel regularly performs in a musical group and took part the in the Star Academy France as well in the Walloon version of The Voice where he reaffirmed to be ready to take the step for participating in the national selection Eurosong 2014. For Alex a big dream comes true to sing in the Eurovision Song Contest and representing his home country Belgium.

The song “Mother” is a love song to Alex’s mother and to all mothers in the world. The classic ballad has been sung by Alex with such an indulgence and passion that he convinced the Belgians by a storm. Especially the theme “Mother” might reach a lot of people in the target group. This year there are quite many ballads in the entire ESC, the only challenge is to stand out, having a stunning stage show with by a great voice. Alex’s voice is doubtless outstanding and impressive. The way the arrangement is produced might a bit too classic and not modern enough to be played in the international radio stations as it might be too tragic as well. One of the songwriters Rafael Artesero has already written the Spanish entry 2011 “Que me quiten lo bailao“ and the Andorran songs „La mirada interior“ in 2005 and „Sense Tu“ in 2006, all of them did not shape up very well.

• Participations: 57
• Debut: 1956
• Biggest success: 1st place 1986 “J’aime La Vie” by Sandra Kim, 4x 2nd place “Messieurs Les Noyés De La Seine” by Fud Leclerc 1956, “Le Plus Beau Jour De Ma Vie” by Mony Marc also 1956, “L'amour ça Fait Chanter La Vie” by Jean Vallée 1978, “Sanomi” by Urban Trad 2003, 2x 4th place, 2x 5th place, 4x 6th place, 4x 7th place, 3x 8th place, 1x 9th place, 2x 10th place 

Belgium is participating for the 57th time in the Eurovision Song Contest this year. Due to the fact the Belgium has two languages and regions Flanders and Wallonia the Belgian representative is coming alternately each year. In former years the French songs from Wallonia have been more successful but in the last decades the Flemish entries made the best results. The only Belgian winner was Sandra Kim in 1986 with “J’aime la vie”. Over all these years there have many good places in the top 10, the closest to win again was “Sanomi” by Urban Trad in 2003 (2nd), furthermore “L'amour ça Fait Chanter La Vie” by Jean Vallée in 1978 (2nd) and recently “Me and my guitar” by Tom Dice in 2010 (6th). Last year Roberto Bellarosa made a 12th place with “Love Kills” in the Grand Final in Malmö 2013.

Due to the introduction of the semi finals in 2004 some countries are struggling to qualify for the grand final. Belgium is one of the countries which had some difficulties lately, only two times Belgium could qualify in the last nine years. It has also to be taken into consideration that the competition has grown over the years. The Eastern European countries are making the half of the participating countries nowadays, so therefore some well established countries have to make the way for the new countries. The positive thing about it is that it forces the composers to bring higher quality songs into the competition; there is less place for weak songs.