Tag Archives: Lordi

Girl groups

GIRL GROUPS FROM THE NETHERLANDS PART 5

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The group started in 1995 when Caroline Hoffman (born 7 March 1975) and sisters Niña (born 24 April 1985) and Djem van Dijk (born 23 January 1987) met during a party, where Caroline was performing with a friend. The parents of the van Dijk sisters asked Caroline to become the music teacher of the two girls. A close-knit group was born, starting with street concerts where they accompanied themselves with acoustic guitar and djembe. Their harmonised and contagious African rhythm soon attracted a lot of attention. Treble is unique for its use of a fictitious language, called “Treble”. As they put it, “In order to be able to get emotions across, music does not always require understandable language.” The van Dijk sisters were in their early teens when the collaboration with Caroline started, and were therefore better able to pick up foreign languages. Although the girls have been singing in English and occasionally in French, the Treble language still is an integral and important part of their songwriting and performances. After performing in the Netherlands and traveling abroad, the girls recorded their debut single “Ramaganana” at the end of 2003, which turned out to be the major breakthrough for the trio, reaching the number one slot on the Dutch singles Hit List. To promote the single, Treble hit the streets again. Performing with a placard requesting the listeners purchase their single and bring it to first place, they succeeded. In June 2004, their first album, No Trouble, made its debut. The girls, by then, had a record deal with CNR Music. Backed up by a group of session musicians they show the many different styles Treble has mastered, ranging from ballads to uptempo rock songs. The album is supported by a full theater tour and several festival appearances. Their second album Free came out in April 2006. By then, the group has teamed up with World Sound Management from the USA. The American management firm became interested in Treble when the group performed in France during Midem. In true Treble style, the girls weren’t invited. They went to France and just hit the streets of Cannes without any planned gigs. The album was recorded in Hawaii and Los Angeles, under the guidance of Keith Olsen. His involvement lead to a much more coherent sound and the inclusion of the Fleetwood Mac song Crystal, which also was produced by Keith Olson in its original form. Treble competed in the National Song Festival, which is the national final for the Eurovision Song Contest. On 12 March 2006, an overwhelming victory at the National Song Festival in Amsterdam made Treble the Dutch representatives in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athens. During a live television show on the Dutch channel NOS, their song “Amambanda” was chosen as the best by 72% of the viewers. After this, Treble went on tour, planning to visit every country that was to send a contestant to Athens. They succeeded in doing so, but did not qualify for the Semi-Final. Lordi, the Finnish heavy metal band, won the semis and the final. During their European tour, Treble met Lordi and they became good friends. The schedule for Treble after the Eurovision Song Contest was relatively unfruitful. A single “Fly” off the Free album was scheduled as a CD-single, but was later rescheduled to appear only as a download. Yet another single “Leave Me Alone” was scheduled for 2006 but later postponed to early 2007. Djem and Niña van Dijk have both enrolled in the Amsterdam Conservatorium to sharpen their musical skills reducing their participation in Treble. The band eventually split up in March 2010. Each of the girls have decided to make their own solo career in music. Niña van Dijk took part in season 3 of the Voice of Holland in 2012 and was part of Team Marco Borsato but was eliminated after the first live show round. Taste is very individual and it differs from person to person but for me, this is one of the worst entries ever from the Netherlands at Eurovision and I just could not get myself paying for any other song by them, so for that reason AMAMBANDA is featured.

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Member article

HARD ROCK HALLELUJAH

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Post by Aaron Paraiso (who has lived in Finland for some years)

 

Hearing neighbours’ screams of joy in the middle of the night, cracking open the champagne and staying up till dawn waiting for the next morning’s news broadcast. These are all some of the experiences I had in 2006 when Finland won the Eurovision Song Contest.
One would assume at first that I, a Hawaii-born person, wouldn’t know much about Eurovision. Especially since most Americans don’t really know what it is. “Eurowhat? Oh I don’t really follow the soccer”. But I have definitely had my fair share of exposure to it, having lived in Finland a large chunk of my life and the last several years in Australia – a country with a large following and growing interest in the contest.
Finland has competed in Eurovision almost every year since the competition started. The acts sent to the contest by this small Nordic country have always appealed to the population within its borders. Many of the songs of past entries have even become classics in the country, heard on Easy Listening radio stations, Tango functions and karaoke nights alike. But the songs were never considered memorable by the rest of Europe, often failing to qualify for the Finals since the introduction of the Semi-finals in 2004. Not even creating an English version of the Finnish language entries gave them much of a boost.
To be honest, when I first heard that the band Lordi was competing in the Finnish National Final, I thought it sounded like a joke. ‘Of course they won’t win. They couldn’t be further from the Eurovision norm’ I thought. I wasn’t alone on this either. The group was well known within Finland before this time. Popular in some circles with their hard rock songs such as ‘Would You Love a Monsterman?’ and ‘Devil is a Loser’. They were not however, what anyone would consider as mainstream music.
In the months leading up to the National Final, both the song and band grew on me. A lot. It went right from the bottom of my list, to the top. I didn’t see that one coming. Perhaps it was partly due to the heavy media coverage and the so called ‘controversy’ of them competing. Although those factors may have played on my subconscious to make them more appealing, nothing could have beaten seeing them perform live on that dark winter night in Turku, Finland. The magic of the live performance, along with their monster-like costumes and pyrotechnics won me over. Apparently it also worked for public watching the show on television, because that night it was announced hard rock group from Lapland was headed to Athens!
Over the following months, their media coverage increased. Both on a national and European level. There was lots of hype about the uniqueness of the current Finnish entry, and whether it would appeal to the continent as a whole, or flop like a dog’s ears with its head out the car window. One thing was sure though, it was not going to be easily forgotten. You can never plan to be in the winning country at the moment when the live votes come through and we see who gets all the ‘Douze Points’. You can double your chances if you live near a land border and are able to pick up and go on a moment’s notice, or perhaps you may rely on betting odds. But you can never be absolutely sure until the time comes.
Being in my adopted home country when they took home the title of Eurovision Song Contest Winner 2006 was incredible. Of course I envied my fellow OGAE counterparts who were in Athens at the time to cheer them on. But just experiencing the atmosphere and mood of everyone around in the winning country, and putting an end to that joke ‘Hell freezes over, Finland wins the Eurovision Song Contest’ where it was most relevant, is an experience they will never have. I can’t wait to see what happens next year when I’m in Stockholm.