Morten Thomassen from Norway decided to write about some of his memories of Eurovision and the Norwegian Eurovision selection. ESC Covers again will publish it after google translating it from Norwegian to English.

Already at my third international final I should be lucky enough to experience a Norwegian victory and well for those who have not experienced it present in the hall where it happens, I can only say that I hope all MGP/ESC fans get to experience it once.

Admittedly, we had sent off a song with only 24 words and it was as close to an instrumental song as you can get without it being one, and the reactions could not be avoided.

It’s called the Eurovision SONG Contest and at that time it was probably on the border of cheating to send something that was almost instrumental, some thought, but fortunately the juries around Europe were not of this opinion.

Well, it is possible that the juries in Austria, Croatia and Sweden thought this was instrumental, because here our points-capture was absolutely nothing.

All in all, the points were spread around quite well, as many as 13 out of 23 countries got over 50 points and it wasn’t until there were 2 countries left that victory was secured.

And with my accounting experience I naturally discovered the fact that when 2 juries remained we were leading by 25 points and then victory was assured and you if you look at the voting before the Maltese jury is called up you hear some cheering, it’s the small delegation of 5-6 Norwegian ESC fans who know that we have won, the NRK delegation that sat in another part of the hall was still on pins and needles in total excitement.

The victory came a bit unexpectedly for many Norwegians, I seem to remember, and it is probably unexpected victories that are the most fun, the shock of joy actually lingers for a long time and I remember that we were only applauded at the after-party where we came up with “Victory for Norway » banner and on the bus to the hall where the after party was arranged we sang: «We are all the winners we are all the best, cause we have just won the Eurovision Song Contest».

Although “Nocturne” performed by Secret Garden won comfortably in the Norwegian final where 4 out of 5 juries consisted of professionals or people very interested in music, the 21,031 votes that were called in only accounted for 20% of the votes.

And Secret Garden should probably be happy about that when you take into account that in the semi-finals before the Norwegian final where 2 songs fought against each other for a final place, they got 52% of the votes and that must be called a narrow victory.

So sometimes it is perhaps nice that there are juries, if only the people had decided we would possibly have missed out on an ESC victory and that would have been stupid, wouldn’t it?

Unlike Morten who attended his 3rd Eurovision with accreditation, it was my first with press accreditation, although it was my 4th Eurovision. Before I knew Morten I had no idea about accreditation. Now I could  experience meeting the artists, the composers and getting the promo CD’s. The first 3 artists I have met in Dublin made a lasting impression on me – JAN JOHANSEN  of Sweden, BO HALLDORSSON of Iceland and DAVOR POPOVIC of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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