Msig

Announced today: Next year's Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Tel Aviv on 14, 16 and 18 May

Eilat is no longer in the running to host next year's Eurovision Song Contest. It's between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv now.

He's on stage the entire time, playing the guitar and doing backing vocals during that segment.

He refused to say anything 😣 But Brian will be touring with Justin until the end of January 2019, so if he's still part of M's touring band, the tour won't start any earlier than May 2019, given that M usually starts tour rehearsals 3 months prior to the opening date.

I saw JT live yesterday, the first of two sold-out shows at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen. I was front-row at the side of the heel (the catwalk is shaped like a bent leg, more or legs, with the end stage being the foot) - the arena was packed, and the show was amazing! Before the show, I spoke to Brian Frasier-Moore (JT and Madonna's drummer) who gave me a pair of his signature drumsticks 🥁 The setlist included 28 songs, included a snippet of "SoulMate" that was played from a track, and four covers each performed by a different backing singer. Filthy Midnight Summer Jam LoveStoned/I Think She Knows SexyBack Man of the Woods Higher Higher Señorita Suit & Tie SoulMate (snippet, played from track) My Love Cry Me a River Mirrors Drink You Away Flannel Until the End of Time Dreams (Fleetwood Mac cover, performed by Zenya Bashford) Ex-Factor (Lauryn Hill cover, performed by Nicole Hurst) Come Together (The Beatles cover, performed by Kenyon Dixon) Thank God I'm a Country Boy (John Denver cover, performed by JK) Morning Light What Goes Around... / ...Comes Around Say Something Montana Summer Love Rock Your Body Supplies Like I Love You Can't Stop the Feeling!

The venue and dates of next year's Eurovision Song Contest will be announced in September. However, a senior official of the Israel Finance Ministry stated last Sunday that the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds is the only site in Israel meeting all of the production requirements.

Malta is getting its own version of The X Factor. The first series will be broadcast from October 2018 - it was just announced today that the winner will represent Malta in next year's Eurovision Song Contest.

Apart from M releases, I've bought only a handful of CD albums in the past 4 or 5 years. And once I've ripped them onto my hard drive, I've never taken the actual discs out of their covers. I've also bought a handful of vinyl albums, all of which are numbered limited releases. Most of the time, I stream my music through Google Play Music, which also allows me to upload stuff to my own GPM library if it isn't already in their catalogue. I also have about 14K songs on my hard drive, which I listen to when I'm home. However, most audio files on my hard drive are from before 2016.

7 qualifiers predicted right, out of 10. Serbia was a huge surprise to me. Australia and Slovenia weren't, though I thought they'd just miss making the cut. Here's the recap of the final, in running order. I think the running order benefits especially Cyprus and France.

I was at yesterday's dress rehearsal of semifinal 2, once again in the Golden Circle. The musical quality is remarkably lower than that of semifinal 2. Probably the lowest-quality semifinal in Eurovision history. Anyway, these are the 10 countries that I expect to be announced as finalists tonight: Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Ukraine.

I was in the Golden Circle for both Monday's jury rehearsal and the live semifinal. As always an amazing experience I managed to predict 8 of the 10 qualifiers: I had Armenia and Azerbaijan in, Albania and Bulgaria out. However, I'm thrilled that Albania and Bulgaria made it through 🙂