Tuesday, 19 June 2007

Azerbaijan not joining after all

Despite earlier indications to the contrary, AzTV has in fact been denied active EBU membership at the EBU meeting on the 15th June 2007. This means that Azerbaijan cannot enter the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008 to be held in Belgrade, Serbia.
The EBU decided that AzTV was not seperate enough from the Azeri state, which is one of the requirements for active membership. However, Arzu Abdullayev of AzTV has confirmed that AzTV will apply again for active membership in January 2008, and if that application is successful, then Azerbaijan may debut as early as 2009.
esctoday.com is currently collecting information from active EBU members all over the European broadcasting area, and will bring you a full rundown on the status of each country's participation later this summer.

Hanna & Evridiki to support Evanescence

This year’s Eurovision Song Contest artists Hanna Pakarinen and Evridiki have been chosen to be the support act of the American alternative rock band Evanescence. The band will be performing tonight at Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland and next Saturday, 23rd of June at Karaiskaki Football Field in Athens, Greece.
The successful American band Evanescence is currently on tour in Europe, promoting their second album The Open door. The 13-track album was released last October and in its first week of sales earned the first ranking on the Billboard 200 album chart. The band’s debut album Fallen sold almost 15 million copies worldwide and for 43 weeks got a position on the Billboard Top 10.
Evanescence perform tonight at the Hartwall Arena, in Helsinki, Finland, at 19:00 CET and Hanna Pakarinen, Finland’s representative at the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest will be the support act. The band will introduce for the first time their new guitar player and drummer, Troy McLawhorn and Will Hunt, who replace former John LeCompt and Rocky Gray.
Next Saturday 23rd of June another artist from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, Evridiki, Cyprus' representative, together with Dimitris Korgialas will support the band at their concert in Athens, Greece. The event takes place at Karaiskaki Football Field.