Well done to our representatives Jedward

Eurosong in T -5 hours, are you prepared? We have the Bucks Fizz on ice already. Speaking of which they will also be appearing on the Late Late tonight. Excited.com. Have ye picked your winner yet?

Current Betting odds (Paddypower.com) have Jedward as favorite with Nikki Kavanagh as second.

The event itself will be audited independently by PricewaterhouseCoopers who will ensure everything runs honestly and smoothly. In the interest of fairness for all acts a decision was made that the public vote will now count for 33.3% with the regional juries’ vote now accounting for 66.6% of the total vote. This was changed after an “administrative error” occured involving the release of a preview of “Lipstick”- Jedward’s entry by labelUniversal Records before the date permitted to do so.

For those of ye in Ireland then then tune into RTE 1 at 9.30 pm for The Late Late Eurosong Special.

For those of ye outside of the Republic then try here: http://www.eurovision.tv/esctv/future

We want to wish all the contestants then best of luck tonight and in the words of Late Late show host Ryan Turbidy: “It is a strange night of Eurovision stuff. Anything can happen.”

Here is a quick round up of some Eurosong articles in Irish press at the moment:

The Irish TImes

JEDWARD REMAIN the favourite to win tonight’s Eurosong despite a change in the voting arrangements which ought to favour the other contestants.

Regional juries and the public were to have an equal say on who should represent Ireland in the Eurovision, but the ratio was altered to 2:1 in favour of the juries after Jedward’s song Lipstick was leaked online last week in contravention of competition rules.

The other contestants feared an army of “texting 12-year-old girls”, as one of the artist’s mentors put it, would skew the vote and make them a shoo-in.

Their fan base included three Scottish teenagers who assembled outside the front of RTÉ yesterday for rehearsals before tonight’s contest which takes place on The Late Late Show.

Despite the change, Paddy Power has made the Grimes brothers even hotter favourites to represent Ireland in Dusseldorf on May 12th. Their odds tonight are almost 1/2 to win, in from evens at the start.

The twins were effusive about the song chosen for them by mentor and Childline concert organiser Caroline Downey.

John Grimes said: “I can’t believe we have, like, the opportunity to try and represent Ireland . . . We watch the Eurovision every single year. We’re huge fans.”

Second favourite Nikki Kavanagh said she was “absolutely thrilled” that the voting arrangement had been changed and the contest would not be an exercise in “musical GAA” with Jedward having all the support.

As a backing singer, Kavanagh witnessed Niamh Kavanagh (no relation) finish second last in last year’s Eurovision. She described Falling as “contemporary pop with an urban reference” which will play well in Europe if she can convince voters. “I’m worried that people will stick to the same safe song as they did before.”

Established singer-songwriter Don Mescall said he hoped the strength of his entry Talking with Jennifer would carry the day. “I would dearly love to represent my country, but I won’t be going for any therapy or counselling afterwards if I don’t,” he said.

Cathy Vard, part of the Vard Sisters trio, said their entry Send Me An Angel had a message of hope. “It will give comfort to people in these times,” she said.

The other entrant is Bling, a mixed four piece, who will sing Shine On.

The Herald

WE can’t wait to get on to the stage at the Late Late Show tonight and show everyone exactly what we’re made of.

And if the Irish people want to send the A-team to Germany next May, they better pick up the phone and vote for us.

It’s going to be so cool having everyone finally hear our song Lipstick after having to keep it to ourselves for so long. We’ve been humming it in our heads all week.

We can’t wait to meet up with Ryan Tubridy again. When we were on the Toy Show with him in 2009, he said that we were his favourite twins so he’s obviously a big fan.

We met Louis Copeland during the week and he made us these brilliant new suits especially for our performance tonight.

He also made us some other suits for our new tour and TV appearances so we’re going to be looking really sharp — we can’t let our fans down when it comes to our outfits, they expect a certain standard now.

Cool

We’re not feeling too nervous about tonight, we know it’s a competition but we feel that we have already proved ourselves. We’ve been around for more than a year, we went through the whole X Factor thing so this is just the next step for us.

When we were kids, we always watched the Eurovision and the acts all looked like they were having so much fun so it would be cool to experience that for ourselves.

When it comes to the other acts, we’re not really concentrating too much on them. To be honest, we consider each other as our competition and we know we have the right song. It’s a real pop-style song and has the kind of cool sound that will help us go really far in the competition.

We’re going to be doing a really cheeky performance and giving it our usual 100pc.

The whole week has been spent in Dublin as we’ve been rehearsing and practising our routine all week long to make sure it’s really sharp.

We flew back in from the UK last Sunday and we had a night off to just chill out. Monday morning we had a super early start at 6am as we had loads of interviews to do with radio stations and we started our rehearsals.

We didn’t stop until 9pm and then we did it all over again the next day. We got to meet up again with Rebecca Creighton, who’s singing with us, and our other backing dancers like Morgan Deane. They were all really cool.

On Tuesday we did a slot with Xpose which was really cool and then we had a meeting about doing a TV commercial with a fruit drink company in the UK. We can’t say which one yet — you’ll just have to watch it.

We had more interviews on Wednesday but we don’t mind because we love talking and spreading the love for Team Jedward.

Thursday morning we were up again at 6am to go into the studio and then we had to get our hair done with Louise Teasdale.

She used to do our hair when we were on the X Factor and she knows exactly what way we like our quiffs done — we don’t trust anyone else to do them.

Then it was out to RTE for a photocall and to meet with all the other acts who are going to be on Eurosong tonight. We did another full rehearsal and then we went back to the penthouse of the Dublin hotel that we were staying in.

We’ve been using that as a base for the whole week but of course, our fans managed to find us as they always manage to track us down.

John had to go out in a full disguise to do some shopping on Grafton Street so he dressed down in a hoody top and was trying to walk differently so no one would recognise him.

He still kept his shiny high tops on, though, as you can’t compromise yourself too much.

Performance

We woke up kind of nervous at 6am this morning but we’re not too bad now. We’re just really excited about going on the Late Late Show again and doing our thing.

We’re spending the day rehearsing and making sure our performance is the best on the night.

There has been lots of talk about this competition but at the end of the day, the best act will win — and we hope that will be us.

Our single is going to be released for downloading just after the Late Late Show and then goes on sale at midnight tonight.

All our fans have been so cool and have been promising they’ll buy it so we just hope they’ll stick to their promise.

- Jedward

The Irish Independant

IT’S Jedward, but not as we know them.

The pop duo yesterday described their bid to be the Irish Eurovision entry as the “next step” in their careers.

The 19-year-old twins, who perform in a ‘Late Late Show’ Eurosong special tonight, have faced a barrage of criticism this week from rival entries and former competition winners.

However, following rehearsals in RTE yesterday, the Lucan brothers claimed TV viewers tuning in tonight could expect a surprise.

“It’s Jedward but not how people have seen us before,” John said.

“What we’re trying to do is take our performance to a new level. We’re doing something very polished but with the same youthful energy. That’s why we’re calling it Jedward’s next step.”

“We will be singing live on Eurosong, and if the public decide we’re Ireland’s Eurovision entry, we will be singing live in Dusseldorf,” Edward added.

“We have the height of respect for people like Paul Harrington and Shay Healy, and the rival entries who criticised us. But we want them to know that we would be very proud to represent Ireland. We would do a good job. This is the kind of opportunity we have been waiting for. We just want to be given a chance.”

Jedward, with backing singers Morgan Deane and Rebecca Creighton from ‘X Factor’ girlband Belle Amie, will perform after Don Mescal tonight. They will be followed by new band Bling, who have been tipped as the other potential winners, with the Vard Sisters and Nikki Kavanagh fourth and fifth.

Speaking at yesterday’s rehearsal, host Ryan Tubridy welcomed a decision by RTE to split the vote two-thirds in favour of regional juries and one-third phone votes.

“I’m glad it’s not all texting,” he said. “You don’t want one section of the population who are prolific texters to run away with it.”

Something is Rotten in the State of Ireland and we ain’t talking politics this time.

There is a lot of Media backlash against the Twins and their ability to sing live, a lot of people are convinced they will not be singing live on the Late Late but their Mentor Caroline Downey-Desmond has hit out against such comments and confirmed they will be singing live. Fellow Eurosong contestants have also hit out against Jedward-bashing with both Nikki Kavanagh and The Vard Sisters making statements approving of the boys entry and of them personally. Nikki herself has come under fire for apparently making comments against the Grimes twins, these of course were just rumors started by the Anti-Jedward camp.

This article in the Herald shows as much:

Jedward’s road manager Liam McKenna has slammed suggestions that John and Edward Grimes (19) will not be singing Lipstick live.

And he revealed that he and the twins’ mentor Caroline Downey-Desmond believe there is a “dirty tricks campaign” being waged against the teenagers in their Eurosong bid.

“She is absolutely devastated this is being said about Jedward because she has tried so hard to be dignified and be involved in a fair competition but this is going too far,” he said.

“They will be 100pc singing live and it’s upsetting for anyone to accuse them otherwise without any proof.

“As far as we’re concerned, the competition starts on Friday night and this dirty tricks campaign is just in bad taste.”

He was speaking after former Eurovision winner Paul Harrington criticised the twins’ talent and said we wouldn’t get out of the semi finals with them as our entry.

Speaking while launching a rival’s entry this week, he said they would struggle to hold their own in Germany and they wouldn’t be singing live.

Composer Shay Healy also waded into the row by saying how the twins would be relying on Rebecca Creighton to do all the singing and described them as a “joke”.

However, their road manager Liam has said it’s all part of a campaign to undermine the twins’ ahead of their Eurosong performance on Friday.

“They have been up at 6am every morning this week rehearsing the song and their routine and it’s them singing it, not Rebecca,” he continued.

“We brought her in for backing vocals because there’s female lines in the song.”

We say, go on lads, do your country proud on Friday! I will admit when I first heard about Jedward entering Eurosong I did feel dread but listening to the song and seeing their dedication, if they can pull off a decent performance then they will have my vote.

In fact there have been a few comments here complaining that they cannot vote for Jedward more than 187 times, maybe we’ll restrict it to once per IP address next time

Seeing as how it is the week that it is playing Leona Daly’s song from 2008 seemed appropriate.

Leona came second to Dustin in the Irish 2008 Eurosong. In the words of Marija Šerifovi? the 2007 winner for Serbia, who was on the commenting panel for RTE on the night, “I like the one in the red dress”, and what better endorsement can you get then the current winner.

Unfortunately Leona and Europe lost out when Dustin was selected solely by public voting, the next year RTE made it 50:50 jury/public voting.

As this is what has been released on the Preview Show on RTE then these are ok to listen to as it gives no one an advantage.

Don’t forget to vote for your favorite entry here:

According to Allkindsofeverything RTÉ have changed the voting procedure of this year’s Eurosong final as one of the five mentors asked for Jedward’s diqualification because of their breach of the competition’s rules. The winner of Eurosong 2011 will be selected by a combination of televoting (33%) and jury’s choice (67%).

We reported earlier that Jedward had a 30 second snip of their song released on Amazon, this was against RTE’s rules.

“The rules of the Irish selection for Eurovision 2011 state that the competing entries can’t be performed nor published before the final of Eurosong takes place.”

Guess this means:

For those of ye in Ireland ye can see the preview show on: RTE iPlayer

Vote for your act to win Eurosong below:

That mystery group from EMI records for Eurosong was announced today as Gari Deegan, Tammy Browne, Marilyn Bane & Shane Creevey. As yet nameless the new group should be offically launched today. In a weird twist they are winning our Eurosong poll with no other information, could this be a sign that people want to see whats new?

Update – EMI Records have announced that the name is Bling!

Vote for your act to win Eurosong below:

Well a sample of it anyway, you can find the sample on Amazon.co.uk. We suspect foul play at hand here giving them an advantage. Not happy.

Sample on Amazon

Fans are going crazy over this, surely this violates RTEs Eurosong rules for being released too early. Someone is either being very clever or very stupid by releasing this too early.

Lord knows the advertising is working like crazy, a load of Irish people are already blogging/FBing it now and not just the Eurovision fans. It always was a clever move on their part to get Jedward involved – as the saying goes, theres no such thing as bad advertising

UPDATE:

The song ahs now been removed from Amazon exactly at midnight, all stinks too much for me.

But if you missed it we have a copy of it below (albiet not a good one) you just need to turn up the sound to hear it:

Jedward – Lipstick

Who did you vote for in our Eurosong poll?

RTE have a preview show this Saturday of the upcoming Eurosong show.

Marty Whelan presents a behind-the-scenes look at how the five contenders for this year’s Eurovision entry were chosen. He follows mentors Ronan Hardiman, David Hayes, Caroline Downey-Desmond, Liam Lawton and Willie Kavanagh over the course of six weeks as they select and coach their acts

The show airs Sat 5 Feb, 18:50 – 19:40 (GMT)/19:50 – 20:40 (CET) – while this clashes with Melodifestivalen I’m confident that this will pull a larger viewing audience (or not, those hallucinogens may not have worn off yet)

From RTE.ie

Late last year RTÉ Television announced that it was taking a different approach to selecting this year’s Eurovision entry.

RTÉ nominated five mentors with proven experience in the Irish music industry and asked them to select an artist and a song each, that they believe has the potential to be a Eurovision winner.

Ronan Hardiman is mentoring Don Mescall who is performing ‘Talking With Jennifer’ (written by Ronan Hardiman and Don Mescall).

Caroline Downey Desmond is the mentor for Jedward, who will sing ‘Lipstick’ (written by Dan Priddy, Lars Jensen and Martin Larson).

The mystery act will be mentored by Willie Kavanagh. They will sing a song called ‘Shine On’ (written by Patrick Mahoney).

Liam Lawton is the mentor for The Vard Sisters, who will compete with a song called ‘Send Me An Angel’ (written by Liam Lawton).

Nikki Kavanagh’s mentor is David Hayes and her song is ‘Falling’ (written by Christina Schilling and Camilla).

Viewers will get a sneak preview of the five acts in ‘Eurosong 2011 – The Players’, a special behind-the-scenes documentary which will be broadcast on Saturday 5 February on RTÉ One.

In this documentary Marty Whelan follows the five mentors through the six weeks they have been allotted by RTÉ to find a winning act for the Eurovision Song Contest.

The winning act will be selected on ‘Eurosong 2011′ on ‘The Late Late Show’ on Friday 11 February.

As was the case last year, Ireland’s Eurovision entry will be selected by a combination of public and regional jury vote.

This is how the line-up of this year’s Eurosong is looking like :

1. Don Mescall - Talking with Jennifer (Ronan Hardiman & Don Mescall )
2. Jedward - Lipstick (Dan Priddy, Lars Jensen and Martin Larson)
3. Mystery Act - Shine On (Patrick Mahoney)
4. The Vard Sisters - Send me an angel (Liam Lawton)
5. Nikki Kavanagh - Falling (Christina Schilling, Camilla Gottschalck, Jonas Gladnikoff and Hanif Sabzevari)

Don’t forget to vote for your favourite song in Eurosong 2011