The Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna was the place for the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest, thanks to the previous year’s win of Conchita Wurst. Sure enough, Conchita was one of the hosts along with three Austrian television presenters. Austria’s first winner, Udo Jurgens, unfortunately died just five months before the 2015 Contest.
Forty countries participated in that year’s Contest. That year’s theme was “Building Bridges” and I’m sure a lot of musical bridges were built during the Contest. The most noticeable was the first-time appearance of Australia by Guy Sebastian. Many people thought it was odd to have Australia in Eurovision at first, but they were welcomed wholeheartedly in the end as Guy charmed the crowd with his jazzy number.
One thing about the performances that year is it became apparent how Eurovision was increasingly becoming as much about the show as it was the song. There was a lot of use of the lighting effects, the LED and even many uses of the smoke machine and wind machine.
The first two semifinals provided a lot of unusual sights. Moldova’s entry had dancers in tight policewear, the song with the least points was ironically titled “Time To Shine,” the singer from the Netherlands looked like she was drowning in her outfit, and the Czech Republic scored more points here than in all their previous entries combined and still didn’t qualify!
The Grand Final opened in what many consider to be the best Grand Final opening ever with the four hosts, the Vienna Boys Choir, the Vienna Radio Symphony Choir and rap duo Left Boy performing the Contest’s theme song “Building Bridges.” This was the first Grand Final with twenty-seven nations participating: a Grand Final record.
The Contest started with an energetic vibe from Maraaya from Slovenia, headphones and all. The Final had a lot of great performances like Israel celebrating being a “Golden Boy,” Serbia celebrating bodily acceptance, Belgium delivering on intensity, Montenegro delivering a Balkan Ballad that would give them their best-ever finish, Hungary and Romania delivering powerful messages in both song and show, and Georgia showing why she’s a warrior. The night had some weirdness too. The UK mixed “electroswing” with lighting effects on their clothes, Austria delivered a burning piano that would anger Jerry Lee Lewis, and Azerbaijan had dancers that acted like wolves! The Final ended with a bang with Italy’s Il Volo delivering an unforgettable “popera” number!
The scoring would be the last where jury and televoting would be combined into a single set of points. The weirdness there included Greece and Cyprus not giving each other 12 points, and two entries getting null points but Austria getting a higher finish because of the running order!
The winning entry was a legendary one: Mans Zelmerlow from Sweden with “Heroes.” It was a high energy song that came with dazzling LED effects, energetic lighting and a positive message. The weird thing is after that win, Sweden’s sixth, there has been something called “Sweden envy” every Contest since!