With the most eargerly anticipated Irish national final in years due to take place this coming Saturday RTE radio premiered the six entries that will compete for the Irish ticket.
The Derek Mooney show on RTE radio 1 had the honour of giving the six songs their first full outing in any medium. Snippets of the songs had been heard on ‘The afternoon show’ on RTE’s first TV channel. There was also a quick chat with each of the contestants.
The Mooney show aired each songs and then had a discussion between a specially formed panel. The panel included the 2005 Irish entry composer, Karl Broderick and RTE’s Eurovision expert Paul G. Sheridan. The panelist were of very different viewpoints with regard to Dustin’s entry. Whether they liked it or not they were all sceptical as to possibility that our European brothers would understand his humouros song. Brenda Power, a regular host on the Gerry Ryan show, which also airs on Radio 1, was very scathing of Maya’s entry, ‘Time to rise’. She said that she was "extremely uncomfortable" about the idea of having an entry that had no link to Ireland representing "us at the Eurovision Song Contest".
They were all very positive about Leona Daly’s entry but they were worried that it wasn’t Eurovision enough. Liam Geddes entry got a bit of a roasting from the panel, they all thought it was boring and Brenda Power made a point of telling eveyone it made her fall asleep. The panel also felt that Marc Roberts entry was a little bit dated, but Ms Power again made her point heard and said that she "expected more from Marc", but she did say that she knew Marc was an excellent showman and would really sell the song.
Remember you can heat the song on RTE radio 1’s website later today by looking for Thursday’s edition of ‘The Mooney show‘. It should also be noted that EuroVisionary will be live at the Eurosong 2008 final and will be bringing you all the latest news.
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In my view
All the songs are of a standard that would far outreach most of Ireland’s recent entries. I think it is between Donal, Dustin and maybe even Maya, but that is based on studio versions which I heard today.
The opinion expressed in "In my view" are those of the author and are not necessarily the one of EuroVisionary.com.
