'Home Concerts' have become a huge trend where over the last week former Australian Eurovision artists have held their own 'Home Concerts'. Over the weekend Eurovision held its first 'Eurovision Home Concerts' series through their YouTube channel.
Due to the current global pandemic of COVID-19, self isolation and social distancing has seen the mass cancellation of all live performances, concerts and shows, including 'Eurovision Song Contest 2020'. Musicians have been doing their part in keeping us all together and united.
This new 'Eurovision Home Concerts' series will feature a new episode every Friday at 17:00 CEST until May 15 (that is every Saturday morning at 1:00am AEST in Australia) the day before the newly announced ‘Eurovision: Europe Shine a Light’. Luckily for us Australians we can still watch it later.
Episode 1 included many Eurovision favourites:
Ryan O’Shaughnessy who represented Ireland in 2018 with ‘Together’. He sung his Eurovision along with a cover of Daði og Gagnamagnið’s ‘Think About Things’.
Rasmussen who represented Denmark in 2018 with ‘Higher Ground’. He sung a cover of the Eurovision winning song ‘Only Teardrops’ by Emmelie de Forest.
Tamara Todevska who represented North Macedonia in 2019 with ‘Proud’. She sung a cover of Mahmood’s ‘Soldi’.
Slavko Kalezic who represented Montenegro in 2017 with ‘Space’. He sung a very energetic cover of ‘Fuego’.
You can watch the first episode here:
Over the last few days Eurovision has made announcements on more artists that will take part in their 'Eurovision Home Concerts', they include:
Eurovision 2016 winner Jamala
Australia’s own Eurovision 2020 and 2021 artist Montaigne
Iceland Eurovision 2020 artist Daði Freyr from Daði og Gagnamagnið
Denmark's Eurovision 2019 artist Leonora
North Macedonia's Eurovision 2020 entrant Vasil Garvanliev
Finland's Eurovision 2020 entrant Aksel
Switzerland's Eurovision 2020 entrant Gjon's Tears
Further announcements are expected during the week.
You can catch the next episode of 'Eurovision Home Concerts' on April 11 Saturday morning in Australia at 1:00am AEST or Friday April 10, in the evening in Europe at 17:00 CEST.
'Home Concerts' have not just been limited to the Eurovision channel.
Over the last few weeks many previous Australia Decides and Australian Eurovision contestants have been busy performing in ‘Home Concerts’. (You can follow the artists' socials for more information on up coming events.)
Below are some notable performances.
In an act of solidarity in the start of the week, John Foreman's Aussie Pops Orchestra (John Foreman is most known as the Music Director from Australian Idol from 2003-2008) together with SupportAct joined many Aussie artists in a cover of ‘What A Wonderful World’. It featured many Australian Eurovision and Australia Decides participants Dami Im, Isaiah Firebrace, Courtney Act, AYDAN and Casey Donovan. They joined forces to raise awareness to Support Act a charity that raises money to help those that have lost work in the music industry.
If you can, please support artists and live acts through a charity called Supportact on https://supportact.org.au/ it is Australia’s only charity that delivers crisis relief services to artists, crew and music workers. There is an option to donate to the COVID19 Emergency Appeal.
Australia's Eurovision 2015 entrant, Guy Sebastian, performed a 'Home Concert' which included cameos of his children. His concert was part of a partnership of the World Health Organisation with Global Citizen to bring awareness to how you can take action to help slow the spread of coronavirus. For those who missed out you can watch his performance here:
Australia's vocal powerhouse and Eurovision 2016 runner-up Dami Im has also got into the spirit. She will is performing a new song each week as part of a concert series of hers called 'Sunday Sessions', as Dami Im stated on social media:
"As we are in isolation I really miss touring and performing for people in public.. I don't know when I can put on another concert but I've decided to upload a song each week and call it the Sunday Sessions. It's a strange time we are living through and many people are feeling anxious and scared... my prayer is that these songs help you be comforted and feel the protection and love of God in your darkest hour. In the meantime let me know if you have any song requests!"
You can watch Dami Im's first song from her concert series ‘I Surrender All’ here.
Also subscribe to her YouTube Channel to keep up to date with her future performances.
Australia's 2018 Eurovision entrant Jessica Mauboy is set to take part in Foxtel’s all-Australian music initiative on Channel [V], the network’s music contemporary channel. Channel [V] are set to play popular music videos and exclusive live performances from Jessica Mauboy, 'Eurovision - Australia Decides - 2020' entrant Vanessa Amorosi and other Australian artists which include Conrad Sewell, Ruel, Thelma Plum, Thandi Phoenix and more.
It kicked off today from 9am and will run each Monday.