Ireland – Earlier this year Ireland and RTE announced that they internally selected Westlife Star Nicky Byrne who will be flying the Irish Flag in Stockholm in May with his song. Tonight Nicky has performed the song live for the first time on the Ray D’Arcy Show
Nicky and his team have been rehearsing all week in the hopes to present the feel and look they wish to achieve at the Contest and he had this to say about it
“We’ve been working really hard in rehearsals over the past few weeks and I can’t wait to perform in front of Ray’s live studio audience and everyone watching at home. I’m so thrilled to be representing Ireland at Eurovision in Stockholm this year. I’m looking forward to seeing how people react to the song – the feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive and the good luck wishes have been flooding in.” (Source eurovision.tv)
Nicky has been working with former Syco Creative Director Tim Byrne who has worked on the British reality shows The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent to put the performance together.
Update: You can watch the performance in the video below
The Eurovision Times 
I think there’s a problem with the video…
It works for me. What issues are you having?
Sound and image are not synchronized :(
Ok, fixed now ;)
Not bad !
Ireland is still in the lead on my list. :)
…and still at the bottom of mine :P
Defintely the best song selected so far, not even close
Though the line “just touch who you wanna” might need to be changed ;)
Yes. Except he can’t sing and the song is so dated, moths will soon be coming out of his mouth.
Another year, another performance stuck in the semis for Ireland.
Im pretty sure a former member of one of the biggest bands out there can at the very least sing…And from watching the video its quite clear he can sing but is nervous. Anyway he is going to a few national finals from what I’ve heard and probably EIC so there is time to get his confidence built.
I very much doubt it will be stuck in the Semis, this is 1/5 of Westlife and so far its the best song
Sorry, I don’t like this. And I’m afraid there’s not much that can be done to improve it.
Better than I expected. Together with Albania and Spain among the 3 entries I don’t think utter waste.
I know she has her haters here but just wanted to mention that, whether u like her and her song or not, Barei sure rocked Ukraine semi final with her performance, and Ukray,yay.yay, (apparently Ukraine got hold of her song!!)
It’s my second most favorite atm :)
watch out europe here comes our lovelt barei!!
Fine performence ! Whenever I watch Barei’s perfomences she makes me remember of a local singer Sofi Mkheyan :) Her stage behavior, styling….. Even the “Beauty marks” on their faces are nearly the same….. Just like twin sisters…
On San Remo some good news (at least for me)
2 of my favorites made it in top 3 and there’s still televoting on !
I think Francesco Grabbani’s Amen is better than all the ones we listened tonight :)
I love him as a performer but I think both Nessun grado di separazione and probably Via da qui are better songs.
I wouldn’t mind Amen to Stockholm though, it would even top my current list :)
The PB site has crashed. :(
I hope that thy’ll recover soon. After all, I am in a voting game with ITA92 there atm. :)
3rd place: Giovanni and Deborah! :o
Stadio wins SR! :cry:
*win
I wonder if they’ll go to Stockholm.
Let’s hope not. It would be a terrible result for Italy. :(
Stadio won San Remo :o but I do hope the ticket for Stockholm is given to the runner up (Francesca) who had my favourite 2016 San Remo song!
As we Greeks say { patos } = bottom !
I doubt they will end up representing Italy in Stockholm. Let’s wait !
GO FRANCESCA!
Never say never !
I insist: Amen to Stockholm! :P
I think they have not accepted RAI’S offer to go to esc.
The Italian hopeful is still unknown!
That’s the Italy we know … and love (?). LOL
Italy = Chaos … that’s the reason most Germans go there at least once a year … to keep sane … LOL
So, they will be announcing their entrant …in due time?! :)
Yes!
Dimitris is right ! RAI wrote on twitter that Stadio won’t represent Italy in the upcoming contest! Hurray!
Good night to everyone who is still around. :)
Goodnight! :)
Good night!
I checked out Amen and it’s amazing! I’d love for Italy to pick this as their entry instead, but it’s highly unlikely.
I have just done the same and also really like it
It’s highly likely… The only time the San Remo Campioni winner didn’t represent Italy was back in 2011 when the Nuevo Proposte winner did instead!
and 2012 :P
Ah well I only started following Eurovision in 2013 so I didn’t know about that. I also just assumed the act would be selected from the other campioni contestants.
Saturday was the anniversary of the Dresden bombing in 1945. This is my most favourite Greek anti-war song
http://www.stixoi.info/stixoi.php?info=Translations&act=details&t_id=155
Goodnight! :)
what a lovely song, as you know. greek language sounds so close to me when I listen to it, in Spanish or to be honest closer to even Catalan language, not sure why maybe for the roots of the language
I understand a lot of words,any! anyway bona nit! buenas noches!
irish song as expected, he sounds kind of lame singing and the song is lame too
He was good but not good enough to overtake Barei on my rankings. Weirdly enough the 3 songs chosen yesterday and today are my new top 3 as well :
1. Switzerland – 9.0/10
2. Austria – 8.2/10
3. Denmark – 8.0/10
4. Spain – 7.5/10
5. Ireland – 7.3/10
6. Malta – 7.2/10
7. Albania – 7.0/10
8. Belgium – 6.0/10
9. Belarus – 4.1/10
As for San Remo, this is a weird winner indeed but I guess there is some backstory in it. It’s not a bad song but it’s probably for the best that they won’t be going to esc.
Vocal and staging are decent. And I like the song. But something about it just isn’t connecting. Nicky seems rather… stiff in this performance. And the camera work is too frenetic, so there’s no opportunity to connect with him at all. At least “Heroes” had long lingering close-ups of Mans so he could sing directly to the audience (and televoters). It’s like the director couldn’t handle stillness for even one second.
Totally agree with the camera work and disconnection. It was also a very dark fare. Shame really.
The problem here is that they pretend it’s rock when it’s pop emulating Ronan Keating’s first solo efforts and not doing it too well. Styling is irritatingly last season, vocals so so and song not so. Nicky must feel this all down deep inside and it shows. Would love to love this, but down deep inside I know why this is Nicky’s first solo effort.
What I like in this edition that the enteries so far are not dull ballads only :)) Well we have songs that I don’t consider as super-puper but atleast so far we have diversity….
About Nicky Byrne : Along with Switzerland his song sounds the most likeable for my ears! Something I catch easly and sing along with the perfrmer when I’m in my car!! 7-8/12 stuff! Live prformence is OK vocally and may be improved but Nicky looks very nervous and should remember that this is ESC is TV show and he should improve his artistic game on the stage as well!
Meh… wanted to say along with Austria :))
Hello folks.
Hmmm. Well that wasn’t good imo. Quite weak tbh. It’s going to need a bigger sound if it’s to make any impact. Been keeping a low profile this during this year’s selection season as I want to really only see what is selected and not get caught up in what could or should have made it. I see Italy has chosen Francesca. Hope she has a better song. Catch ya’s later sweet people :)