BELGIUM: Gustaph goes to Liverpool!

The Belgian Eurosong grand final has just finished and Gustaph is the worthy winner that will go to Liverpool, with the song “Because of you”.

OGAE Greece was there to bring you exclusive coverage of everything that happened at Palais 12 in Brussels.

In the venue where Eurovision was held in 1987 and won by Johnny Logan more than 10 thousand spectators created an explosive atmosphere in the venue.

Eurosong presenter, journalist and commentator of the contest, Peter Van de Veire welcomed us by stressing how happy he was to be at the presentation. This is the first national final organised by Belgium since 2016.

Peter also welcomed the Spanish TV audience as for the first time the competition is also broadcast on the private channel TEN. Among the highlights of the evening was that the final was not broadcast at all on the Belgian French-speaking state channel RTBF.

The jury panel consisting of Alexander Rybak, Nikkie Tutorials, Laura Tesoro and Jérémie Makiese then greeted the audience.

7 artists fought their own battle to represent Belgium in Liverpool this year.

Belgium’s multiculturalism is reflected in tonight’s final and is a key element of it. We have a finalist from Albania (Gala Dragot), an Iraqi Kurd (Hunter Falls), a finalist of Italian origin (Loredana), but also only a single song exclusively in French. Also, Belgian Ameerah lives permanently in Los Angeles and wrote a song for Jennifer Lopez. They even drank chocolate together in her living room, as J Lo of course has a recording studio in her home (a detail you won’t read anywhere else…)

The artists’ performances

To get to today’s final during this week’s special broadcasts from VRT’s premiere channel, we had the opportunity to see the nominated artists in a bootcamp. There was the first presentation of their full songs and a first commentary from the artists themselves and the other participants. Then each artist took these comments into consideration and at the end of each show they chose the one song they will compete with today.

1. Hunter Falls – Oh la la

2. Chérine – Ca ne m’ennuie pas

3. Starlings – Rollercoaster

4. Ameerah – The Carnival

5. Gustaph – Because of You

6. Gala Dragot – T’ inquiète

7. Loredana – Lift me up

The jury

Alexander Rybak
The 2009 Eurovision winner returns to Belgium as a jury member. In 2016, the last year when the Flemish channel organised a national final, Alexander Rybak was there, even singing in the interval act!

Nikkie Tutorials
The popular make-up artist was one of the co-presenters of Eurovision 2021, and in the same year she hosted the LookLab show with all the participants.

Laura Tesoro
The winner of the last Flemish-language national final returns to the scene of the crime to assess this year’s participants. Her 10th place in 2016 remains one of Flanders’ best Eurovision results.

Jeremie Makiese
Last year’s Belgian representative will be the 4th jury member to be seen on our screens on Saturday 14 January. The winner of last year’s The Voice Belgique finished in 19th place.

The 11 experts!

Outside the panel but with voting rights, there will be a group of 11 people from the world of TV, arts and Eurovision. Among the 11 members of the jury we meet the president of OGAE Belgium Stephan Monsieur.

The other members of the jury are:

Laura Govaerts (Presenter)

Ann Reymen (Radio producer)

Korneel De Clercq (Radio Producer)

Thibault Christiaensen (Presenter)

Francisco Schuster (Actor, singer and dancer)

Leslie Cable (Head of the Eurovision team of the French-speaking channel RTBF)

Jasper Van Biesen (Head of the Songfestival.be website)

André Vermeulen (Journalist for the Flemish-language channel VRT)

Els Germonpré (Head of music programming of the Flemish-language channel)

Manu Lammens (Music producer)

The guests!

The country’s first national final since 2016 is happening and Flemish-language TV has organised an evening with many guests.

Dutch Eurovision 2019 winner Duncan Laurence gave us another unique performance of ‘Arcade’.

Alexander Rybak performed his 2009 winning song ‘Fairytale’.

The results of the jury

The final results

Because of You ended the night with a winning tally of 278 points; a 7-point lead over the runner-up T’inquiète by gala dragot.

Who is Gustaph?

Gustaph (Stef Caers, 42) wrote his first song when he was only seven years old. At the age of nineteen he scored a hit with his first single Gonna Lose You, a song that he produced and wrote himself.

His soulful voice is popular both nationally and internationally. For six years he sang with the band Hercules & Love Affair, which had a worldwide hit in 2006 with ‘Blind’. And Gustaph also has experience when it comes to the big Eurovision stage. As a backing singer, he has already participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twice: in 2018 in Lisbon with Sennek and in 2021 in Rotterdam with Hooverphonic, where he was also Geike Arnaert’s voice coach. 

For the past year he has been working on his own material. Gustaph believes his catchy new songs are perfect for the Eurovision Song Contest – and this time not as backing, but right there in the foreground, in the spotlight. 

How do you think Belgium will do at this year’s Eurovision ? We look forward to reveiving your comments.

Stay tuned to OGAE Greece for all the Belgium at Eurovision 2023 news!

Source : VRT

Photo source : Chrysoula Gkana