[LMBTO] UK Eurovision Winners : Katrina and the Waves - "Love Shine A Light" (1997)

This blog is one month from its third birthday and my original remit was to look at Eurovision from a Brit's perspective.  Let's just say that I have expanded how I have viewed Eurovision over the past 35 months and some of the things I thought I would write about relatively quickly have not yet happened!  One of those was having a look at the five winning UK entries - it has been a long time since I compared Bucks Fizz's performance in Dublin in 1981 to a 'well worked training ground routine', so I felt it was time to have a look at our fifth and last win, NINETEEN long years ago...

We were back in Ireland at the Point Theatre in Dublin after 'The Voice' had given Ireland its seventh win in Oslo in 1996.  It was all becoming 'old hat' for the Irish, hosting the Contest for the fourth time in five years with even Ronan Keating getting a crack at co-hosting the show.  Lots of differing music styles were to be found amongst the 25 entries - rap, boy bands and a Balkan version of The Spice Girls - but the big name, or should I say a blast from the past, seeing that their last big pay day had been seven years earlier, was this band:
Katrina and The Waves had drifted out of the spotlight during the 1990s after their international success in the late 1980s, mainly on the back of the smash worldwide hit "Walking On Sunshine".  Depending on what you read, the Samaritans / BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's Head Of Music Dan Chisholm / Jonathan King / Warner Bros. Records executive Steve Allan (delete as applicable) were the trigger for this band to enter a song written by the band's regular songwriter Kimberley Rew into the Great British Song Contest 1997, all for the princely sum of £250.  Have a watch of the summary show - just imagine if second place "Yodel in the Canyon of Love" by Do Re Mi & Kerry had won:



Only Katrina and Kimberly were to appear on stage of the NF - the rest of the group got their chance on the big stage in Ireland but Kimberly had had enough by then, refusing to appear at Eurovision itself.  His "Rock 'n' Roll" integrity kept at the expense of performing the song that would probably be what Katrina And The Waves would forever be known for?  Tough call to make for some musicians, especially as the potential rewards were so great, considering the exposure to a worldwide audience even then.  Having said that, "Walking On Sunshine" was a massive hit around the music world eleven years previously and the band went into the Contest as favourites.  Sixteen years had passed since Bucks Fizz had given the UK their fourth win - could the UK be looking at a fifth?  Singing second to last as the big favourite really set everything up perfectly, all that was needed was a spot on performance:


I remember watching this live and there was never a doubt that we would be celebrating our fifth victory!  Every Eurovision winner brings their top game to the stage and KATW were no different...



From the first jury scores given out, it was obvious that the UK was going to win - 227 points (at least one from every single voting country) out of a maximum 288 (78.81% - 3rd highest ever after Nicole and Brotherhood Of Man) and Katrina Leskanich had helped write herself and the guys into Eurovision history.

Katrina always thought that this song would be a winner - her words during this very 'open' interview spoke volumes of how confident she was pre-show (which also shows clearly how humour works well with certain cultures but not others, I was cracking up with the subtleness of her quips but the poor interviewer didn't have a clue at times):


Time has not dimmed the brilliance of this entry - this song still kicks ass even nineteen years on!  I was one of the lucky ones to see Katrina perform "Love Shine A Light" flawlessly at this year's UK National Final - a lot of fans there (including me) felt that it was the best song of the night:



Personally, I think that "Love Shine A Light" in its 1997 guise would give 21st Century Eurovision a good go and most years would be there or thereabouts at the end of the night.  It's so damn catchy, the whole stage show is incredibly engaging and Katrina's vocals would be amongst the best every single year.  The entry's simplicity is its main strength - no need for pyros, dancers or outlandish backdrops, the song and its singer is everything.  As long as the camera stayed relatively tight on Katrina, her backing singers and the band, the anthemic nature of the song itself would carry this through.  I love this song and it just about nudges Brotherhood Of Man out as my favourite UK winning song...
Katrina said in a Metro interview in 2009 that "our song was quickly forgotten because we didn’t have any sensational gimmick like Bucks Fizz"...