THIS YEAR'S ENTRY

 SELECTION
This year it's the turn of Flemish broadcaster VRT to represent Belgium at Eurovision. VRT has traditionally staged big national selections, but in September they announced that there would be a change for 2010 and in November they announced that they would opt for an internal selection for Oslo and on November 25th, it was confirmed that "Idols" discovery Tom Dice (aka Tom Eeckhout) would be Belgium's Eurovision performer. On March 7th Tom presented the song "My And My Guitar" as his Eurovision entry, in a special show on VRT.

 BIOGRAPHY
For Tom Dice, flying the flag for Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest is a dream come true. He's a true musician and that's also why his song is just about that - he and his guitar.

Ever since he can remember, the twenty-year-old Tom has been working on his music. He started his music career at music school but soon realised he longed for something else. He taught himself how to play the guitar and wrote his very first song when he was twelve years old. At age fifteen Tom started his own band, The Dice. That name now lives on as Tom’s stage name.

Tom has always had a special relationship with his fans. Already well-known in his home region, one of his local fans entered him for the auditions of the Belgian edition of talent show X Factor in 2008. Not only did Tom Dice make it to the show, thanks to his magnificent voice and his fans’s never-ending support, he survived all eleven live TV shows and finished second. By June of the same year Tom released his first single, a moving acoustic version of Leona Lewis’s Bleeding Love. The single was an instant success in Belgian hit charts.

The next big step for Tom is representing Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest in Norway. For the Song Contest he, Jeroen Swinnen and Ashley Hicklin wrote a song called Me And My Guitar, a warm and authentic ballad about Tom’s first and last love: music.

Talking about the production of their entry, the composer of it Jeroen Swinnen says: "I didn’t work in the usual way for the final version of the song, first recording drums, bass and other instruments and only then the singing at the end. I first recorded Tom’s performance, and then had these great musicians play to his recording."

 REACTION
"My And My Guitar" became an instant hit in the Flemish charts, going to #1 within a couple of weeks of its presentation and a promotional video, filmed inn California has also been released.

After years of failing to make the Eurovision final since 2004, bookmakers have this year's Belgian entry as one of the favourites to qualify from semi-final one, although it can be backed at 66/1 to win in Oslo. However, the song is generally doing less well in internet polls, where it generally does not feature in the Top 10 entries.

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