THIS YEAR'S ENTRY
Before the
break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s,
Croatia provided some of the more successful
Yugoslav entries, including their only winner
"Rock Me" performed by Riva in 1989.
Consequently it was Zagreb in Croatia rather
than Yugoslav capital Belgrade that staged the
1990 Eurovision Song Contest. Like their
former Yugoslav neighbours Slovenia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia made their
Eurovision debut, after in 1993 in Millstreet,
soon after gaining independence. Croatia had a
reasonably strong record in the Eurovision Song
Contest until failing to qualify from the
semi-final in 2007. Before that Croatia had
performed in every Eurovision final achieving
three Top 5 results.
Once again
Croatian broadcaster HRT chose to have a
national final to select its Eurovision entry
for 2008. Over two nights on February 22nd and
23rd a jury and a public teveote combined to
select "Romanca" (Romance) performed
by the folk group Kraljevi Ulice with guest star
75 Cents as the Croatian entry for Belgrade.
Kraljevi Ulice
(Kings of the Street), are a legendary band of
street performers whose story begins in 1987.
The members are Miran Hadži Veljkovic (the
composer and lyricist of "Romanca")
and Zlatko Petrovic Pajo. They often perform as
a quartet with the help of their friends and
great musicians, the irreplaceable Ladislav
Demeterffy Laci on the accordion and Zoran
Lovric Zoc. In their native Croatia, they have
won over the hearts of sympathisers of all ages
with their performances and charm.
For the last
ten years Kraljevi Ulice have successfully
organised street festivals and events. They are
the authors of the "Cest is d' Best"
festival, "A Martin is in Zagreb"
event and "Summer on Stross". They
organise Marks Fair and Promenade Concerts. They
are also the initiators of one of the most
important city events today, Advent in the Heart
of Zagreb.
For Kraljevi
Ulice, it was third time lucky at this year's
Dora (the Croatia's Eurovision selection) having
twice failed to qualify. In 2006, their song
"Kao San" (Like A Dream) won the
public televote, but lost out to Severina's
"Moja štikla" (My Stilettos) when the
jury votes were added. A year later and a
similar fate befell their second entry
"Pjesma Za Novcic" (Song For A Nickle)
which again won the public televote but lost out
to Dragonfly featuring Dado Topic when the jury
votes were added.
This year
Kraljevi Ulice recruited a guest performer
Ladislav 'Laci' Demeterfy to help their cause.
Laci who tells the narative of
"Romanca" calls himself 75 Cents in
celebation of his age, which makes him the
oldest performer in Eurovision's history.
Ironically in this year's Dora, Kraljevi Ulice
naroowly failed to win the public televote but
this time in a reversal of fortune the jury vote
came to their rescue and gave them Croatia's
ticket to Belgrade. Due to
political tensions which remain in the Balkans,
the Croatian delegation has requested special
security arrangements for the visit to the
Serbian capital.
Despite having
a previously good qualification record, this
year's Croatian entry is not one of the
favourites to emerge from the second semi-final.
Also polls on the internet suggest that
"Romanca" is not favoured by
Eurovision fans.
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