Lord of the Lost sings for Germany at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest (ESC): Thanks to the audience votes, the group from the Hamburg district of St. Pauli was able to clearly prevail in the ESC preliminary round in Cologne on Saturday night. A German ESC contribution has never been more rocking – even if the gloomy band name means Lord of the Lost, the internationally known group with their shrill outfits and their spectacular show can hope for a lot of attention.
The ESC final is on May 13th in Liverpool. After the cancellation of Frida Gold due to illness, a total of eight singers and bands competed against each other in the German preliminary round. The competition was more diverse and stronger than in previous years.
Lord of the Lost were favorites in advance, their album “Blood
However, the preliminary decision was much more exciting than expected, which was due to the award of points. An international jury from eight countries awarded half of the points, the other half by the audience. The singer Will Church was clearly ahead of the judges with 90 points, his performance was reminiscent of the British Sam Ryder, who finished second in the ESC final last year. Lord of the Lost received only 43 points from the jury and ended up in fifth place. The international jury had no chance at all for party pop singer Ikke Hipgold, who only got ten points from them.
However, the audience rating completely changed the picture. Here Lord of the Lost scored by far the most points with 146 points – and thus moved up to first place in the overall ranking. Ikke Hipgold got 101 points from the audience, so he made second place together with the jury favorite Will Church. Will Church only got 21 points from the audience.
Lord of the Lost are completely unusual for a German starter, Malik Harris and Jendrik, who were last and penultimate at the ESC in the previous two years, had rather unspectacular performances. Lord of the Lost, on the other hand, rely on extroverted costumes, dark rock and lots of pyrotechnics on stage.
However, rather hard sounds are not uncommon at the ESC and, above all, not without a chance. In 2021, for example, the Italian rock band Maneskin won the final. One of the best-known performances in the long history of the ESC is the spectacle of the Finnish hard rock band Lordi, who won the competition dressed as a monster with the song “Hard Rock Hallelujah” in 2006.
Last year, the Kalush Orchestra from Ukraine won the ESC final. The winning country is usually the host of the next competition. Because of the ongoing Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) moved the final to Great Britain, whose entry finished second last year. The city of Liverpool was then awarded the contract as host.
In recent years, Germany has almost consistently disappointed at the world’s most respected music competition. In the past five final rounds, the German starters ended up in 25th place four times, the only exception being fourth place Michael Schulte in 2018.
