As part of the celebration they held a concert at the Song Festival Grounds. The concert was mostly made up of Estonian acts, but there were a number of musicians from other countries. While at the concert I ran into Birgit, the woman that managed the summer school, and Anna Lisa, who was a student at the summer school. I ended up spending most of my time there with Anna Lisa as we both wanted to get close to the stage.
Someone on Youtube has put up videos from the concert. Click on the name of the musicians if you want to see their performance.
I missed the first act, but I did see Kimmo Pohjonen. He is a Finnish musician and from what I read, what he's doing here is a revival of accordion wrestling. Traditionally, wrestlers in Finland would compete as accordion music played. It was odd, but entertaining.
Next up was Brainstorm, a Latvian band that once performed at Eurovision. The video is of them performing the song they competed with. They finished third.
They were followed by an Estonian act, Ewert & the Two Dragons. I thought the song in the video was pretty cool. It's a retelling of the song "Jolene" from the perspective of the guy, who ends up rejecting Jolene.
Some of the other acts were Vaiko Eplik, a male pop singer who sings in Estonian, Iiris, a female pop singer with an adorable voice, Chalice, who sings Estonian ballads, and Dagö, an Estonian rock band. Malcolm Lincoln, Estonian's 2010 Eurovision entry, also performed, but there's no video up yet. Besides they didn't perform their Eurovision song.
The act that seemed to excite the crowd the most was Kerli, Estonia's most popular pop star. She is often compared to Lady Gaga with her dance music and strange outfits.
Kerli was followed by some more patriotic songs. This man and patriotically-dressed little girl led a song where they would sing a line which the crowd would repeat. Unfortunately I can't find any information on the song or its importance, but it must be important because it went on for 12 minutes.
The final performance of the night was by Sinead O'Connor (I couldn't find a better video). It was kind of strange, having an Irish singer headline an Estonian national event, but apparently she had performed in Estonia fairly soon after its independence, so they wanted her return.
Of course, music wasn't the only thing at this event. There was a speech by the president, which at first surprised me, because, to me, it didn't seem like the kind of event such a politically important person would come to. However, It was in the capital of Estonia and this was the big Independence Day event, even being broadcasted on television. It's just very different being in such a small country. It's also very different in that many of the people speaking at the event remembered independence, so they weren't speaking about history and the ideals of their forefathers, but about their own experiences. One exception was a speech by a guy whose birthday was August 20th, 1991. He of course didn't remember independence, but it was actually a really great speech. His father had been imprisoned for distributing literature that was banned during the Soviet Era.
Around 11pm, they did a countdown. I learned later, the reason for this was that Estonia declared independence on August 20th at 11:02pm. They then shot off a bunch of fireworks.
At midnight, they did an official start for Iceland Day. Iceland had been the first country to recognize Estonian independence, so to honor this, several musicians and other artists were invited to Estonia. As part of the official opening the president of Iceland came and gave a speech. So on the same day I saw two former Eurovision entries, I saw two heads of state.
The president of Iceland (left) and the president of Estonia (right). My friend Laura, got to meet the president of Iceland recently as well, which she talks about on her blog.
It's very different celebrating independence in a country that is not only so small, but also one where independence is such a recent memory. They don't really show the same kind of patriotism as in the US, but I think that's more due to anti-nationalist sentiments that are pervasive in Europe. Also unlike the US, instead it setting its own path, Estonia looks to the rest of Europe for inspiration as it tries to shape a European identity. I think another big difference is that Estonia didn't gain its independence militarily, so there is no jingoistic rhetoric. There also hasn't been enough time for the leaders of the independence movement to gain a kind of legendary status. Even reading about independence, no individuals really stand out. They tend to treat events leading to independence as a collective action of the whole populace.
2 comments:
Um... is the president from Estonia a vampire?
Yeah, I wanted to make a comment on his wardrobe, but I couldn't think of anything to say.
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