Had COVID-19 not intervened, Eurovision would have been held in Rotterdam this week, an event made all the more exciting because Iceland’s Daði Freyr and Gagnamagnið were strongly favoured to win. Iceland still found a way to celebrate the occasion, however, with a live Eurovision party on Thursday night featuring none other than Will Ferrell, RÚV reports.
Called ‘Okkar 12 stig’ (‘Our 12 Points’), the event gave Icelanders the opportunity to celebrate their favourite 15 songs from this year’s competition and then call in to determine which song would have gotten Iceland’s full twelve points (or, ‘douze points,’ in French, as those familiar with the song competition’s multilingual points announcement system would have it). Ferrell, who is playing an Icelandic Eurovision contestant alongside Rachel McAdams in a forthcoming Netflix movie, was given the honour of announcing Iceland’s top song for 2020: “Fai Rumore,” by Italy’s Diodato.
The event also featured a montage of all the times Iceland has been awarded 12 points by another country in Eurovision and Hatari’s Klemens Hannigan performing a subdued and distinctly un-Hatari rendition of the winning song from last year’s Eurovision: “Arcade,” by Duncan Laurence of The Netherlands
The evening closed with a rousing performance of Daði Freyr and Gagnamagnið’s “Think About Things,” which included cameo appearances by actor Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (Game of Thrones, The Innocents), members of parliament, and none other than President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson and First Lady Eliza Reid.
Diodato sent his thanks to Iceland via video, saying, “Hello, Iceland, thank you so much for your support. I hope to see you soon. We’ll have to stand naked under a waterfall and spread the love. Ciao.”
You can watch the full broadcast on RÚV here.
