Eurovision 2001: Copenhagen

Denmark had two problems after winning: not enough money, and nowhere big enough. Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense all bid. The answer, in the end, was the national football stadium.

Parken got the contest after the company that ran it agreed to build a retractable roof. That turned it into the biggest venue the contest had ever used, with room for 38,000 — more than double the record set in Stockholm the year before.

It was too big. Many people in the audience could not see the stage, and a lot of the songs looked lost in it.

Doctor Death and the Tooth Fairy

The presenters, Natasja Crone Back and Søren Pilmark, delivered their entire script in rhyming couplets.

Terry Wogan, commentating for the BBC, could not leave that alone. He made fun of the pair throughout and gave them a nickname, “Doctor Death and the Tooth Fairy”.

Denmark was not amused. The offence was serious enough that the BBC had to apologise.

A song that sounded familiar

Sweden’s entry, “Listen to Your Heartbeat”, was accused again and again of copying Belgium’s song of 1996. The Swedish writers denied it.

The EBU’s answer was to leave it to the courts: the song could compete unless a court ruled that it was plagiarism. It competed, and came fifth. Eventually, with the Belgian writers and their rights society pressing for legal action, the matter was closed with a cash settlement.

How the votes were counted

Most countries used a public telephone vote, limited to three calls per household. For the first time, countries that did not want to rely on the public alone could choose a half-and-half mix of televote and jury.

The interval

The Danish pop group Aqua played a medley of their hits with the percussion duo Safri Duo. There were complaints afterwards about the language at the start and end of “Barbie Girl”.

The result

The bookmakers had Greece as the hot favourite, Sweden second, and France, Slovenia and Denmark next. Estonia was not in the conversation.

Once the voting started it was a two-horse race, and neither horse was Greece. Estonia and the host, Denmark, pulled away from everyone. Estonia finished on 198 points and Denmark on 177.

The winning song was “Everybody”, sung by Tanel Padar and Dave Benton with the group 2XL. It was the first victory for any of the countries of the former Eastern Bloc that had joined in the 1990s.

Benton, who was born and raised in Aruba, was the first black performer to win the contest. At fifty, he was also the oldest winner up to that time.

Greece had to settle for third, which was still its best result so far. Ireland, seven times a winner, finished twenty-first, its worst. Norway shared last place.