Like their neighbours Slovenia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia made their Eurovision debut in 1993 in
Millstreet. Almost uniquely, Croatia has performed in every
Eurovision final since then, achieving three Top 5 results, however
recent years have been disappointing, with no Top 10 finish since
2001.
This year's Croatian selection took place over
the first three nights of March, with a massive 32 songs being
whittled down to the eventual winner, through two semi-finals and a
final. As often happens in national finals where both a jury and
the public are involved in selecting a country's entry, there was
no concensus on what was the best entry. While the jury awarded its
top points to the rock ballad "Vjerujem u Ljubav"
performed by the rock group Dragonfly, featuring the song's writer
rock star Dado Topic, it was only the second choice of the public.
Dragonfly
are a popular Croatian rock band. They were initially formed in
mid ‘90s under the name "The Draggers" and played
covers of rock classics. The band gained a large following for
their live performances and released an album of their live show
before expanding to five members and changing their name to
Dragonfly, since when they worked with several big name acts on he
Croatian music scene.
The members of Dragonfly
are Iva Gluhak, the 29 year old lead singer was was born and
educated in Zagreb. After secondary school she moved to London
where she got acquainted with street culture style. She studied
theology and is currently attending the Teachers' Academy in
Zagreb. She has sung with the Propaganda band and toured Austria
and Germany and also had roles in the musicals "Hair"
and "Jesus Christ Superstar".
Guitarist
Drago Vidakovic was born in 1959. He was educated in Sisak and
Zagreb. He is a self-taught guitarist. After moving to Austria he
collaborated with local bands, before returning to Croatia and
co-founding The Draggers.
Branko Kuznar was born
in Sisak in 1956. He attended music school there majoring in
violin, but guitar was always his choice as well as rock music. He
worked with Dragoinfly drummer Branko Badanjak in different local
bands, including the Daska Band. Branko accompanied Tajci at the
1990 Eurovision Song Contest in Zagreb, while Branko Badanjak
became a member of the Flexible Frame band playing soul and funk
and recording an album in 2000. They later joined Dragonfly and in
2006 they recorded their debut single.
Anita
Mlinaric was born in Zagren in 1974 and has been involved in music
most of her life. Anita sings, plays the saxophone and even double
bass in Dragonfly. Since attending music school she has
played in several bands and work with former Croatian Eurovision
performers Tony Cetinski and Goran Karan and tried on a number of
occasions to represent Croatia in the contest, losing out in the
Croatian selection.
Guesting with Dragonfly in
Helsinki is Dado Topic, composer, lyrics-writer, arranger and lead
singer on the Cratian entry. He is one of most famous rock
singers in Croatia and ex-Yugoslavia. Born in Dalmatia in 1949,
his career started early in his life as a teenager, in Osijek, as
a member of rock bands, Devil's Elixir and later Dyanamite. As a
singer he was joined the very popular Korni Group (Eurovision
1974) but after playing with them for a year, he formed his own
legendary band, Time, consisting of some of the best and the most
recognised musicians in former Yugoslavia.
After
a period of ten, very successful years, Dado decided to go solo,
and continued performing on stage, promoting his own songs and
music, becoming a legend in his own rights In 2006, Dado Topic was
awarded " the best rock vocal & composer " of the
past 40 years.
Dragonfly & Dado Topic
have performed together for the last couple of years, mainly live
concerts, where they enjoy playing authentic rock music and it is
rumoured that they were especially invited to take part in this
year's Croatian Eurovision selection, following the victory of
Lordi in Athens.
As this was one of the last
songs to be chosen, very limited promotion has been done. It is
known that an all Enlish version has been recorded but the song is
likely to stay as it was in the Croatian final.
Despite a
100% record in qualifying from the semi-final, Croatia is one of
the outsiders for this year's contest, and their cause is not
helped by a rather annonymous mid-table draw position.
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CROATIA @ EUROVISION