Tal Sondak - Ein Davar
Copenhagen, Denmark
Eurovision position: 16th with 25 points
| Kdam Eurovision 2001 |  |
| Date: | 28 - 12 - 2000 |
| Presenters: | Orna and Moshe Datz |
| Venue: | Neve-Ilan studios, Jerusalem. |
| Kdam Eurovision 2 0 0 1 |
|---|
| Pos. | Artist | Title | Pnt. | DL |
|---|
| 1 | Tal Sondak | Ein Davar (Never mind) | 173 |   |
|---|
| 2 | Vered Gover | Bein Hachalomot (Between the dreams) | 146 | |
|---|
| 3 | 'Hamsa' Group | Darbuka (Darbuka Drum) | 115 | |
|---|
| 4 | Michal Amdurski | Luna | 106 | |
|---|
| 5 | Tze'ela Achrak | Yeshu'a (Salvation) | 99 | |
|---|
| 6 | Sagiv Cohen | Umlala La La (Miserable ble ble) | 88 |
| 7 | Shimi Ron | Eretz Me'usheret (Happy country) | 79 |
| 8 | Sharon Lavie
& Shachar Ankri | Ze Karov (It is close) | 58 |
| 9 | 'Mangana' Group | Corazon (Heart) | 55 |
| 10 | Alon Jan | Doctor DJ | 25 |
| 10 | Dror Lokatz
& Dafna Armoni | Ad Ktze Ha'olam (Untill the edge of the world) | 25 |
| 12 | Gabi Shoshan | Ha'olam Nifla (The world is wonderful) | 17 |
2nd
Vered Gover |
3rd
'Hamsa' |
More Pictures
from the 2001 Kdam
The return of the Kdam
Five years have passed since the last Kdam Eurovision was broadcast, and finally the old Kdam system was back.
The IBA had decided to bring back the competition mostly because of the emberacing result of the 2000 committee choise,
which put Ping-Pong as the Israeli representives.
In the Kdam committe meeting held on the 1st and 2nd of November 2000, 12 new songs have been selected (as seen above).
Most of the chosen artists were annonymous, but the list of composers had a few well known writers.
The show
Oh, what a show!
Finally, an excellent and profesional production for the IBA. Great stage, great production, great intervals and great hosts. I really liked it as you can see!
The singing duo, Orna and Moshe Datz, were the presenters of the Kdam. This was a very symbolic event for the couple
since it's been exactly ten years since their victory in the Kdam and their unforgetable performance in the
1991 Eurovision in Rome.
Moshe Datz had also composed the Israeli 1995 entry ("Amen") and was
co-producer and writer of the 1999 entry ("Happy Birthday").
The Songs
I must say, a collection of very good songs had competed this year, one of the best in years.
Most of the songs were inspired by the mediterranean sound, which is quite new for the Kdam contest.
The most notable songs in my opinion were: Alon Jan with an uptempo entry, trying quite succesfully to look and sound more like Ricky Martin than himself.
The excellent quintet group Hamsa with a great uptempo entry - which was surely one of the best songs in the evening.
Michal Amdurski was in a big embarrassment when she began to sing her song and stopped after few seconds, beginning to
sing it again just few moments later (It remind me of the spain 1990 case). As it seems, something went wrong with her voice on the first try,
so she just stopped singing and said "one moment, stop, let's do it again". Her song and performance (when it was finally performed) were
exellent as expected. Five pretty ladies acompanied her, wearing 'wonder woman' kind of suits and looking as if they just came out of the 1980 new year's eve party. it was just GREAT!
The only problem was Michal's weak voice, which kept her from winning this contest big time.
Another very notable song was Tze'ela Achrak's "Yeshu'a". an excellent singer with an amazing voice singing a very special
entry. The most quality entry of the evening.
About the winning song, "Ein Davar" - Tal Sondak has a very powerful voice and the performance was exellent.
Eurovision Preparations
About a month prior to the contest, the orchestration of "Ein Davar" was completely changed by some french musicians, friends of the composer.
The new version was much more beaty and sounded a bit Turkish and oriental. According to Yair Klinger, the composer, it
was suppose to suit the taste of the European ears.
Shimrit Or, who wrote the lyrics of the song was apparently not informed of this change and when she discovered it,
she got very upset with the results and with the fact she wasn't informed about it. She tried to ask the IBA to leave
the song the way it was chosen in the KDAM, claiming the new version ruins the song and the meaning of
the words she wrote to it. Eventually, her threats to sue the IBA were not carried out and the new "Turkish" song went to represent Israel in Copenhagen.
Interview with Tal Sondak
Read the interview I made with Tal Sondak, just two weeks before the big event
which took Israel down to the 16th position.
Eurovision Night
After a long week of preparations in Copenhagen, involving threats by Palestinians to disrupt the Israeli
performance on Saturday and another threat by a norwegian youth group to deliberately vote for Israel so it will be faced
an embarrassing situation when it will have to produce the contest in Jerusalem the following year, The Israeli entry,
song number 5, was finally on stage without any disruptions.
It was indeed a fine and very professional performance by Tal Sondak and his band. Tal gave his best and the entire song
looked and sounded very convincing on stage. The only problem was a small error in the volume adjustment of
one of the girls' microphone, which was adjusted too high and sounded bad in few lines.
At the end of a thrilling voting process, it was quite clear that something went wrong with the Israeli song as it
recieved only a few points (25), and when the Estonians were announced as winners, The scoreboard was very sad for Israel which missed
the 15th position by only few points. Being outside of the top 15 songs means a relegation for next year.
Fortunately, the rules were changed in the last moment and israel have been allowed participation in 2002.
