Day One - Friday March 5th 1999

Friday morning we went record hunting, and also had coffee in the bar of the Vatroslav Lisinki Hall (right), the venue of the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest. Perhaps Emma or Terry Wogan had sat where we were. The radio was playing the San Remo '99 winner by Anna Oxa.

The 1999 Dora was being held at Jadran Film Zagreb, a well-established movie film studio complex on the outskirts of Zagreb. Previous Croatian Eurovision selections had been held at the Hotel Kvarner in Opatija, but the Crystal ballroom there was rather small, and also HRT hoped to save costs by holding the show in Zagreb, but that didn't seem to happen.

Anyway, three nights of TV shows were scheduled, the Friday was a retrospective of the Dora contest, the Saturday a show called 'Let's all sing Dora', and the final itself on the Sunday. Rehearsals had begun on the Monday, but on Friday afternoon, we were eager to get out to the scene and see what we could.

We were introduced briefly to the very busy Producer, Mr Branko Matutinovic, and were given tickets for the evening transmissions, and Press passes. Rehearsal for the Friday Dora retrospective was underway, and ENI (Croatia 1997) were on stage singing 'Probudi me'. They then went into their second song, "Jednom Zauvijeli".
The set was quite impressive - coloured lighting to change the stage appearance, several levels on stage, and the Orchestra stacked up on the right. HRT was going to make a good job of the visuals - I counted two crane cameras, one steadycam, two fixed cameras, and one mobile camera.

Much of the experience was like going to the Eurovision itself, but there were no Press Conferences, apart from the one planned after Sunday's show, so we went on a wander to see who we could find. Maja Blagdan (Croatia 1996, pictured right) was having a drink in the bar/press room, and we had a few words with her. She has just finished her recording contract with Tutico, and said little about her future plans, but would be singing two songs tonight, "Sveta Ljubavi", and "Da te ne bih ja izgubila". Asked about the new hairstyle, she said, "Its not my own hair". I was also flattered to be remembered from Oslo. She spent much of her spare time that we saw her with her somewhat secret (so I am told) boyfriend, Boris, and with one of Zrinko Tutic's record producing rivals, Ivo Lesic, who had a song coming up in Sunday's show.

Food in the restaurant was awful, but Zagreb was a £10 taxi fare away, so we tried it, amidst dancers, camera crews, and the girls from ENI. They looked more mature than two years ago, but were still polite and friendly. Their post Eurovision CD 'Saten' (apparently its actually supposed to be 'Satin') was a failure, and could be found for £2 in the shops, but they were still in the ethnic/new-age vocal group Putokazi and still happily based in Rijeka. Elena told us about the post-event party in Zagreb.

Toni Cetinski (Croatia 1994, pictured left)) was there too. He has a new album out called "Tony". He was going to upstaged by a young boy who'd won a competition singing as Toni - Toni himself would come on halfway through the song. He told us he'd changed style quite a bit since "Nek'Ti Bude Ljubav Sva", but was pleased to be in the show.

The Friday show's transmission went ahead - for us there was rather too much talk, but viewers had a chance to vote for their favourite Dora song. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Danijela's 1998 song "Neka mi ne svane" won this, and Danijela gave a fine performance, which she repeated on Sunday.

Favourite Dora songs - Telephone poll on the Friday:

Danijela - 4881
Tony Cetinski - 2394
Put - 2181
Magazin - 1032
ENI - 980
Maja Blagdan - 859

The party Elena told us about was rather crowded with HRT people, and rather noisy so we ducked out in preparation for the next day.