ESC preliminary decision: the Bavarian candidates Trong and Lonely Spring – Bavaria

Who is Trong? In Germany, very few people know that. Anyone who doubts that this could change soon should take a look at Vietnam. In 2015, the young man from Bad Kissingen was visiting his family’s homeland, the Nguyens, as a tourist. A friend told him about a casting for “Vietnam Idol”, something like “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/. “I’ll do it,” said the 23-year-old. His self-confidence also came from winning the German Hip-Hop Dance Championships and studying singing in Hanover, as well as from appearing on the TV show “Kleine hoch,” where he danced in front of Britney Spears as a six-year-old and received warm praise for it was.

The idol jury was also touched, especially because the youngster, who was born in Germany, was practicing Vietnamese with his parents. His a cappella version of “Relight My Fire” was well received, but one juror remained skeptical: the singing was “somewhat rustic” and he would have a hard time. In the end, Trong Hieu Nguyen won the relay and 20,000 euros with 71 percent of the vote.

TRONG, as he always calls himself in capital letters as an artist, knows how to stand up to strong competition. How to win over the judges and the audience in a pop competition not only with your voice, but also with smooth dance moves, rollovers, a super cute smile, unconventional choice of costumes and being positively different. That’s a big advantage when he performs his number “Dare To Be Different” in the German preliminary round for the Eurovision Song Contest in Cologne on March 3 (live on ARD at 10 p.m.).

The Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson is his big dream, says Trong. Even before Lena won for Germany in 2011, he was “flashed” by “the blatant stage shows”, the light, the sound, the camera work. “This ’12 Points go to …’, that touched my heart.” In 2015, when he had just become a star in Vietnam, he applied for the German preliminary round with “Peter Pan” for the first time. It was rejected, as were the next four times. When he was finally voted into the last nine by 587 candidates, tears flowed, as he shows his 244,000 Tiktok friends on his social media channel. That fits the statement of his new disco song, which he wrote with the Norwegian ESC candidate Elsie Bay. “Dare to be different means living your individualism and breaking the expectations of society, also in the sense of gender images such as ‘A man must not cry’https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/.”

Even in tradition-conscious Vietnam, he played against the rules. He was one of the first male artists to appear bare-chested and with make-up on the TV stage. In between, he was thrown on the nose, went broke in Vietnam, but he never gave up, working on his career in Hanoi for six months a year. In 2022 he’ll be back at the “peak”, he says, designers like Louboutin or Dior book him as a model, sexy six-pack songs like “I’m Sorry Baby” got him high in the charts, in Hanoi he performed in front of 30,000 fans on. He is the “German Hot Boy”.

Trong still sees himself as a Bavarian. When his family was to be deported from Germany in the home for asylum seekers, Franconian friends collected 6,000 signatures and the Nguyens were allowed to stay. “I want to give back this love with my art,” he says. In “Our Song for Liverpool” he meets a Bavarian superiority: Barbara Schöneberger from Munich moderates, last year’s winner of the hearts Malik Harris from Landsberg sings again, and the Passau band is among the nine candidates LonelySpring done.

Open detailed view

The message of the twins Julian and Simon Fuchs and of Manuel Schrottenbaum and Matthias Angerer in the song “Misfit” is like that of Trong: “Dare to be nonconformist”. With the musicians from Passau, the attitude and the make-up (Jan Böhmermann already made fun of her kajal) come more from punk rock and the emo core. Your contribution nagged snotty like the hooligan anthem “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus. One wonders whether they are right with the poppy-cheerful ESC. They wondered too, say the twins. Whether that forgives the scene? So they asked their Tiktok community for advice: if 10,000 fans gave “Misfit” a thumbs-up, they would apply to the ESC. They got 35,000 thumbs and hearts.

They are in no way embarrassed to take part in the old hit competition, they assert. The NDR had the preliminary decision after the fuss last year about the excluded band Electric call boy expressly open to all genres, even beyond radio suitability (which their song definitely has). And at the ESC itself, the Italians would have maneskin 2021 proved that rock can win there. They know they are misfits. But they bring a lot of concert experience with them: The former high school band already convinced in 2016 at a competition in Munich’s Hard Rock Café – the Schäftlarner Nu-Rock-Stars Emil Bulls, who produced her record and invited her to open; and a manager from record giant Sony who signed her. They are now back to self and social media marketing. Successful: “Misfit” took them to number 1 in the German Itunes rock charts. “We’ve already won,” they say.

Against the popular ones Frieda Gold and it will be difficult for the all-round obese Ballermann star Ikke Hipgold with her large fan circles. That’s what Trong thinks too. “I’m still totally unknown in Germany.” Most of his songs are only available in Vietnamese. Of course he won’t get the – jokingly – hoped for “12 Points from Asia”. But he doesn’t hide his roots: In the video he proudly wears a Vietnamese rice farmer’s hat, he weaves a few kung fu moves into his Justin Timberlake moves, a Vietnamese guitar plays a melody and flows seamlessly into Philadelphia soul -Strings. He wants exactly this “merging”, he says. So he wears – his version of the obligatory ESC trick dress – under the Asai skirt, a crop top frowned upon in Vietnam. He used to adapt to the country in question in order to please people, he says. “That’s how I lost myself.” He’s finally free to say, “I’m the best of both worlds.”