Last night (Tuesday May 7), Ireland's genre-splicing nu gen artist Bambie Thug officially earned the right to represent their country at this year's Eurovision Song Contest grand final, which takes place this coming Saturday, May 11, in Malmö, Sweden.
Bambie, who describes their music as 'ouija-pop', performed a devilishly fun version of their 2023 single Doomsday Blue, which featured the unique singer-songwriter dancing in a sinister ballet with a rather demonic looking partner, and writhing around in the centre of a pentagram, flocked by candles. All pretty metal, basically. The performance peaked with Bambie shedding their black, feathered garb to reveal a tattered two-piece decked in the colours of the trans pride flag.
Bambie Thug, who identifies as non-binary, has openly supported trans rights from the start of their career, telling Metal Hammer in 2022: “The only way to help other people is to share your own problems. When I was 14 or 15, I would have really liked that. Being gender dysmorphic is a very hard place to be.”
“I want to have massive stadium tours”, they added of their ambitions for the future. “I want to use all of my theatre kid training to build massive sets and put on an absolute show.”
Stadium tours may have to wait for now, but The Macroom, Cork native took a huge step forwards in their career last night by being voted through to the Eurovision final on Saturday, alongside artists representing Serbia, Portugal, Slovenia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Finland, Cyprus, Croatia and Luxembourg.
Watch Bambie Thug's Eurovision semi-final performance of Doomsday Blue below. The Eurovision Song Contest grand final can be watched this Saturday, May 11, from 8pm UK time on BBC 1.