Have you heard a song with which the Netherlands wants to go to the Eurovision Song Contest this year? Khalid&Sophie had the scoop on Wednesday night. The song ‘Burning daylight’ was chosen from four hundred entries, said jury member and guest at the table Cornald Maas. The song is the first “love baby” of Duncan Laurence and his friend, really, so it was said. Duncan, winner of the Eurovision song contest in 2019, had also sought the artists for the song. Mia and Dion.
Presenter Khalid Kassem counted down the seconds, and then we could hear the song. Not live, but the recorded version with the video clip. I wasn’t immediately blown away by it, but what isn’t can still come, of course. Cornald Maas had said in advance that it was an “ode to trial and error”. And that’s why I listened with just a little more attention. That had to do with Cornald Maas’ program Full Halls which was broadcast later in the evening on Wednesday. Issue of AvroTros asking for a sight link, and they had sent it to me – under embargo. Such an embargo is not surprising, program makers want to be looked at before writing about it, and why should you. Well, because this episode of Volle Zalen was all about Dotan, the singer who broke through internationally in 2017, and collapsed nationally the following year when it emerged he had rigged 140 fake online accounts to promote himself, bash other artists, and also shared stories from fans, which later turned out to be fake. The broadcaster called it a “newsworthy episode” in which Dotan talks candidly about the media storm that hit him. How he, say, got up after falling. That’s why I wanted to see the episode earlier – I do have a nose for newsworthiness. And reading this Volle Zalen episode would not disappoint.
Was presenter Khalid Kassem really that enthusiastic about the Eurovision scoop or was he feigning excitement?
A little more about Khalid. Was he really that excited about the Eurovision scoop or was he feigning excitement? Spakenburg’s victory over Utrecht (football) also seemed to interest him, at least he pretended well. But then a completely different Khalid sat at the table. That was when Royce de Vries, son of Peter R. and former colleague from the time when Khalid was a lawyer, joined. For the sake of form, he said it was strange to interview a colleague/friend, but he didn’t.
The subject was the report of the Dutch Safety Board ‘enforced’ by De Vries, which judged ‘hardly’ about how the police and the Public Prosecution Service had acted in connection with the three murders in the Marengo trial. Khalid had read the report from start to finish and picked out what Royce de Vries, as a stakeholder and interviewee, could have said better. De Vries said that “his blood was boiling”, but that of Khalid certainly is too. Khalid knew about the hat, the brim and the full history and I saw a fire burning in him that I had never seen before.
Dion, from Mia and Dion, was asked what ‘Burning daylight’ meant to him. The words trial and error fell. He said: “It’s about us all being human. If things are not going well, go for something better and leave the old behind.” That was roughly what Dotan revealed to Cornald Maas. “I fell on my face, but I learned a lot from it.” What does he say when he says “everything always happened very intensely with me” and “I could never connect so well with people”. So, he was insecure, made even more insecure by sudden success… and then? “I had to fall to learn to get up.” Oh, because? “I had to work on things.” He’s happy now. That’s a bright spot.