The Eurovision Song Contest comes shimmering into Basel on Sunday with a glitzy parade kicking off a week of high-octane revelry building up to the May 17 grand final. The Swiss city is pulling out the stops as it hosts the 69th edition of the light-hearted TV spectacular that celebrates kitsch and pushes the boundaries of taste.

While Europop beats, dramatic staging and earworm choruses dominate on stage, the geopolitical backdrop always looms large, with protests again possible over Zionist entity’s participation as it ramps up its war in Gaza. Eurovision is the world’s biggest annual live televised music event, reaching around 160 million viewers.

The glamfest begins with Sunday’s opening ceremony, when all 37 competing countries’ entrants will parade through Basel, starting at the iconic 500-year-old city hall. “This will create a unique spectacle in the middle of Basel’s old town,” says the city, which sits right on the border with France and Germany.

Celine Dion mystery

The semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday will see 11 countries bow out, leaving 26 nations to contest Saturday’s final at the St. Jakobshalle arena. Switzerland is hosting after Swiss vocalist Nemo won Eurovision 2024 in Malmo with the highly personal song “The Code”, about discovering non-binary gender identity.

Switzerland won the inaugural song contest in 1956, then triumphed again when Canada’s Celine Dion competed for the Alpine nation in 1988, launching her career internationally. Organisers are tight-lipped as to whether Dion, in fragile health, might spring a surprise star turn. Swiss newspaper Le Matin, citing internal documents, said there was a two-minute slot in the grand final reserved for Dion -- but cautioned that the script was changing regularly.

Sweden steaming hot favorites

Sweden’s entry KAJ are the hot favorites to win, with “Bara bada bastu” (“Just have a sauna”) a comical take on the Swedish tradition driven by accordion licks and a catchy chorus. Their number features the three singers in brown suits, surrounded by dancers in lumberjack shirts first grilling sausages over a bonfire before appearing in a mock sauna with towels around their waists, slapping their backs with birch branches.

“It’s about relaxing with your friends, going into the sauna and having a nice time and coming out on the other side feeling great,” one of the trio, Jakob Norrgard, told AFP. It is Sweden’s first entry in Swedish since 1998, when Eurovision removed the national language requirement. If Sweden wins, “it’s going to motivate more countries to send songs in their national languages”, historian and Eurovision expert Dean Vuletic told AFP. Austria’s JJ is the second favorite with “Wasted Love”, a song in the mold of “The Code”, flipping between operatic vocals and modern beats. France, the Netherlands and (the Zionist entity) round out the chasing pack, according to bookmakers. — AFP