Montaigne will represent Australia at Eurovision, after winning the national final overnight. Her track “Don’t Break Me” was the winner on the day, beating out Casey Donovan by seven points and Vanessa Amorosi, who finished on 82 points. The singer-songwriter will travel to the Netherlands in May to compete against performers from 40 other countries.
Montaigne will join the likes of Kate Miller-Heidke, Jessica Mauboy and Guy Sebastian as one of the few Aussies to have competed at the coveted song contest.
The final also featured turns from a host of talent show alumni, including Jack Vidgen, Diana Rouvas and Mitch Tambo. Jaguar Jonze, Didirri and Jordan-Ravi were among the other competitors.
Montaigne polled favourably with both the judging panel and audience voters, who were able to vote via text message. It was just the second time since Australia’s Eurovision debut in 2015 that the public vote was taken into account in deciding the winner.
The chance for Eurovision stardom beckons
Montaigne admits that it was the strength of last year’s Australian representative, Kate Miller-Heidke, that swayed her decision to perform.
“I think Kate doing Eurovision last year was what tipped me over to say ‘yeah, I’m going to do this’,” she told ABC.
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In order to meet the demands of her physically energetic performance, Montaigne had to up her exercise regime. “I exercised, man. I did yoga, soccer, I was running all the time.” It’s safe to say that it’s paid off.
The breadth of talent amongst this year’s entrant thrilled Jon Ola Sand, the Eurovision Executive Supervisor.
“Wow what a show. For me, it was very difficult to predict (the result) with strong performers, strong songs, strong acts,” he said.
“An act always develops for Eurovision but (Montaigne’s) act as it is now is really strong.” Sand also acknowledged the creativity and uniquity of Montaigne’s performance.
