The Dads Who Beat the Teenagers

MAY 15 2000 · 12:05

Olsen Brothers · "Fly On The Wings of Love" · Denmark · 2000 Placement: 1st · Language: English · Composers: Jørgen Olsen · Venue: Globen · Host: Stockholm, Sweden · Type: winner · Broadcast: satellite On May 13, 2000, at the Globen arena in Stockholm, two middle-aged Danish men in plain dark suits walked onto a stage that had been designed, like most of the early 2000s Eurovisions, for leggy dancers and pyrotechnics. Jørgen and Niels Olsen — the Olsen Brothers, veterans of the Danish rock and pop circuit since the late 1960s — carried a pair of acoustic guitars and looked, in the kindest possible reading, like somebody's uncles who had wandered in from a different show. They opened 'Fly On The Wings of Love' at a deliberately unhurried tempo: a soft-rock groove, a gentle vocal harmony in English on the verse, a chorus built around a memorable, easily-sung phrase. There were no costume changes, no backing dancers sprinting across the stage, no aerialists. What there was, instead, was a warmth and an ease that registered unmistakably on camera — the sense of two men who had been playing together for decades and were not, at any point, nervous. Across Europe, televoters responded. By the time the points tally passed the halfway mark, Denmark was clearly in contention; by the end, the Olsen Brothers had beaten a field of much younger, more obviously Eurovision-shaped acts to take the country's second-ever win. Context Eurovision 2000 was the first of the new millennium and the first to be hosted in Sweden in the televoting era, with Globen — a venue better known for hockey and Bruce Springsteen concerts — scaled up for the occasion. The contest had already reshaped itself around the post-1998 televoting model, and the shift was beginning to produce results that juries alone probably would not have. Eastern expansion was continuing; Russia was a steady participant; the Baltics, the Balkans and the Caucasus were all in various stages of joining. The broader cultural moment was Y2K-inflected — a contest full of silver costumes, glitch-pop aesthetics and 'future' imagery. Against that backdrop, the Olsen Brothers' plainness was itself a statement, deliberate or not. Denmark had not won since 1963, and DR, the Danish broadcaster, had selected the brothers through Dansk Melodi Grand Prix in a decision that was not universally popular at home. Legacy 'Fly On The Wings of Love' became one of the most enduring post-2000 Eurovision songs in continental radio rotation, particularly in Northern and Central Europe. Denmark's win brought the 2001 contest to Copenhagen's Parken stadium, one of the first Eurovisions held in a football ground and a template for the arena-scale spectacle of the decade to come. The brothers themselves became something close to Danish national treasures, regularly invited back to anniversary events. More broadly, the win is often cited as evidence that televoting could reward songcraft and charm over spectacle — a counter-example to the narrative that the public vote inevitably favoured the most visually maximal entries. Mythology The Olsen Brothers are frequently described as complete unknowns who came out of nowhere. In Denmark they had in fact been working musicians for over thirty years, with a recognisable back catalogue. The winning margin is also sometimes inflated in retelling; contemporary reports describe a comfortable but not overwhelming victory over Russia.