The Ark was a glam rock band from Växjö, Sweden. The band was formed in 1991 by Ola Salo, Mikael Jepson, and Lasse Ljungberg. Martin Axén joined the band in 1997, and Sylvester Schlegel in '99. Jens Andersson was the last one to officially join, in October 2006. Jens is a familiar face from many The Ark gigs, as he has played the keyboard with the band for several years. Their lyrics are mostly written by singer Ola Salo, and many of them are controversial, especially the earlier ones. For example, the 2002 single Father Of A Son is about homosexuals' right to have children. The band tour Scandinavia, Germany and Italy regularly and were one of the support acts to The Darkness on their 2006 UK tour.
The Ark participated in, and won, the Swedish Melodifestivalen 2007 with the song "The Worrying Kind", written by Ola Salo.
The song was also Sweden's Eurovision 2007 entry and is included on their fourth album, Prayer For The Weekend. In the spring of 2010, the band relased their fifth album In Full Regalia and toured somewhat in connection with this. On December 8th 2010, the band announced on their website that they would release a greatest hits-album in early 2011, marking their 20th anniversary as a band. In connection with this, there is to be a club tour in Scandinavia. However, the band also announced that this would be their last club tour, only followed by some festival shows during the summer. The reason for this was said to be that the band felt they had achieved what they intended to artistically, and felt it was time to move on.
Members:
* Ola Salo (lead singer)
* Mikael Jepson (guitar)
* Martin Axén (guitar)
* Lasse Ljungberg (bass)
* Sylvester Schlegel (drums)
* Jens Andersson (keyboard)
So far they have released five studio albums and an EP:
* Racing with the Rabbits - 1996
* We Are The Ark - 2000
* In Lust We Trust - 2002
* State of The Ark - 2004
* Prayer For The Weekend - 2007
* In Full Regalia - 2010
Eurovision Song Contest 2007 Final - Helsinki
Entry for Sweden
Performer: The Ark
Song title: The Worrying Kind
Song writer(s): The Ark
Song composer(s): The Ark
Sang in Position: 12
Final Position: 18
Total Points: 51
Host Broadcaster YLE adopted the True Fantasy as the theme for this year's contest. The Finnish design agency Dog Design won a competition to design the visual theme of the contest, which incorporated colourful, kaleidoscopic patterns. The high-tech stage was constructed in the shape of a kantele, a traditional Finnish instrument. The contest's Presenting Partner was TeliaSonera, International Presenting Partners were Nobel Biocare and the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All.
The Final opened with Lordi, the monster rock band that brought Finland its first ever Eurovision Song Contest history the year before. Along with Jaana Pelkonen and Mikko Leppilampi, Krisse Salminen co-hosted the show from the green room and the Senate Square. Star guest to open the voting was Santa Clause, who came from northern Finland for this special occasion.
The outcome of the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest caused commotion in Western Europe, where audience and media critisized the credibility of the results. The results were even brought up in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Swedish paper Expressen wrote about feeling "shame" over the reactions in many Western European countries, and claimed that "the Eurovision Song Contest had never been better" and calling the Serbian winner a "worthy, historic winner."
Serbia, participating as an independent country for the first time, won the contest, closely followed by respectively Ukraine and Russia. In 2000, 2003 and 2006, Russia was also close to victory, but so far the country has not been so lucky as Ukraine, winner of the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest.
It was the first time that the Eurovision Song Contest was produced and broadcast in High Definition. British broadcaster BBC and Swedish broadcaster SVT aired the contest in HD-quality on their respective HD channel;
Almost 9 milion votes were cast all over Europe, either by telephone or SMS.
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