Participant: Urban Trad
Song: Sanomi
Writer(s): Yves Barbieux
Composer(s): Yves Barbieux

In the Middle of the 90's, Celtic sounds were quite popular and successful in the Eurovision Song Contest - Secret Garden with "Nocturne" (1995) and Eimear Quinn with "The voice" (1996). This year its Belgium's first attempt that way and sends Urban Trad with "Sanomi" to the international Final in Riga.

The band Urban Trad consists of Valone and Flemish singers, so its real Belgian! The most interesting thing of this entry is the language: its fictional! The choice of the three most important instruments are: the violin, the bagpipes and the accordion! This extraordinary and catchy number is going to put new accents to the Eurovision and a win is quite possible.

But there were also dark clouds over Urban Trad. There were rumors about an affiliation of one member of the band to a right-wing extreme union. Luckily these were only rumors. The union was a student-organization. Even though the band member won't join Urban Trad in Riga.