Malta’s Eurovision contender Gianluca Bezzina, together with runner-up and former Swedish Pop Idol Kevin Borg and three-time Eurovision song winner Chiara all took part in a spectacular Leone Goes Pop concert in Gozo last Saturday with the Leone Band.

A massive crowd overflowed Victoria’s main square It-Tokk (Independence Square) into the lateral streets to witness a two-hour-long colorful spectacle, in its sixth edition, given by the Leone Band, Gozo’s first band established 150 years ago in Victoria. The set-list of the event included instrumental medleys from the repertoires of Neil Diamond, Tom Jones, Elton John, Sinead O’Connor, Pet Shop Boys, Elvis, The Beatles, Abba and Zucchero in which the 100-piece band and its soloists excelled in an outstanding fashion. 

In addition, Gozitan singer Deborah C performed Alcazar’s Cyring at the Discoteque while Kevin Borg took the stage by storm when he interpreted Coldplay’s Viva la Vida, and Living La Vida Loca, Living On A Prayer, and With Every Bit of Me – three songs that helped him rise the ladder of success in the Swedish Pop Idol (2008).

The audience was euphoric upon Gianluca Bezzina’s grand entrance on a truck – emulating Tomorrow’s music video, and he had quite some difficulty in going through the crowds for his red-carpet parade before singing his hit-track Tomorrow, which he finished with conductor and bandsmen on a wooden bench just like his performance in Sweden. Likewise, Chiara took the show to new heights when she sang her heart out during The Greatest Love of All, Euphoria and Angel which was directed by the band’s Assistant Conductor Joseph Debrincat.

Leone Goes Pop ended with a grand party as the Leone Band celebrated its century-and-a-half with free-flowing champagne for all and stage and rooftop fireworks as the band danced the Samba, the conductor danced the horse-dance Gangnam Style and together with the singers rounded the night of sheer pleasure with It’s Raining Men, Fame and John Miles’ Music.