Eurovision Netherlands Duncan Laurence Arcade wins best song by press

Duncan is already having a good night (Picture: Guy Prives/Getty Images)

Duncan Laurence has achieved his first win of the night at the Eurovision Song Contest.

The Netherlands entry’s song Arcade has been named the Best Song by the press in the annual Marcel Bezençon Awards.

The Marcel Bezençon Award chooses the best song of the year in three categories – Press (voted for by accredited media in the host country), Artistic (voted for by the commentators) and Composer (voted by a jury of participating composers) – and this year, the press has honoured Duncan.

The 25-year-old shared a picture with his trophy to Instagram and wrote: ‘Whuuuut?! I just won a Marcel Bezençon Award for Best Song voted by the press! Thank you so much!’

The press haven’t given the Best Song award to the eventual winner since 2014, when they honoured Conchita Wurst and Rise Like A Phoenix.

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Last year, they chose France’s Madame Monsieur and their 13th place song, Mercy; in 2017, they voted Occidentalli’s Karma by Franceso Gabbani of Italy, which came sixth; 2016 saw Russia’s Sergey Lazarev and his third place song You Are The Only One win; while in 2015, Il Volo’s Grande amore for Italy won Best Song and went on to come third.

However, the press have previously voted for three other winning songs – Alexander Rybek’s Fairytale, Lordi’s Hard Rock Hallelujah and Turkey’s Everyway That I Can.

Duncan is the firm favourite to take the crown tonight at the grand final, with his Sam Smith, James Blake-esque ballad Arcade being a huge hit within the Eurovision community since it was selected by the Netherlands. 

More: Eurovision Song Contest 2019

Speaking to Metro.co.uk ahead of the competition, the singer-songwriter said: ‘I do think it adds a bit of pressure, yeah, both positive and a bit “woah, don’t expect too much, we still need to qualify and win!” There are a lot of other really good participants – I love Mahmood especially. 

‘But I see it as a really big compliment, that people would love to see me win. Especially since Arcade is the first song I’ve ever released. It’s kind of weird. It’s the American dream – well, the Dutch dream come true.’

The Eurovision Song Contest airs tonight from 8pm on BBC1. 

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