It’s incredible to think that this day 14 years ago was the first time John and Edward Grimes had walked onto a stage, at their audition, in Glasgow, for X Factor. Since then, Jedward have achieved so much that it’s very difficult to sum it all up in a few paragraphs – but we’re still going to try.
While it’s 14 years since they auditioned for XF, what is probably more significant is Jedward’s connection to the Eurovision Song Contest. The twins from Dublin have represented Ireland twice at the Contest, reaching the final in both 2011 and 2012, with their 8th placing in 2011 still the best result for Ireland since 2000 – and no Irish act has done better since. And even though Jedward would definitely love to perform at Eurovision a third time, they’re still a very important and much beloved part of the fabric of Eurovision anyway. They’ve twice been part of the judging team to select the Irish entry for Junior Eurovision, and in 2016, in Malta, they were judges at the Junior Eurovision final itself. This year they were part of a studio panel discussing the finalists in the Irish Eurovision selection, and then, at Eurovision itself – which was held in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine – Jedward performed 3 times: twice at the EuroClub, and once in the Euro Village, ahead of the Eurovision Final.
Outside of Eurovision Jedward have been very busy with music, TV, and advertising, with the latter seeing them head up promotions for Tourism Ireland, Krispy Kreme, Fanta, Tesco, and most recently, Subway. On TV they’ve shown off their artistic talents on the Portrait Painter of the Year Christmas special, with John painting jazz singer Mica Paris, and Edward painting rock legend Noddy Holder, and they also helped look after the animals at Dublin Zoo, in ‘Zoo Live’.
Musically the duo have teased excerpts from unreleased songs, and said that they have 2 albums ready to go, including one of acoustic songs. Given the popularity of John’s acoustic covers, a whole acoustic album is bound to be a winner!
This weekend is a bit of a milestone for Jedward, with the pair singing at the Leeds Festival for the first time, where they’ll be headlining the Climate Live Bus Stage on Sunday. What a lovely way to celebrate 14 years of performing!
You can find Jedward online on their website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, as well as their two TikTok accounts, Jepictiktok and PlanetJedward. Stream and download their music on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon.
