Alf Poier
Alf Poier (born
February 22,
1967 in
Styria) is an
Austrian artist and stand-up
comedian.
Born in
Judenburg in
Styria, he started doing
cabaret in
1995 in
Graz, and has won several prizes for his work, including the
Salzburger Stier in
1998, the
Deutscher Kleinkunstpreis,
Prix Phanteon and
RTL Comedy Award in
2000 and the Austrian
Karl in
2002.
In
2003, Poier participated in the
Eurovision Song Contest 2003 and secured 6th place with his entry
Weil Der Mensch Zählt ("Because humans count"). The song, and his stage act, were a parody of the contest's excesses.
Although his result was considerably better than most of the pre-contest predictions, Poier spent several hours mischievously telling anyone that would listen that his 'low' placing was an outrage, that Europe had demonstrably shown itself to have no musical taste, and that he wasn't sure if the shame would permit him to return to Austria.
In 2005, his bid to represent Austria in the contest for a second time put him in the spotlight for more serious reasons, as some people took offence at the lyrics of one of his songs,
Good Old Europe is Dying. Having deleted the offending lines, albeit while insisting they had been misinterpreted, Poier took the characteristically 'oddball' song to the brink of securing the Austrian national selection, only to be "narrowly" beaten by folk band
Global Kryner. In the end, he arguably only missed out because, in
Y asi, Global Kryner had somehow succeeded in crafting a song that is even more colourful than anything Poier has yet attempted, featuring as it does Latin-style music liberally peppered with bouts of yodelling. Nevertheless, Poier was able to - very loudly - claim a moral victory after it emerged that his song had actually garnered the most votes, and had only been thwarted by the regional points system that was used.
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Alf Poier's official homepage*
A Forum dedicated to Alf Poier and other comedy
