Draft:Next In Line (Band)

Formation Next In Li ne are an Irish boyband, created by Louis Walsh after an open audition call in Dublin in February of 2022. The band contains members Conor Davis, Conor O'Farrell, Neung Kelly, Joshua Regala and Harry O'Connell. They were selected out of 2000 auditionees. The boys performed on the Late Late Show for the first time in September of 2022 with their version of 'When You Love Someone' by James TW, later performing the same song on The Six O'Clock Show.

Following on from these performances, the band travelled to Abu Dhabi in January 2023 to perform at the Junk Kouture World Final in the Etihad Arena, widely considered to be their first live performance for a non-television audience.

Following on from this, the band became quiet on social media as they were said to be in the process of recording and writing original material, though no leaks of any work could be found online. This led some to speculate that the band had split up. Though in June of 2023, the band took to Instagram to confirm they had nearly finished the process of creating original songs, with songwriter Bill Maybury and producer Joe Rubel. This sent fans into a frenzy of anticipation.

Towards the end of 2023, rumours started to circulate that the band were being considered as an entry to Ireland's Eurosong selection, though the band refused to comment on this for a lenghty period of time. Given manager Louis Walsh's extensive connection to the competition it made a lot of sense, which meant that when they were confirmed to be taking part on the Ray D'Arcy show on RTE Radio 1 on the 12th of January 2024, nobody was surprised.

The band revealed their debut single 'Love Like Us' (co-written by the band alongside Maybury and Rubel) was to be their entry to the competition and that it would be released the following Friday the 19th independently. Upon release, the song shot straight to the top of the Irish ITunes chart within 8 hours, where it remained for three days, the first ever Irish Eurosong entry to complete such an accomplishment. The lads promoted the song through their social media platforms and multiple public appearances in the lead up to the Eurosong competition.

The Eurosong competition took place on the 26th of January. Next In LIne performed the song 'Love Like Us' for the first time ever on television and finished joint second overall in the competition having won the International Jury vote and finishing second in the televote. Rather inexplicably, the Irish jury voted the song in last place. Macroom born singer bambie Thug won overall and was selected to represent Ireland.