Okay, so I got it wrong. Andrea Demirovic did her best, but it, or her stage show just wasn’t enough. Being first couldn’t have helped, either, as she had more than likely slipped off the judges’ radar by the time the other 17 songs had been sung in Moscow last night. They were all vying for a place in Saturday night’s final, of course, and while Demirovic and Just Get Out of My Life didn’t get through, Malena Ernman from Sweden did.
An absolute belter of a performance, Ernman really performed the song, and although her stage set and projections were minimal, she used them to – quite literally – blinding effect. The stage was black with minimal lighting for the verses of La Voix, but dazzlingly white and bright when the chorus kicked in. Announced as the second country to get through (though not in points order), it would have been an injustice if she were on the plane home.
Which made Demirovic’s no-go even more galling, especially as the green room kept closing in on the disappointed singer as the last two finalists from yesterday evening were announced. And there were some real surprises. Bosnia-Herzegovenia, Finland, Israel, and Malta are all there on Saturday night, as are Iceland, Portugal, and Romania. I’m pleased that Turkey is through (thanks to an almost explosive performance), but Armenia was the shock of the night, although the song was better than I remember from preview night.
We did the whole voting thing, with the BBC’s semi-final score cards, and unsurprisingly, our top fives didn’t necessarily tally with those on-screen. I had Sweden first, Turkey second, Iceland and Montenegro joint third, and Portugal and Bosinia-Herzegovina joint fifth. I seemed to be allocating higher scores than Nik most of the way through, but they balanced out in the end. Thursday’s second semi is arguably the better one, though, with at least a handful of our favourites all hoping to qualify for Saturday’s showdown. Will we be more in tune with the judges and voting public then?
Tags: Culture, Eurovision, Music