It feels like there is a National Final wherever you look right now, isn’t it wonderful!
Let’s catch up with news from the last seven days!
This Week’s Results
Lots to add to the playlist this week of 2013 songs, with three National Finals, two internal selections being revealed, and a few names in the air as well. From the top…
Germany went for the biggest name in their selection process, reminding everyone as Natalie Horner took to the stage that Cascada were very popular, and have had number one songs throughout Europe. Mission accomplished, ‘Glorious’ is off to Malmo!
The more intimate setting of ORF’s studio saw Natalia Kelly take another song called ‘Shine’ to the finals, this time under the Austrian banner.
Entering two songs into the Latvia final might have been a bit of a risk, but PeR scored the top slot with ‘Here We Go’. PeR by the way is short for ‘Please Explain the Rhythm’.
Italy’s Sanremo Music Festival has showcased the Eurovision entrant in the last few years, but never sent the overall winner… until now. Marco Mengoni won the song contest that inspired Eurovision with L’essenziale. We now wait to see which song Mengoni will take to Malmo.
We also had the reveal of the songs from Cyprus and Slovenia.
Five performers qualified from the first Eesti Laul semi-final in Estonia, including the jaw-dropping effort from Winny Puhh, ‘Meieceundimees Uks Korsakov Laks Elle Latti’.
A Dal’s final heat in Hungary saw three more artists selected by the jury (Gigi Radics, Laura Cserpes, and Lilla Polyák), with three more qualifying for the semi-finals from the public vote (Fatima Mohammed, Peti Puskas, and United).
Direct to Friends Arena from this week’s Melodifestivalen heat in Sweden are State of Drama, and Ravaillacz. Andra Chansen picks up Martin Rolinski, and Caroline af Ugglas. This year’s wildcard selection, Elin Petersson, finsihed 8th.
Also worth noting here that Bulgaria have shortlisted three songs, which will go forward to a 50/50 vote between the public and jury on March 3rd. The artists are Dzupai Libe Boso (feat Skiller & Jahmmi), Kismet, and Samo Shampioni.
ESC Insight’s European Road Trip
In case you missed it, ESC Insight was in Germany, Austria, and Hungary last week to take in some national Finals on a musical road trip. We’ll have some more thoughts and editorials later in the week, but for the moment you can listen back to Ewan and Luke’s adventure through the podcast.
Coming Up This Week
- After a rush this weekend, two shows will give us their Malmo melody, first up tonight is the Greek National Final…
- …and the second is on Friday, a ‘winner takes all’ National Final for Ireland, running as part of The Late Late Show, available on rte.ie for international viewers.
- The final heat of Sweden’s Melodifestivalen is on Saturday. With just eight songs to hear, some fans are wondering if the best has been saved for last.
- Saturday is a busy night, with the second semi-final of Eesti Laul airing in Estonia.
- Doing double-header semi-finals on both Saturday and Sunday are Romania and Hungary.