Like Tuesday’s show, we’ve got fifteen songs vying for ten slots in Saturday’s show, with upbeat dance-pop facing off against heartfelt love songs, edgy rock, and introspective ballads. In addition to the competing entries, we’ll also see exhibition performances from France, the United Kingdom, and host nation Austria interspersed within the running order.
Austria’s COSMÓ and his menagerie. (Credit: Sarah Louise Bennett / EBU)
We also welcome Romania and Bulgaria back to the contest, following absences of two and three years, respectively. Both of these nations’ last participating songs languished at or near the bottom of the scoreboards, so broadcasters TVR and BNT are coming in with metaphorical guns blazing, sending a recent winner of The Voice of Romania and one of Bulgaria’s biggest names in pop. Will Alexandra Căpitănescu and Dara get their respective homelands back to the Grand Final this weekend? Stay tuned…
Persistence Pays
Unlike Semifinal One, tonight’s show is oddly bereft of Eurovision veterans, although many performers had previously tried to represent their home countries in previous years. Azerbaijan’s Jiva, Armenia’s Simón, Denmark’s Søren Torpegaard Lund, Albania’s Alis, and Malta’s Aidan have all taken part in National Finals in the past, with Simon and Aidan both having been runners-up at one point or another. Persistence pays, people!
While Australia’s Delta Goodrem is a newcomer to the Eurovision stage, she’s actually a veteran composer in EBU circles. She co-wrote the song My Girls, originally intended as a single for The Voice of Australia winner Anja Nissen (who went on to represent Denmark in 2017), but eventually performed by Bella Paige as Australia’s first Junior Eurovision entry in 2015.
Thematic Throughlines
As we all know, imaginative and innovative staging is a hallmark of the Contest, and Semi Two has more than its fair share. You may catch a few running motifs, even if they’re taken in completely different directions. Azerbaijan, Romania, and Switzerland all embrace a literal interpretation of being restrained or bound to something that weighs them down. Bulgaria, Armenia and the United Kingdom bust out of the drudgery of routine. Luxembourg and Ukraine embrace themes of nature and growth in order to return to feelings of normalcy and home. Latvia and Albania deal with families struggling with the effects of alcoholism and migration, respectively. Music tells stories, and tonight’s no exception.
Thinking Outside the Box
Much to the chagrin of people standing in the arena tonight, a lot of acts are using stagings that are boxed in, at last partially closed off and not entirely visible to the audience in house. Whether it’s to create a specific scene or simply to invoke a sense of closeness and intimacy, you’ll need to keep your claustrophobia in check. It may be a waiting room, an elevator, a house of mirrors, a steamy nightclub, or a giant zoetrope, but overall, delegations are working hard to create some incredible visuals.
Bulgaria’s Dara says “Welcome to the riot’s…waiting room”. (EBU / Sarah Louise Bennett)
Add in Delta Goodrem’s piano, Antigoni’s table, and the dozen desks set up for the UK’s Look Mum No Computer, spare a thought for the tech crew, who are certainly working overtime today. (It should be noted that in Tuesday’s Semifinal, they were able to accomplish all of their stage transitions without resorting to extended postcard bumpers; let’s see if they can do the same tonight.)
There are going to be a pretty significant number of acts utilizing fog and smoke tonight. It should be noted that the last time we were in Vienna, a mishap with the smoke during the performance of Georgia’s Nina Sublatti caused her to be almost completely obscured. Let’s hope nobody ends up “oximated” this evening.
Hidden Figures
We spoke about Sweden and Lithuania’s faces being obscured in the Semi One, but the trend extends to backing dancers in Semi Two. Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, and the United Kingdom all incorporate some sort of masking of their backing performers. Computer monitors, creepy masks, white veils, or animal masks, it’s all fair play!
Romania’s Alexandra Căpitănescu faces her fears. (Credit: EBU / Sarah Louise Bennett)
And as for who’s going to qualify from tonight’s show to Saturday’s Grand Final, this is arguably a more competitive Semifinal than what we had on Tuesday, with less of a general consensus on who’ll proceed. Either way, ten songs will move on, and five will be left behind. However, regardless of what the scoreboard says at the end of the night, these songs are the culmination of months, even years of hard work and dedication, and just because some of these stories may come to an end tonight doesn’t mean that the entries are erased from the record. Keep listening to the songs you love, support your favorites on social media, go and see them in concert or buy their music or merch, and keep the ball rolling!