eurovision 2012 news: Finland

Showing posts with label Finland. Show all posts

Sunday, May 13, 2012

And Now We Know...(Day 1)

So as the sun sets over Paris [Only place I could think of where the sun might be setting right now]. But the day has come to an end and having looked at at least 100 photos of Eurovision Taxis as well as hours of rehearsal videos, we now know a lot more about Eurovision 2012. But in a nutshell what have we learned?

Based on everyone's blog posts we now know it is not very easy to get to Baku, especially if you travel through Istanbul.
Montenegro is as bad on stage as we first thought, however no one knew quite what to expect all the same.
Iceland and Romania are the big winners from today, they are now much more favoured to win in the betting odds and reports from Baku about them are impressive.
Greece has a very typical Eurovision entry. She is not able to sing it well enough live.
Latvia continues to divide people between lovers who think it is a marginal qualifier and haters who think it is still a very bad song still and she is a good vocalist.
Albania was as impressive as ever but I think it might be something that the ney sayers have to see live to believe. I really like this though.
According to my friend the ESCInsider Switzerland far better looking in real life. As a hetrosexual I have no opinion but as they say - know your target market. Their diction as also improved.
Iris from Belgium has a great pair of lungs. She really came up to the mark in rehearsals today.
Finally Finland have dropped the dancer which is a great move on their part in my opinion.

Up until now I have avoided making predictions but I think at this stage that Iceland and Romania are the definite qualifiers and Albania is a very likely qualifier. My guess is that there will be one qualifier from either Switzerland, Belgium or Finland and since the rehearsal I am inclined towards Belgium, but that's very difficult to call. I think that Greece is the only other possible contender but if the vocals don't improve it could go the way of Turkey last year.

If you missed our earlier posts they are here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Rehearsals: Day 1: Part 3 Switzerland - Finland

Rehearsals continued today in earnest and videos have now appeared for them all. But now onto the last three.

Switzerland - Rehearsal Video
Switzerland have come on in leaps and bounds since the national finals in December [then again they've had since December]. The staging is really well done, the vocals and more importantly diction have stepped up to the mark and the whole thing is looking rather polished. The general consensus is that this has indeed improved but no matter what I read today I still think that this just screams non-qualifier. I don't fully know why that is though.

Belgium - Rehearsal Video
Despite some peoples arguments this is a song I have a soft spot for. I think that this has really come up in the rehearsals. The staging of the whole song is wonderfully understated and I think that Iris has the voice to carry this song off. Interestingly there is a very little we learned today. The rehearsal has been very similar to the national final performance. Possibly the closest so far today.

Finland - Rehearsal Video
Finland were the last to take to the stage for rehearsals today. The song is vocally good but coming after Belgium this is a lot less dramatic. To be honest this song was one that I have really loved but today I felt that it stopped short of actually coming up to the mark. Many acts have impressed me today but Finland really has not. This might come up a bit in second rehearsals but at the moment I'm not feeling it.

Monday, April 2, 2012

A Swedish Song From Finland

After rather average results Finland decided to completely overhaul their selection process, they had indicated that they would do this at the end of UMK 2011. However what they replaced it with, an X-Factor style competition has had very mixed results as a national final selection process, so what have they sent?

Finland decided to send a song in Swedish this year, meaning that we will hear Swedish sung in the contest for the first time since 1998. The song "Nar Jag Blunder" by Pernilla Karlsson is a gentle piano ballad and is a great gentle song, rising and falling in wonderful musical arcs. It is subtle and is performed in a wonderfully understated way. Pernilla has a wonderful voice that is really suited to the song.

"This all songs well and good really" you might say. Well sadly as much as I do like this song I think that it has many limitations. It is not the most entertaining of songs, which is made clearly evident by need for a dancer to perform on stage. The song has no real end either, it just sort of grinds to a halt (no crescendo). It offers little in terms of a hook. Being in Swedish doesn't help that though. I fully respect Finland's choice to leave the song in Swedish.

This song has really is going to be under pressure to qualify in semi-final 1. Sandwiched between Belgium, who have another straight forward and uncomplicated ballad. Really it is difficult to see how Finland might qualify for the final when the public televote might be so against it. Why would they be against it? Well, I think being a dry ballad it might not exactly set the place on fire on Tuesday night half way through all of the songs. On the other hand it may stand out to more conservative voters, however I think they will drift towards Belgium.

Verdict: This might not drive the fans or the public crazy in the semi-final but in spite of its many failures it triggers something happy inside of me when I hear it. I'm not convinced it is a qualifier though.

Grade: A-

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Another Eurovision Entry And Some Semi Final Results

Finland have decided to send Pernilla Karlsson to Eurovision. It is what we would call a "Brave" entry. It lacks something and then something else and then.... Anyway the song is called Nar Jag Blunder. The dancer would suggest that there is something for that you have to be distracted from something.....

Sweden surprised us all by deciding to stop Charlotte Perrelli in her tracks. She is now out of Melodifestivalen. Danny and Lisa went directly to Globen which was surprising for Lisa to get through. However Danny was not anyway surprising. His performance was vocally unsound and would be very difficult to do at ESC. However it is Danny and judging by the audience reaction he will be the one to beat on Saturday 10th.

Estonia and Lithuania also held semi-finals and I have not studied them in enough so do please read about on escXtra

Friday, January 27, 2012

The Exciting Weekend Ahead - And I'm Not Around

So from the top this weekend:

Finland hold their first show of UMK - can't pronounce what it stands for. I never was big into talent shows of this nature when it comes to Eurovision, so I'm not put out that I'm missing it.

Norway - Semi Final 2 tomorrow evening. While I may not be watching I will be supporting PLUMBO who I think are simply excellent. Minne-Oh and Malin are also favourites of mine. I think there is a good chance that they will all get through but I would be prepared to bet that Rikke Nordmann may get in over Malin. You can read our review of Semi 2 here.

Iceland - Iceland's third and final semi-final is on Saturday, we are hoping to see GRETA SALOME go through to the final with a second song. I can't call the second finalist but we are sure the later will make it through. Our review of the show is here.

Hungary holds Semi 1 tomorrow also. We are unimpressed with their songs so far and don't particularly look forward to it. Our review of their songs is here.

Finally France will present their song on Sunday (16:00) from the bit that we heard of the song we are largely unimpressed with it.

While I may not be at home I hope to be on Twitter a little bit over the weekend and will try my best to see the results and have a full piece of reaction by Sunday evening.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Melodifestivalen kicks off

The big news today is that Melodifestivalen has kicked off with the web joker competition. I was never a big fan of the web jokker so I'm not expecting anything massive. However sooner or later a web joker is going to win a place in the final so it may be worth a look at.

In Finland 540 entries have been entered with the national final in Feb.

I'm also delighted to say ESC 2011 has won an award for Best Entertainment from the Deutscher Fernsephpreis. Well done Eurovision

Also the video of the day is Edsilla Romebly's new song. Note to the schlagerboys: TAKE A LOOK AT THIS: