Don’t ask us what’s going on here, we can’t remember. It was late, and we’d both had a lot to drink.
But oh my, what an amazing night it was! The quality of the songs, the staging, Marie Serneholt…..Melodifestivalen 2011 is shaping up to be one of the best ever. And that’s even before we get to the results…….
Oh Sanna Nielsen, what a triumph!
Last night at Heat 2 of Melodifestivalen, the right song won, as ‘I’m In Love’ confidently strutted its way out of a complex stage prop and into the grand final in March. It was delivered perfectly by a sweet, smiling Sanna, who quite clearly captivated voters with the flawless interpretation of modern day disco schlager. We loved it! And we loved her victory performance of it even more. It was a great moment. And it’s gonna be a future classic.
She was joined in the final by Brolle, whose ‘Seven Days and Seven Nights’ really grew on us by the time he performed it on Saturday night. It wasn’t one of our favourites last night, and it won’t be one of our favourites in the final, but it’s a deserved place nonetheless. He’s a thoroughly charismatic performer, and the song is the sort of anthem that obviously struck a chord with a lot of people. And of course, he’s hotness personified. CRUELLY, he was the only one of the eight artists that we didn’t meet at the after party last night. Although in the arena, we were sat mere metres away from the ‘green room’ area where the artists sit after their performances and await the results. So that appeased us slightly.
The two songs qualifying for the second chance round, were ‘Oh My God’ by The Monikor (no surprise there), and ‘Me Heart Is Refusing Me’ by Loreen (a big surprise). With Loreen, we do really like the song, but we honestly didn’t think that the public televoters would ‘get it’ in those three minutes, and that it was more likely to be a hit outside of the contest as opposed to within the contest. Clearly, we underestimated the Swedes, and they saw to it that this fantastic song performed with amazing vocals, got further in the competition.
And now onto the four songs which were eliminated from the contest – all of which we really liked. Christian Walz came 5th with ‘Like Suicide’. The song itself deserved to qualify, but we got the impression that the performance didn’t. Christian Walz is clearly a talented guy, but it did appear that him and the song were a little mismatched. It sounds great in its studio version, but the performance was a bit off the mark, with him sounding like he was straining and struggling throghout a lot of the vocal delivery.
In 6th came ‘Elektrisk’ by Anniela, which was our second favourite song of the evening, after Sanna Nielsen’s ‘I’m In Love’. It’s a brilliantly catchy cross between club and schlager music. Anniela’s performance was HOT, and surprisingly assured given that she’s a relative rookie, and had been suffering from a sore throat the previous few days. Finishing in 6th wasn’t a success by any means, but it was (to state the obvious!) better than finishing in 7th or 8th like a lot of quarters had predicted she would. And perhaps everyone behind the song can draw some comfort from the fact that UK music TV channel, Chart Show TV, tweeted this message to their thousands of followers a few hours after the show; “This is ur future CLUBBING MUSIC!!! CLUB!!! ENJOY!!!! CLUB!!!“, followed by a link to the youtube vid of the ‘Elektrisk’ performance!
The delightful Babsan lit up our evening with the campest show of the night. Her run through of ‘Ge Mig En Spanjor’ was a joy from start to finish, and the lady herself is SUCH a great entertainer. We love her! It was a shame to see her languishing in 7th place, but we think that it may have just been a case of the Swedes not wanting that song in particular representing them at Eurovision, rather than it being down to them not enjoying the performance. How could anyone in their right mind not enjoy this!
And finally, down in 8th place was another of our favourites, ‘Vaken I En Drom’, by Elisabeth Andreassen. We love the song and we thought the performance was great, so we really don’t know why it finished so low. Regardless, it’s one that we’re gonna be enjoying on the iPod for quite some time to come. And we can happily report that Elisabeth was in marvellous spirits at the after party, despite the dreaded low finish.
Last, but by no means least……..WE LOVE YOU MARIE SERNEHOLT!
