Well that was chuffing magnificent wasn’t it?! A perfect line up of songs, staggeringly amazing performances, goosebump inducing key changes, and a set of results that would shock anyone to their very core!!! If you’re into that sort of thing. And we were in attendance for the whole thing at Malmo Arena.
Where do we start? Well there was Agnes‘ gold sequined cat suit, big hair, lit up catwalk, and a disco inspired, uptempo anthem of a song. Then there were Star Pilots – who gave a stellar performance of ‘Higher’ – an ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ style track that’s probably the best pure dance track that’s been sent to Melodifestivalen in many a year. The staging was great too. Johan Becker stood to the side of the stage singing in a full, old fashioned pilot’s uniform while his troupe of muscled male dancers had a ball on the main stage contorting themselves into a plethora of positions! Agnes made the final and Star Pilots progressed to the second chance round.
Heat 4 also gave us two very strong ballads – in the form of subtle, contemporary beauty from Susanne Alfengren, and then dramatic and defiant emotion from Sarah Dawn Finer. Both were stunning, and it’s fair to say that both suffered from being in the same heat as one another. Susanne finished last and Sarah could only make the second chance round despite being favourite to qualify.
Malena Ernman gave us our favourite song of the night. An opera tinged dance track with the most fierce key change of the contest and an absolutely electric performance that went down very well in the arena. It breezed through to the final and could very well win the whole competition. Anna Sahlene and Maria Haukaas Storeng also gave a performance that was really well recieved both in the arena and with internet fans around the world. But the Swedish public didn’t agree and it could only manage 7th place.
It was also the night of the first and only pure schlager song of the 2009 contest -‘Sweet Kissin In The Moonlight’ by Thorleifs gave us a new dosage of perfectly crafted, Abba inspired cheese to keep us going until the next time Thomas G:Son collaberates with a geriatric Schlager diva wanting to come out of retirement! But despite Thorleifs being a massive band for over 40 years around Scandinavia, they still only managed to come 5th – such was the strength of the heat. We’re convinced that when the voting figures are announced, it’ll be revealed that Thorleifs polled more votes than some of the songs which qualified directly for the final in some of the other heats. And finally we had Next 3 with ‘Esta Noche’ – a rather pleasant ‘romp’ that played with dancehall club beats and had a catchy ‘Opp Och Uppa’ style singalong feel to it. It came 6th.
It’s meant that the second chance round this coming Saturday is going to be one of the strongest ever, as will the final in two week’s time.
We’ll be doing a ‘Top 20 Melodifestivalen 2009 Songs’ countdown soon, complete with videos, so more on our favourites then.
