LIVE: Sanremo 2012: The final!

And here it is, the final night. The audience share and number has been going down day after day and there has been many technical problems starting with the first night's voting system and the latest minor scandal is Did Loredana Berté do play-back last night? Tonight last night's newcomers winner Alessandro Casillo finally gets his award, I guess and most of all we will know who will go for Italy to Baku 2012 Eurovision? The latest rumour is also Erica Mou is out of question now....
20.48 and we start with All you need is love and many many kissing couples enter the stage... and of course they are all straight as this is Italy. After that Gianni, Ivana and Rocco sum up the previous four days and the problems they've had. And not one word about the audience numbers and share - as they would do if they were good! And televote is open now! One can vote five times.

21.02 and it's again Nina Zilli as the opening number. She wearing a stunning figure hugging light blue dress and sings like an angel. Great! And the audience gives a very warm applause. One of my favourites for sure!

21.09 and we continue with Gigi D'Alessio & Loredana Berté. Gigi has dressed up for the occasion and Loredana looks like someone who went to funeral (Whitney?). But this weird combination still rocks. I like it even if somehow I feel like I shouldn't...

And after that we have a local actress and comedienne Geppi Ciucciari, who is quite funny indeed when small talking with Gianni. And if you didn't know the artistic director of Sanremo of the last seven years has decided to quit so next year there will be new blood. Maybe.

21.26 and then we have Emma on stage. The big favourite for vixtory but out of question for Eurovision it seems.She has also dressed up for the occasion in a pretty dark grey/black dress. I really like the verses, the chorus less. And the song just grows and grows while I keep thinking less would be more. The piano is fantastic though! Big applause.

21.33 Samuele Bersani next. Dressed as pinguino. And stepping of the stage to be in the middle of the orchestra. The song is pleasant cabaret song with clever lyrics. Propably wins the Premio Mia Martini ...

21.38 Dolcenera time! She is also in black but apparently couldn't decide between short and long dress so she cut the front off? But she is sp pretty anyways. And she's one of my favourites, even if this may not be her best song ever. Actually it is not but it's good enough and very Dolcenera. She could be consicered for Eurovision as well but let's wait and see....
21.51 after ads we are back with the boombastic entrance of Ivana and a joke played by Rocco on Adriano Celentano's first night's monologue that angered Vatican and a few other sensible persons.

And we continue with Pierdavide Carone ft Lucio Dalla. I thought I liked this but already now find this rather pretendious and boring. And I'm a bit tired of these songs about prostitutes. How come there are so many in Italy and especially in Sanremo?

22.00 and it's Noemi, another hot favourite tonight. I'm warming up to this one and I realized what's wrong with this song, it's too long. It gets a bit repetitive in the end so if you cut this to 3 minutes it's just about perfect song for Eurovision, isn't it? In a true Rapsodia tradition. And also Noemi was wearing light blue long dress that marched her flaming red hair. It's all blue and black tonight...

22.08 and then we have lovely Arisa. And she's in black, too. This is one of my favourite songs tonight. Tender and sweet. No winners no losers, she sings but this is another good candidate for Eurovision. As this song suffers the same as Noemi's, it's just a bit too long.

22.16 and we are already having the 9th and second to last artist, Eugenio Finardi! In black of course. One of my favourites, too, but looks like no one else likes this one. I find the melody very beautiful and even the lyrics don't bother me. Well, I guess he is not going to Baku 2012 anyways.

22.20 and it's time for the last song. Is it that eurovision.tv is streaming this live or why and how come this is going so smoothly and fast? :-) Here comes Francesco Renga. He's in with a little chance for a victory but I doubt he is interested nor concidered for Eurovision so let's just sit back and listen. Dark grey for him. They say the pastel colors and colors in general are coming back this spring. You wouldn't believe it if you watch tonight's final. This used to be also a very fashionable thing before but tonight... At least we saw some color in the previous nights.
22.27 and it's time to talk about the newcomers. And here comes Casillo! Oh no, he doesn't. His babysitter didn't let him out yet. Let's have some advertising instead....
I have just seen the copy for the night. Ell/Nikki enter the stage around 00.50, we will see a short fil about Eurovision and Gianni will tell us who will go there for Italy 2012. And right after that the winner of the festival will be awarded and we will hear the winning song aroun 1.00
22.38 after ads and some self promotion by RAI for the new Commissario Montalbano series still no sight of Casillo so GIanni sings a song to kill some time.....

22.40 oh dear, he's back. Adriano Celentano. Who's he going to anger this time? Yawn...

23.15 we are back. I had time to emoty the washing machine and hang the laundry while Celentano was on stage.... and here he comes finally, Alessandro Casillo, the newcomers winner with È vero. And he gets his awards and sings his song. All this could have been done last night if he wasn't only 15. I'm afraid this is a wasted victory that will fade away as soon as cuts his hair and the teenage girls grow up. But he's dressed smartly for the occasion as well. In black and white.

23.25 Geppi is funny. Gianni gets his first entrance via the stairs. And then he gets interviewed for a change. And the televote is now closed. Soon we will find out the top-6 based on 50-50 of televote and the festival orchestra. Then the press in press center has a Golden Share. They can lift one artist 3 places up, in short the 4th-6th to 3rd place and therefor for superfinal where only televote rules and gives us the winner.

23.39 but before that we have a comeback from The Cranberries. First Zombie, then Tomorrow.
23.50 here we go. The results. Top-6 is: 6th Dolcenera, 5th Pierdavide Carone ft Lucio Dalla, 4th Noemi, 3rd Gigi D'Alessio & Loredana Bertè, 2nd Emma and 1st Arisa! And press Golden share goes to... Noemi! So the Superfinalists are Noemi, Arisa and Emma. All as planned. No´w all the votes are zeroed and the televoting starts again.

23.57 Luca and Paolo are back. Not funny.

00.02 Ivana is having her moment. This is Sanremo. Sadly. But miracolously we are only 4 minutes late in the script!

00.12 here comes the first superfinalist, Noemi. Yes, it's a goodie. Me likes. And she seems to be enjoying the moment.

00.17 and then it's Emma. She's really giving it all. Anything to beat the other girls it seems. If she only had this energy already before. The best performance so far by her.

00.22 and last but not least, Arisa. Fantastic. No doubt about that.
00.39 they have been talking about Walter Chiari for ages now and I have no idea who he is? Am I ignorant? Anyways, in 15 minutes or so we should finally know who the Italian Eurovision artist is....

00.42 but before that Rocco Papaleo makes his dreams true and sings on stage of Teatro Ariston in Festival della canzone Italiano...  sigh

00.52 the televote is now closed. And the Sanremo festival orchestra's conductor Sabiu gets his moment now with Limitless, off his brand new album.
..... it is NINA ZILLI!!!!!
01.06 Geppi is back on stage and she's hilarious. But we wait for the official announcements of Nina Zilli's spring trip to Baku 2012. And not necessarily with her Sanremo entry but with another song. Maybe even a duet!
01.08 Assomusica gives an award to a newcomer, Marco Guazzone.
01.09 and finally they talk about Eurovision! And enter Luca and Paolo....

00.12 enter Ell/Nikki and then Nina Zilli!

00.14 and now the Sanremo results. The premio Mia Martini by critics is Samuele Bersani (what did I say?)

00.17 and the winner is Emma. Arisa came second, Noemi third.