Skip to main content

ESC 2016 FINLAND: #UMK16 SEMIFINAL THREE - LIVE BLOGGING

The third and last #UMK16 semifinal takes place in YLE's studios in Helsinki. Roope Salminen and Krista Siegfrids - fresh from Melodifestivalen - will be hosting the show, and Raakel Liekki is in charge in the Post-Modulation scene. Chisu will be doing the interval show and one can only wish one day YLE would just skip all UMK and send her off to Eurovision.... 

----------- Join me at 8pm  for live blogging-----------------
Here we go again! Roope's got Krista back and is all kisses and hugs :-) No wonder, she's dressed in pink minidress and long silver boots looking very ding if not even dong! After chat with post-modulators and voting instructions it's party time.....

Starts with a human pyramid and he has his helmet headed dancers and robot musicians and a lot of neon and all that we already know from the video. Visually very entertaining and smooth, vocally a bit less - but then he's been in silence all week thanks to severe throat and voice problems.... Could this be a surprise qualifier? Hmmm....

Tuuli Okkonen - Don't wake me up
She's has Agnetha F make up and hair, rather shaky vocals at some parts, blue dress and the backdrops plays with shadows, then comes rain, and even fire rain. Eurovision cliché at full blast.

Gušani Brothers - Poom poom
Introduction video, fireworks, disco on stage, girls..... it starts off with a bang but then.... the singer loses it completely and just wandrs around with shaky vocals. Such a shame. I expected a lot more. But I still go poom poom poom....

After that we have yet another look back at the Finnish Eurovision history. They are so funny. For Finnish speakers, for the others.... I don't know. Are they?

Barbe-Q-Barbies - Let me out
Solid rock performance with fireworks - and heavily pregnant lead singer but you don't really see that. Catchy and simple and this one should qualify easily. Finns love rock after all.

Krista changed outfit......

Pietarin Spektaakkeli - Liian kuuma
1950's colors and dancing girls, and band. Even more monotonous vocals than in the record. yawn. I sincerely hope Finns won't go for this.....

Sandhja - Sing it away
Simple but colorful and a bit ethnic look and staging for this one. Good vocals, groovy song. This swings it all the way to final easily. She also nailed the presentation video coming across very humble and likable :-)

#umk16 is the number one hashtag in Finland at the moment :-)

The internet prevotes (from Monday to Thursday) would have these qualifiers: Tuuli Okkonen, Barbe-Q-barbies and Sandhja.....
Let's see if there will be any changes tonight. In the first semi Eini managed to qualify ahead of ClemSo but in the second the result was the same......
And if you wonder the Finnish 49 previous Eurovision choices before..... this explains it all. Live with it. Get over it.
Last week Robin did Huilumies, now Chisu brings Tipitii to the 2010's
Before moving on to her own Tähdet, tähdet
The finalists are:
Barbe-Q-Barbies
Tuuli Okkonen and.....
Sandhja!

Already qualified for the final:

Saara Aalto - No fear
Stella Christine - Ain't got time for boys
Eini - Draamaa
Cristal Snow - Love is blind
Annica Milán & Kimmo Blom - Good enough
Mikael Saari - On it goes

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

SONGS OF THE YEAR 2015: #5 KRISTA SIEGFRIDS - ON & OFF

Krista Siegfrids is delivering nice pop tunes one after another and this one is particularly catchy and soon you will be singing along..... Hopefully her Melodifestivalen entry will be equally good!

ESC 2016 WISH LIST: MARGARET FOR POLAND

Małgorzata Jamroży aka Margaret has also been tipped for Eurovision and apparently she did turn it down but she'd be perfect. She's got a look and persona you can't unnotice nor forget, she's got hit songs, she has been voted or nominated for everything from Trendy artist to the Hope of the Year, Fashion Icon and Glamour Woman of the year besides the usual best video, song, album, debut..... Oh she's also a fashion designer! She's very clever with social medias and would surely use it to her advantage if selected for Stockholm 2016. Her debut album is titled Add the blonde , do we need to say more? Except it includes mostly Swedish written pop tunes like Tell me how are ya , Wasted , Start a fire and Heartbeat . And of course her debut single and internationally noticed Thank you very much that you can enjoy below with all its anti-textil feel. I think she's Eurovision perfection, she's cheeky and fun, can we have her?

ESC 2016 BELARUS: NAKED WITH WOLVES?

Today's funniest Eurovision related story comes from Belarus. Some sources claim Ivan wants to perform on stage naked and with live wolf or wolves. It surely would be a first on Eurovision stage! We have seen some forgotten underwear over the years, and some cardbox animals though..... Is it time to take things a bit further?  No, according the rules live animals are not allowed, and Eurovision being a family show nudity won't do either. (It seems to be ok to be half naked if you are a dancer though..... )

GREECE: HELENA PAPARIZOU HITS AGAIN WITH HAIDE

Eurovision song contest 2005 winner Helena Paparizou has been enjoying Top-5 hits every year since 2003 with the exception of 2010 and 2014, this latest one being already her 27th! And Haide is charting also in Bulgaria and Finland, of all places. The catchiness of her hits has changed less over the years than her face....  Here's the English version , below the Greek version. 

TIM SCHOU AND HIS NAKED GRAVITY

Tim Schou has a pretty good solo career going since he left his friends in London. He's travelling the world and relesing songs and videos. The latest one is a great track and comes with a steamy video that kinda takes away from the song really. But who's complaining. If you got it, flaunt it. Enjoy the video below. This post coming after the other Dane, Rasmus Seebach as wishlist for Eurovision. To think about it, Tim would do nicely, too. Maybe he should give it another go?

CONCHITA WURST RELEASES YOU ARE UNSTOPPABLE VIDEO

Just awhile before her debut album simply titled Conchita will be released Conchita Wurst has released a video to her latest single You are unstoppable . And yes, she does Loreen or goes topless. Beautifully shot in black and white the video once again provides some beautiful imaginary and shots. And she's off to Australia for promotion soon..... 

CAROLA'S BOOBS STEAL THE SHOW, SVT APOLOGIES

Update! Another thing got Swedes talking last night: Carola's boobs when she was giving away an award. This is not the first time her boombs cause headlines; her misfortunate adventures in the 80's in Japan wer explained with her boobs being too big for Japanese market. Ok.... Or was it the song ? Anyways, Carola apologies and says she thinks the dress is stylish and elegant (even her friends said so) and she's a mature woman in her 40s, not a 16-year-old girl and looks like one. The Swedish Oscars, Guldbagge awards were given out last night. Carola was there as a guest star to sing Barbra Streisand's The way we were when honoring the movie stars who passed away during 2012. However, the cameras were too much on Carola, not on the stars showed in photos in the background and that upset many viewers as that part of the show was to celebrate them, not Carola. Oh well...  The producer of the show tells in Aftonbladet the part of the show was made the sam...

EUROVISION 2025 PORTUGAL: NAPA WINS FESTIVAL DA CANCAO 2025

Portugal's Festival da Canção 2025 also reached the final after two semi-finals. The winner was chosen by 50/50 regional juries and televotes. For me once again one of the best and most interesting national finals, a true contrast to Melodifestivalen's polished boredom and playing it so safe also here it seemed beforehand a duel between two: for international fandom Josh vs national popular Fernando Daniel with Henka in for a possible surprise. And yes, Portugal did Portugal and unlike San Marino and Sweden where things went as scripted - except Sweden did the unthinkable finish against all odds - chose Napa that no one abroad saw coming.... nor in Portugal I guess watching those votes going everywhere and so different from the juries and televotes Napa (ex Men on the Couch) is a Portuguese indie rock pop band since 2013. Francisco Sousa, João Guilherme Gomes, João Rodrigues, Diogo Góis and  João Lourenço Gomes are from the island of Madeira. Switch from English to Portuguese,...

SWEDEN: MEDS MAKES MÅNS ZELMERLÖW HARD AND NAKED

Earlier this year Måns Zelmerlöw invested some of his money into web pharmacy MEDS and now he's ready to bare it all for its advertising film, which is.... how to put it? The corniest thing I have seen for a long, long time perhaps? Supposed to be funny the way his Eurovision presenting stunts were I presume, but this falls somewhere between embarassing and uncool. Well, we get to admire some over acrting and a lot of naked Måns riding a horse and sporting a hard on at one point. Maybe that's enough to make MEDS a success.... Where's Edward af Sillen when you need him?