Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

So, after the third semifinal and YLE's surprising wildcard we have the ten finalists for the Finnish final on February 12, 2011 in Turku, the European capital of culture in 2011. And there's a little bit everything from gospel to glamrock, metal to acoustic pop, radiopop and powerballads. All three qualifiers from the internet selection got to the final making way to the big changes next year in Euroviisut. Six songs are in English now and Iivanainen, Hintsanen and Misic have said they will sing in English should they win so only Maunuksela is left in Finnish, and he has said it stays in Finnish no matter what. Two big fan favourites didn't make it, Jimi Constantine and Tommi Soidinmäki and YLE's wildcard went to Eveliina Määttä instead of them. Weird. I guess I'm now for Paradise Oskar and Stala & So. With Johanna Iivanainen (in English) as the black horse... Saara Aalto - Blessed with love Cardiant - Rapture in time Father McKenzie - Good enough Sami Hi...

The first - and weakest - semifinal is over and as expected Cardiant and Marko Maunuksela with his tango royals qualified. Johanna Iivanainen took the third place by surprise and left fan favourite Automatic Eye and Jonna to wait for a possible YLE's wildcard. Johanna Iivanainen - Luojani mun Cardiant - Rapture in time Marko Maunuksela - Synkän maan tango

Tomorrow evening the Euroviisut 2011 circus kicks off in Finland with the first semifinal. It's broadcasted live from Tohloppi TV-studios in Tampere at 20.00 CET on YLE2. I guess there won't be a webcast outside Finland this time either but don't worry: I'll be here blogging live so please tune in. Eurovision 2007 hostess Jaana Pelkonen leaves her dayjob in politics for awhile and leads the show but this time she has a new partner (third in history to be exact) Tom Nylund, a familiar voice from radio. Unfortunately this seems to be clearly the worst of three semifinals. Automatic Eye, Cardiant and Jonna are expected to qualify while reigning tango king Marko Maunuksela and Johanna Iivanainen haven't convinced the Eurovision fans but everything can change when the big public will get to vote and we see and hear the live performances. The same ones would qualify with the international voters in slighty different order. Check the songs below, and especially Jonna's...

Cardiant is one of the three acts that qualified from the open internet selection and brings some metal to Euroviisut 2011. Cardiant was formed back in 2000 and through several changes in members have come to its present formation. Singer Erik Karhatsu joined in 2008 after his participation to Idols 2008 where he was dropped during the rehearsal weekend. The other members are Antti Hänninen (guitar), Mikko Mänttäri (bass), Marko Lindroos (keyboards) and Lauri Hänninen (drums). The band has recorded several demos and their first full album Midday moon was released in 2005 - in Japan only. Second album Tomorrow's daylight was released in 2009, again in Japan and elsewhere sold only from band's website. Their only video so far is Stars upon your life . Their Euroviisut 2011 entry is Rapture in time .

So we did get some heavymetal in Euroviisut once again when Cardiant qualified. Some pop with Father McKenzie and a ballad by Saara Aalto. Fair enough. Another rather secret internet selection is over. I don't understand why YLE doesn't promote this in any way. If I wasn't fan I wouldn't even know it was on. Again. I never saw any promo on TV, the papers were not writing about it one word as far as I have seen and tonight's "Results show" tops it all: full five minutes at odd hour 6.45 PM where they played maybe 20 secs of each selected song. Even Jaana didn't bother to come by....