Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

The Norwegian MGP 2013 is coming to a conclusion tonight. After three semifinals we have nine songs plus one Wildcard was added (Lucky Lips) to mess things up a bit. My hopes are in no particular order: Gromth & Emil, Annsofi, Margaret Berger... and that's about it. I have a soft spot for Sirkus Eliassen but I don't necessarily want them for Malmö 2013.... I'll be back with results as soon as I'm done with UMK 2013 :-) Vidar Busk - Paid my way Gromth ft. Emil Solli-Tangen - Alone Datarock - The underground Annsofi - I'm with you Fjellfolk - Ulvetuva Margaret Berger - I feed you my love Adélen - Bombo Lucky Lips - Sweet and heavy Haute Ormåsen - Awake Sirkus Eliassen - I love you te quero

Norway kicked off their selection tonight and as usual it was a good show - or was it awfully dark on stage? Anyways, I had high expectations as the past few years I have liked the Norwegian selection better than the Swedish one everyone is raving about, more varied and interesting.  The evening took however a wrong turn right away with the first song, that I thought was a rockabilly arrangement of Mambo Italiano .... it wasn't. It was supposed to be Vidar Busk's entry. (The evening turned rather sour when he eventually went to the final.... ). But after that the evening didn't progress much better. Carina Dahl was next with a very weak offering in my books. Then came Tom Hugo. Sweet, gentle, less is more indeed. Now we are talking... and then came Emil and his heavy backers Gromth, interesting and much better than I expected from the snippet. Then Julie Bergan brought us back to the mediocrity and even if Mimi Blix's housebeat was enjoyable the song didn't r...