Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

    Sweden's own Robin Bengtsson is ready to open the rehearsal today again. Today's the first big day. First and second dress rehearsals will take place (4pm and 10pm local time) and the second one is the jury final so everyone must be in top form. We will also see for the first time the opening and interval acts, as well as the hosting trio in action and how the overal show is. I can't go on (waiting)!

  Here we go with the second technical rehearsals, this time 20 minutes each and in full stage dress, so this should be already exactly like it's going to be in the live broadcasts next week. Minor changes can be still done but so far it's apparently been very quiet and no major drama has erupted like in some previous years so most everyone seems to be more or less happy with their staging ideas and how Ukrainians have managed to get it all together. And for the first time EBU is letting us see 30 seconds of the actual television broadcast feed to wet our appetite for the rea thing..... Let's start with Sweden. I'm sure we all are already familiar with this. It's the same choreography and camera shots as in Melodifestivalen basicly. All is pretty much tuned into perfection, each move and look and now it all comes down to Robin's capacity of trasmitting some emotion and solid vocals, or this could turn out a very cold affair. This said, I like it. It w...

  Sweden was the first one to rehearse on stage for the very first technical rehearsal of the season. As expected the staging is pretty much the same as in Melodifestivalen, just with updated backdrop and two of the dancers on treadmills have changed into dancing backing singers, still wearing their suits and fashion model attitude. And no socks and way too short pant leg... Sweden is firmly in the final, and propably Top-5 there.....

Pictured is the Swedish national flower, linnaea borealis aka twin flower Sweden once again used Melodifestivalen, the mother of all national selection marathons to select its song. 2.478 songs were submitted, more were invited and in the end 28 were chosen for the semifinals and six weeks later after the usual four semisi and the second chance round we had lost three previous Eurovision winners in the process, as well as Finland's ex-entrant Krista Siegfrids and Robin Bengtsson was vrowded the new king with his I can't go on , written by David Kreuger, Hamed 'K-One' Pirouzpanah and previous Eurovision entrant Robin Stjernberg. He was the clear favorite of the international juries, but Swedish televoters placed him only third.... Robin Bengtsson (26) started his career back in 2008 in the Idols, where he placed third behind Maltese Kevin Borg, and Alice Svensson who also took part in this Meloifestivalen (but didn't make it past her semi). Then he did Wipe...

This is one very happy blogger; after the international jury votes my only three songs I liked were the top-3, and even after the televotes they were 1st, 2nd and 4th. Whatever happened to the fan wanks Wiktoria, Ace and Lisa (and Loreen)... I can only giggle. Feeling any wet slaps in face euroboys? Anyways, like I wrote before Robin, Nano and Mariette had the best song+staging combo, and I'm also pleased for Jon Henrik's third place. I'd love to have liked him more but the song left me a bit numb, even if Sami culture would have made a nice addition to Eurovision and should return again sooner or later; from Sweden, Norway or Finland... However it seems Melodifestivalen is getting to a turning point. All final songs were within 6,2-11,9% of the televotes so there was no real favorite for the great public. The highest scoring for them was Nano followed very closely by Wiktoria and Robin. As for the international juries Robin was a clear winner, followed by Nano, Mari...