Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

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...

Jonna (28) came to the spotlight in 2002 when she was one of the girls selected to a girlband created by a reality show. Gimmel was born but Jonna left the band after a month and went solo. ( Jenni Vartiainen was one of the other Gimmel girls, btw and PMMP girls met during the show, too). Her career took off quite nicely and her debut album went to #7 but then the progress has been downhill: the follow up went to #27 and the third one #32. After that she went to the States for awhile, got married and divorced and is now ready for a comeback, in English. Jonna has released three albums and 11 singles so far. Her website says she will release her first single in English in January 2011 so one can quite safely suspect her Euroviisut entry will be in English instead Finnish she has been singing so far. Her hits include Jäässä , Sateen jälkeen   and Tyytyväinen . She has also dueted with Darin in Explain and she has also collaborated with Cheek . Jonna is one of the artists/songs YL...