Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Now here's a lot of Eurovision and Uuden musiikin kilpailu's royalty in one musical happening in Espoo City theater. A story about Finnish women; mothers and daughters, love and difficult choices. Äidinmaa (Mother's land) musical story runs in two periods of time; during the summer preceding the Winter War (1939), a young Anni falls in love with a handsome stranger. The mother, grocer Vieno has her doubts and her own ways of coping with the world. In the eighties Anni looks back at her life next to her daughter's daughter, who carries the heritage and scars of the family's women. Jennie Von Storbacka (from Euroviisut 2005 , 2006 ) is the young Anni, Pirkko Mannola (Euroviisut 1962, 1964 ) is the old Anni. Laura Voutilainen (Eurovision 2002 ) is Vieno, Anni's mother and Mikael Saari (Umk 2013 , 2016 ) is Olavi, the handsome stranger. 

There was not a shadow of doubt in this blogger's mind Margaret would walk this with Cool me down . And she does bring Poland its first ever victory. Sweden once again scores well with the fans placing second (which this blogger doesn't understand) but the rest of the top is rather in line what I thought. Finland's Mikael Saari did better than I believed and Switzerland's Vincent Gross way too low for my liking....  Check out the full results after the jump

The fan favorite from #UMK2013 and #UMK2016 finally releases his debut album, The Grand Letdown. The album includes both his entries, On it goes and We should be through (new version). He has self written all the songs, except the Queen cover Save me and a duet with Stiina Koistinen.  01 Intro 00:17 02 You shall be my wife 03:52 03 C’est la vie 03:27 04 Storms 03:24  05 On it goes 03:08 06 Revontuli 04:03 07 Dialogue (feat. Stina Koistinen) 04.07 08 You should have seen us 03:22  09 Save me 03:47 10 We should be through 03:59  11 She’s gone 05:53  12 Pray for my soul 05:04  13 Outro (Kaipuuvalssi) 04:23 Order yours here

After a great night this blogger is very happy. Sandhja, a nurse from my hometown Espoo won ahead of fan favorites Saara Aalto, second again (LOL) and Mikael Saari left third this time.  Sandhja was and is amazing on stage, the song is very catchy and atypical for Finland. Now I'm looking forward to Stockholm with greater confidence and pride. Go Finland!

Finland has its #umk16 final tonight and the winner will be our 50th Eurovisison entry. Roope Salminen is hosting the show from Helsinki with 2013 entrant Krista Siegfrids and Eurovision 2007 hostess Jaana Pelkonen will be there, too. Eurovision 2006 winner Lordi is performing and celebrating the 10th anniversary of their win and also last year's participants Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät grace the show with their presence. For the first time for a very long time, or ever, the polls give no clue who will win. Pre-contest favorite Saara Aalto is not doing so well in the polls, and the fan favorites Mikael Saari (He won the Finnish fanclub's Fan Award again) and Annice & Kimmo don't seem to appeal to the masses, nor Tuuli. Eini is doing well with general puclic, critics love Sandhja and Barbe-Q-Barbies is picking up speed. Being the only rock entry will surely be an advantage when the masses start to vote tonight, same goes for Eini having the only song in Finnish. Cri...

YLE's competition, commercial television MTV3 has also run its poll about the #UMK16 entries for its website readers. And like everywhere else (except Finnish Eurovision fans who are all still listening Mikael Saari's previous entry it seems... see the chart at bottom) it's very tight. Anything can happen tonight! Follow my live blog tonight! Cristal Sow   16,98% Eini   16,64% Barbe-Q-Barbies   16,37% Saara Aalto   16,11% Sandhja   10,65% Annica & Kimmo   8,56% Mikael Saari   8,15% Tuuli Okkonen circa 3% Stella Chrisitine circa 3% Fans voting:

The field is more open than maybe ever in #UMK16, the Finnish national selection for the Eurovision song contest 2016 in Stockholm. Early favorites aren't so strong as they should be (to compare last year when PKN scored 60-70% of votes in most every poll). I already posted about Ilta-Sanomat reader's poll here . Over 25.000 people voted and it finished a tie with Saara Aalto and Eini, both scoring 18%.  Later this week Iltalehti had similar poll and it finished with Saara Aalto winning with 15,1%. She's closely followed by Sandhja (14,2%) and Barbe-Q-Barbies (13,9%). Both performed in the last semifinal last Saturday while Saara was in the first one three weeks ago. With about 12% right after them we have Cristal Snow, Eini and Mikael Saari. The remaining about 20% is divided by Stella Christine, Annica & Kimmo and Tuuli Okkonen so it's all very close. If we look at the Spotify hits, Sandhja is the clear winner with 23% in the past few days. Cristal Snow i...

Ilta-Sanomat, one of the biggest newspapers in Finland run a poll after the last #umk16 semifinal who should win and surprisingly Eini has caught up with Saara Aalto as the favorite! This blogger couldn't be more delighted as I am in #teamEini. Out of 25.040 votes they both scored 18%. At first Saara was leading but then Eini has gained votes, as has Mikael Saari while Saara and Barbe-Q-Barbies had lost some along the way.  Here are the results: EINI 18% SAARA AALTO 18% CRISTAL SNOW 14% MIKAEL SAARI 12% SANDHJA 11% BARBE-Q-BARBIES 10% ANNICA & KIMMO 8% STELLA CRISTINE 6% TUULI OKKONEN 4% As one can see, it's very close and there's no runaway winner candidate like last year for example. This list is radically different from escstats fan poll where Kimmo & Annica are leading, Saari second, Aalto third followed by Sandhja, Snow, Eini, B-Q-B, Okkonen and Stella, but then that includes still all #umk16 entries. In the F...

Here we are ready for the second semifinal. It's an open field and live will be crucial. Let's see what happens.... Krista is cometing in melodifestivalen tonight so Roope is hosting alone I suppose. And Robin will be guest starring. Oh Krista is there! Or is she? Modulator Raakel Liekki reminds she's indeed competing in Sweden. That's all we have got so far. If someone watching doesn't know the facts he might be a bit confused right now... Attention 2 - Ready for the show Flying flags and neoncolors and cartoon backdrops. Imperfections they sing and ... well, imperfections fly like the flags but the girls have fullfilled their dream. They are quite sweet but maybe they better come back next year :-) Roope finally explains the Krista affair and yes, he will be hosting alone tonight Cristal Snow - Love is blind Cristal takes the red bulls by hors in his staging. Hot red bull masks and despite some inperfections here, too, in the beginning h...

The second semifinal on February 13 works just like the first one. Six acts and three will be televoted to the final and it all takes place at YLE's studios in Helsinki. Many returns in this one from Cristal Snow to Mikael Saari and Kimmo Blom aka Angelo de Nile. Also last year's Pihja ja Myrsky returns as songwriters to Attention 2, as does Jimi Constantine from Euroviisut 2011, today the man behind megasuper popular Robin. And there's that obstrusive fan team as songwriters. And the song blamed of plagiarism..... And finally a couple of the most succesful and famous Finnish dancemusic producers Kaivo and JS16.  Attention 2 - Ready for the show  (Henna Helasvuo, Lasse Turunen/Lasse Turunen) Review Cristal Snow - Love is blind  (Cristal Snow, Jimi Constantine, Samuel Kovanko) Review Annica Milán & Kimmo Blom - Good enough  (Michael James Down, Primoz Pogladen, Jonas Gladnikoff, Matthew Ker) Review Rafaela Truda - Rise up  (Kalle Mäkipe...