Ireland, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, Latvia and Malta are eliminated. The rest are represented in the final: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Portugal, Serbia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Israel, Croatia and Moldova.
A new voting mode came into effect for the first time in the semifinals. Unlike in previous years, the national juries are not entitled to vote in the two semi-finals and may only have a say in the final. The background to this are inconsistencies in the voting behavior of seven countries in the previous year.
In other words: the audience alone decided which ten acts are still there – and which five are no longer on stage on Saturday. Who got the most votes and who just barely made it into the final will only be announced on Saturday after the final.
Favorite takes the first hurdle
It was reasonably clear that the big favorite of this year’s competition, the Swede Loreen with “Tattoo”, will be seen on Saturday. Sweden opted for a dark production this year, Loreen has to hold her own between two records. And sing too. “Tattoo” shares the fate of some of this year’s songs, namely to get up to speed quite slowly and very late. It won’t be known until Saturday night whether Loreen’s chosen outfit and, above all, the overly long claws on her hands increase or decrease her chances of winning.
The Serbian representative Luke Black was also bleak. Emerging from a flower petal, being pursued by a giant ant or similar animal on the LED screen, he struggled throughout the song to pry his friends from a mysterious wiring, all while breathing more than singing in gaze, voice and optics to the young Trent Reznor, lead singer of the band Nine Inch Nails, impersonated. Apparently the audience liked it.
Slanter, slanter, Croatia
Probably the weirdest performance of the year will be repeated on Saturday: The Croatian band Let 3 marched in in uniform, launched rockets and ended up on stage in fine rib and underpants. The band, which performs in the tradition of rock cabaret a la Drahdiwaberl, also delivered the most dedicated political message of the evening: “Little psychopath” is what the anti-war song says.
Croatian: Let 3 – „Mama SC“
With “My Sister’s Crown” the six-piece female band Vesna delivered perhaps the most complex song of the evening. They also scored with a pro-Ukraine political message, but it was not clear what playing with overly long pigtails on stage meant.
And the third song, which deals with war, was also rewarded: With “Watergun”, the Swiss Remo Forrer brought a very traditional piano ballad into the competition, vocally well mastered, he can also look forward to performing on Saturday.
Finland as a final hit
The Finn Käärijä, who started as the last candidate in the semifinals, delivered the crashing conclusion. Stepping out of a box, he blasted his way through the hall with “Cha Cha Cha”, later released his dance squad from the box and underlined that he was rightly one of the favorites on Saturday – even if one can have legitimate doubts as to whether he is Dance metal crossover works across generations. Vocally it also got a little thinner at the end of the song, but it seems easy to forgive him for that given the thunderous beginning.
Finland: Wrapper – “Cha Cha Cha”
Horn fraction in the final
Alessandra, representing Norway, also made it into the final. Their “Queen of Kings” is a quite brute Viking anthem with a catchy – if not to say quite familiar sounding – children’s song chorus. With bookmakers, she is just as likely to be in the top ten in the final as Israeli Noa Kirel with “Unicorn”. She also made it to the finals, perhaps not so much because of her song as for top performances in floor exercises and high-speed dance moves. It doesn’t seem to matter that half of the song isn’t sung at all anymore. The main thing is that it looks good on TikTok.
Pasha Parfeni delivered the ethno dance track of the evening for Moldova with “Soarele si luna” – including dancers with horn hairstyles. Without direct competition in this genre, he also managed to make it – perhaps also due to the fact that the Ukraine with Go_A 2021 and last year’s winner Kalush Orchestra made the flute solo socially acceptable in the song contest.
Moldova: Pasha Parfeni – “The Sun and the Moon”
With a wink, Mimicat from Portugal made it into the finals: Many handclaps and castanets borrowed from neighboring Spain paid off for their song “Ai coracao” and were rewarded with enough votes from the audience – that’s one of the smaller surprises of the evening.
Too little, too late, too funny
For five acts it was time to say goodbye. The Latvian band Sudden Lights could not convince the audience with their rather unwieldy song “Aija”. Above all, the refrain, which was performed with a head voice, had no great effect in the hall.
Mia Nicolai & Dion Cooper from the Netherlands could not inspire enough viewers either. The duet took too long to ignite at the end. It didn’t help that the song “Burning Daylight” was penned by Duncan Laurence, winner of 2019 after all.
The end of the line was also for the Maltese trio The Busker, who, with their oversized use of saxophone and choreography meant to be funny, couldn’t make up for the fact that their song “Dance (Our Own Party)” just barely stuck in your head.
No evening for golden Elvis
Singer Conor O’Donohoe of the Irish band Wild Youth didn’t seem quite comfortable in his golden full-body Elvis onesie, and rightly so. The song “We Are On”, intended as a solidarity anthem, stuttered on stage, also because vocally there was a lot missing in many corners.
Irland: Wild Youth – „We Are One“
The twin brothers TuralTuranX from Azerbaijan were responsible for the sweet part of the evening: The guitar pop number “Tell Me More” awakened memories of many similar-sounding songs from Great Britain. Still, flattering oneself with the host in this way was not rewarded.
Teya & Salena in the second semifinal on Thursday
The first semi-final was considered to be the better one in advance. On Thursday, the local representatives Teya & Salena will compete, who can count on very good chances of also advancing to the final.
The semi-final on Thursday, like the final on Saturday, can be seen live on ORF1 from 9 p.m. and in the live stream on tvthek.ORF.at. The German satirist Jan Böhmermann and the singer and actor Olli Schulz will comment on the final evening for FM4. The spectacle can not only be heard on FM4, in the ORF-TVthek there is also a separate stream for the right picture to sound. ORF.at accompanies the competition with a live ticker – including pictures, animated GIFs and social media comments.
