The first 10 semi-finalists to win through to Saturday’s Grand Final are (in alphabetical order) Albania (Elhaida Dani with “I’m Alive”), Armenia (Genealogy with “Face the Shadow”), Belgium (Loïc Nottet with “Rhythm Inside”), Estonia (Elina & Stig with “Goodbye to Yesterday”), Georgia (Nina Sublatti with “Warrior”), Greece (Maria-Elena Kyriakou with “One Last Breath”), Hungary (Boggie with “Wars for Nothing”), Romania (Voltaj with “De La Capat”), Russia (Polina Gagarina with “A Million Voices”) and Serbia (Bojana Stamenov with “Beauty Never Lies”).
Meanwhile, six countries — Belarus (Uzari & Maimuna with “Time”), Denmark (Anti Social Media with “The Way You Are”), Finland (PKN (Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät) with “Aina mun pitää”), FYR Macedonia (Daniel Kajmakoski with “Lisja esenski”), Moldova (Eduard Romanyuta with “I Want Your Love”) and the Netherlands (Trintje (Trijintje Oosterhuis) with “Walk Along”) — failed to qualify in Semi-Final 1.
Seven countries have already automatically qualified for this year’s Grand Final: the 2014 winner, Austria; the Big Five (countries responsible for majority-funding the event), France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom; and Australia.
Australia has a long tradition of supporting the Eurovision Song Contest and has been invited to take part by the organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), as part of the contest’s 60th-annivesary celebrations.
On Thursday, in Semi-Final 2, 17 further countries will compete for the last-remaining 10 places in the final.
Serbia has now become one of the favourites to win on Saturday. The song, performed by Bojana Stamenov, was written by Charlie Mason, the person responsible for Austria’s winning 2014 entry, “Rise Like A Phoenix”, which was performed by the bearded drag artiste Conchita Wurst, crowned by Eurovision fans as the Queen of Eurovision. The favourites to win this year also include Australia, Russia and Sweden.
Not surprisingly, Australia have never won Eurovision, this being their first time as a competing country. However, they did take part in 2013, when Jessica Mauboy appeared as the interval act, performing “Sea Of Flags.”
Russia usually perform well in the ESC, reaching second place on three separate occasions — Alsou, in 2000, with “solo”, Dima Bilan, in 2006 with “Never Let You Go” and Buranovskiye Babushki (otherwise known as the “Russian Grannies”, in 2012, with “Party For Everybody” — and taking home the top prize in 2008, again with Dima Bilan, this time singing “Believe”.
Sweden, meanwhile, has already won the contest on five separate occasions. First, in 1974, when Abba performed “Waterloo”. Then, ten years later, in 1984, Herreys did the honours with “Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley”. Carola saw their next win, in 1991, with “Fångad av en stormvind”, and Charlotte Nilsson did the same in 1999 with “Take Me To Your Heaven”. Finally, just three years ago, in 2012, Loreen triumphed with “Euphoria”, Sweden having reached third place just the year before, when Eric Saade (see Markos Papadatos’s recent interview with Saade elsewhere on Digital Journal) represented the country with “Popular”. Last year, the country reached second place, with Sanna Nielsen singing “Undo”.
The Eurovision Song Contest 2015 Grand Final is set to take place on Saturday, May 24, live from the Wiener Stadthalle in the Austrian capital, Vienna.
