Eurovision Song Contest 2017 • Semi-final 1

come thru queen
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This is also something I not only noticed at your act, but also at other acts (for example and ). This has also to do with personal taste of course, but in my opinion the background music should've been louder.

Now, as I've said in recent times like on the forum chat and other places, I've grown up a lot and I'm not going to go 'all guns blazing' like I would have done in the past. So, my comments on last night - 

 - Okay, it wasn't bad but it just was the 'same old, same old' for me. Nothing really new, nothing that made me go "wow". But low and behold, as I predicted, it was a sure-in qualifier.

 - It's been undermined by people since it was selected. She has an amazing vocal ability and it's just such a shame that she wasn't selected to go through. I thought her performance, personally, was stunning. 

 - Obviously he's no Dami Im, but again people using this "because it's Australia" critique is about as boring as the new British "people won't vote for Lucie because of Brexit". His vocals weren't bad but they weren't perfect either. It was catchy enough.

 - Again, Lindita was an amazing vocalist, especially with that long note, but for some reason it didn't seem to connect to the entire load of the Eurovision fans. I'll even admit I only really liked it from about 3 days ago.

 - Here we go. Okay, typically a studio version of a song will not translate perfectly to that of a stage performance and some the expectations people had of Blanche were as if they wanted her to shake her arse or something. I actually really liked her performance and I'm not being biased, I just actually think when you look at at from a characteristic and place the lyrical content of her song with the staging with the tonality of her voice, the expression of her face - it all works. The first two words of her song "all alone" - she's the only person on stage. "are you ready to take my hand?" - danger, danger meets fear, fear causes anxiety and people kept saying she was a deer in headlights. It worked. 

- No. He's has a nice little time in the spotlight but it just didn't work for me. 

 - Absolutely do not understand why they didn't get through to the final. Stellar voice, the piano was amazing, the staging worked. So I'm as gobsmacked as the majority of people are. 

- A dark horse has ran ahead. DiHaj gave an amazing performance in my view, not just from singing but the entire song, the lyrics, the message et al. it was all there in her performance. I thought it was really cleverly planned out and it really made the song 'shine'.

 - Simple and effective. Just like one of my musical heroes Adele, all he had to do was stand and sing with he use of his hands. His voice is so unique because its different to what you're used to hearing in a typical eurovision song and its a classy song to bring to the stage. I really commend Portugal for the performance and it was a deserved qualification.

- Now, as much as I like the song, I was slightly disappointed by Demy. The clash of the voices in the chorus with her going down and someone else going up and it just sounded wrong. Especially when there's video proof that she can perfectly hold that note herself. But she was very charismatic on stage. For a person who comes from a country where theatre was born, she performed. 

 - Amazing vocal and for me, it brought the song to life compared to the studio version. I found myself suddenly wanting to listen and I found the performance full of life. 

 - I personally do not like this song at all. But I can't fault anything. In fairness, their performance was really good and its perfectly acceptable to see why they were the first country called out in the qualification list.

 - I'm sad for Iceland as this is another non-qualification. I actually enjoyed Svala's song a lot but there's one massive thing with this that I preferred the original in Iceland a lot more. It was pretty much a 'marmite' song of Eurovision. Some love it, some hate it. 

- Lovely song, lovely vocal but the stage was just too 'empty'. 

 - I had a niggling feeling once I saw Cyprus that It'd be a runner for a qualification because the performance was actually quite enjoyable. 

 - Take the words 'celebrate diversity' and the most you can get from that in a song this year is with Armenia. Artsvik's performance entails a gripping sound of Armenian culture mixed with a modern twist and the performance was just full of energy and life. She really sold it live and the staging at the end pushed it forward. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she was the winner of last night's semi-final. 

 - I just didn't connect to this song. I just honestly thought it was a bit of a train wreck. 

- As much as I enjoy Latvia's song this year, I do think they have a niché especially with people who don't follow national selections, pre-parties etc and only watched last night. Some people might not liked that at all and thought "oh no, no no no no" because it was not something they're commonly used to hearing in a Eurovision contest because lets face it, a song like 'line' wasn't your happy-go-lucky typical "pop" song, but it was really good. I thought she gave her all and it's a huge shame that they didn't qualify, but that's the part and parcel of Eurovision sadly, is that only a selected number can because of people's opinions. 

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Which leads me to me 'conclusion'/proposed theory of last night (but, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm totally wrong)

I'm saying that Belgium, Armenia, Portugal, Sweden and Azerbaijan - all were definite qualifiers. 

I then think it was a battle between the other 5 qualifiers and Latvia, Finland and Iceland. 

I think, with the voting, it would have something like in the last moments or so, a few more votes for Cyprus and Greece came through, pushing Latvia and Finland into 11th and 12th. 

Me too!