OK, as I’m waiting for the show to begin at 3 PM ET on Peacock this afternoon, here is my overview of semifinal two.
Here are the 18 countries and songs for the second semi, in running order today:
1. Finland: The Rasmus – Jezebel
2. Israel: Michael Ben David – I.M
3. Serbia: Konstrakta – In Corpore Sano
4. Azerbaijan: Nadir Rustamli – Fade To Black
5. Georgia: Circus Mircus – Lock Me In
6. Malta: Emma Muscat – I Am What I Am
7. San Marino: Achille Lauro – Stripper
8. Australia: Sheldon Riley – Not The Same
9. Cyprus: Andromache – Ela
10. Ireland: Brooke – That’s Rich
11. North Macedonia: Andrea – Circles
12. Estonia: Stefan – Hope
13. Romania: WRS – Llámame
14. Poland: Ochman – River
15. Montenegro: Vladana – Breathe
16. Belgium: Jérémie Makiese – Miss You
17. Sweden: Cornelia Jakobs – Hold Me Closer
18. Czech Republic: We Are Domi – Lights Off
Of today’s grouping, given what happened with Austria and to some extent Albania in semi-final one, I’m not sure I’m comfortable trying to predict large locks into the finals – I now have to raise the bar a bit. I’m going to call just THREE locks for the Grand Final – Serbia, Poland, and Sweden; all three of these songs have deservedly MASSIVE fan support (although personally I’m not a huge fan of Serbia’s song, it’s a little too out there for me), and are also likely to win over the jury as well.
Then there are those countries whose songs seem to have massive fan support, but the question is will the Jury vote the same way? Maybe not. Using the unexpected and surprising elimination of Austria in Tuesday’s semi as an example, because the semi’s don’t give out numbers until AFTER the grand final, we don’t know whether the jury completely panned it, or if the televoting numbers proved much softer than expected. This has happened more than once in past years as well.
Based on general fan support over the past two months, the most likely candidates for making it through to the finals at the end of today’s voting, but also that I can no longer consider as “locks”, are Romania, Cypress, Montenegro, Ireland, and Czech Republic; that leaves two more spots open for wild cards that could go to modest fan favorites like Georgia or San Marino, or open the door for possible jury favorites like Azerbaijan or Malta. It should also be noted that on the fandom side, both Georgia and San Marino, as well as North Macedonia, all took HUGE HITS from negative reviews of their rehearsals, with Georgia suffering the worst fall; it had been near the top of many fan countdowns, and now has fallen into the bottom ten of most of them. It’s going to be a very VERY difficult semi-final today – staging and performance will mean EVERYTHING. And remember – the Jury voting is already complete – they do their voting at the dress rehearsals the night prior to the contest.
That having been said, as i was on Tuesday, I will be on my YouTube channel TKR VideoCentral within moments after the conclusion of today’s show to give my two cents on the show itself, fashions, final staging and performance, and run down who’s made it into Saturday’s final, so please be there!