This evening Azerbaijan hosted its national final to decide who will represent them at the
Eurovision Song Contest this year in Oslo. Read our live update to find out how it happened that Safura will be singing for Azerbaijan in May.

The show is taking place at Buta Palace in Baku where the semifinal of the selections was held too. İçtimai TV (ITV) and TRT Avaz is broadcasting the selection live.

The participating artists:

• Milk & Kisses
• Safura
• Meryem Shabanova

The participating songs are:

• Drip Drop
• Under My Skin
• Soulless
• Cancelled
• Don’t Let the Morning Come

The show started with a dance show from Land of Fire with the music of Aleksander Rybak’s Fairytale. Some ethnic elements
from azerbaijani music has been added.

The hosts are telling about the voting in English and Turkish. The results will be announced after the jury voting tonight and the juries are now introduced: İsmayıl Ömərov, Fərhad Bədəlbəyli, Murad Adıgözəlzadə, Lalə Kazımova, Mənzər Nurəliyeva and Fərhad Hacıyev.

One of the host is Husniye who announced the Azerbaijani votes at last year’s contest in Moscow.

Dakoda from Russian group Fabrika Zvezd is now giving a guest star performanc. It is a mini concert with her beautiful voice tonight at Buta Palace. She gets great reaction from the audience even though she is not a participiant today.

The finalists of tonight are being introduced by the hosts who also annouces the schedule of the programme.

1. The first contestant is Safura – Drip Drop:

She is dressed in a mini black costume. There is a big towel under her feets and 4 dancers are appearing under it. The song is slow but it has really nice melody.

2. Second song is also by Safura – Under My Skin:

This is a more up-tempo song. One male and one female dancers are performing with her. They are using the famous wind machine.

3. Third and last song from Safura – Soulless:

It is up tempo song which has pop & rnB instruments in it. Three male dancers performing with her this time. This appears to be the most succesfull performance from her today. Her voice is more compatible to this song.

1. Now the hosts are back to introduce the second performer, Milk & Kisses. First song for them is Under My Skin:

The group is dressed in blacks as Safura was. The song is performed in a Rock Style and the audience really enjoys this song. They give a better performance of this song. These two girls reminds a bif of Susanne Georgi on a rock day.

2. Second song for Milk & Kisses – Drip Drop:

They are all alone at the stage under white lights and they have powerfull voices for this song. Also this version appears stronger than Safura’s attempt. Suddenly one female and one male dancer came to the stage with fire in their hands which they are waving together with the performers.

3. The third act from Milk & kisses – Cancelled

This song is a bit Avril Lavigne style with RnB and Hip Hop elements. Three female dancers in red clothes are performing with them. Their previous two songs were stronger than this is, but they get the audience to shout their name several times.

Now the hosts are back to the stage and telling about winners like Ruslana and Alexander Rybak. They are wondering if one of the participiants tonight can do the same; winning the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time.

1. Now Meryam Shabanova is being introduced. Her first song is Under My Skin:

She is singing the song in an RnB style. Meryam is like mixture of previous participiants as she turns it into rock later in the song. There are two male and two female break dancers on the stage with her. Meryam is dressed in black and dark toned colours.

2. The second act from Meryam is Soulless:

She is on stage with four male dancers in black and she is singing this song in a more up-tempo version than the previous participiants.

3. The last participating act of the night is Meryam singing Drip Drop:

Four dancers are performing with her and their show reminds of Elnur & Samir‘s final performance at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008. The dance and the music has a real harmony.

All acts have now been performed. One of them will be representing Azerbaijan at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. 

TRT Avaz where we are watching it returned to the News Programme before the results will be revealed. Right now the jury is deciding who they prefer. In the meanwhile Georgian representative Sopho Nizharadze is performing her song Shine which will be competing in Oslo this year. We will soon be back.

Now we are back to Baku after a short News programme. Aysel Teymourzadeh is performing a song from her latest album.  Last year’s participating song from her, Always, is being performed withouth Arash.

The hosts are back and will announce the result very soon. They asked the audience to give the biggest applause to their favorite. People prefered Milk & Kisses. All particpants are now called back to the stage.

One of the juries Adil Kerimli is on stage to announce the result. To hold the attention the host asked the participants to tell just how exited they were and all of them mentioned that they are scared. All the participants give re-caps live on the stage in acapella style. We are still waiting for the result.

Adil Kerimli keeps talking…. just give us the result! 🙂

And the winner is…. Safura who will be singing for Azerbaijan in Oslo. The songtitle is not yet known as the show ended quite sudden, but will be revealed on the 19th of March, according to eurovision.tv. The Azerbaijani’s really know how to keep people waiting.