The Danish national final, the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, was broadcast live from Ballerup Super Arena, that in just a week also will be hosting the Danish junior final. Tonight it was however the older and more experienced participants that were fighting for chance to show that they can do better than Chanée & N’evergreen that finished 4th at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. From DR, the national broadcaster the wish was clear: We need to find the song that can go all the way to win in Düsseldorf, Germany in May!

 

7 of the ten participants in tonight’s final had been picked from a total of 663 submitted entries while the remaining three had been specially invited to take part by DR. 

The songs: (You can read more about the participants in our presentation)

 

1: Anne Noa – Sleepless

We start out with a pop ballad carried through by Anne’s sweet voice. The chorus might become a bit irritating towards the end when your head spins around by hearing "I am spinng" a bit too much. Anne is the youngest participants tonight and she is dressed in a black short dress with black tights underneath. The background is kept in blue and white with the moon seen behind Anne. She is alone on the large stage.  

 

2: Jenny Berggren – Let Your Heart Be Mine

Tonight’s most well know singer presents us for an uptempo song with a bit of dance rhytm, but also a clear schlager chorus. She is confident on stage, but maybe it sounds too much of a rejected Melodifestivalen entry. It will probably be fighting against Le Freak and lose to that one. Jenny is dressed in a black dress and is standing behind a fence hold in place by two male dancers who decides to let her break free. The background is kept mainly in red. The two male dancers are with Jenny all through the song. A windmashine and pictures in black and white is added as special features near the end of the song.

    

3: Jeffrey – Drømmen (The dream)

Here we have a pop song with a slight hint of R’n’B. It is a style of music which is extremely popular in Denmark at the moment – if Jeffrey wasn’t singing it you could point towards the first ten artists who it could be. Jeffrey is dressed in red trousers, white shirt, black butterfly and black jacket. He is dancing a bit on the spot before he starts moving around. He sells himself well and uses the stage well. Near the end of the song he goes down on his knees. 

 

4: Le Freak – 25 Hours A Day

The songwriters of last year’s Danish winner song has this time given us a solid happy pop song. You can’t quite figure out which of ten Swedish entries, a couple of Icelandics and a few from the rest of Europe it sounds most like. It is likely to do well among many Eurovision fans due to its very familiar style. It is well produced and it is hard to see this fail completely. The band delivers a energetic performance. The lead singer is dressed in hotpants, red tights and a 70’s blouse. The background is light blue with plenty of light effects which explodes with so many pyros near the end that it is raining down on the stage. Absolutely a possible winner, which also recieves the biggest applause so far.  

 

5: Sine Vig – You’ll Get Me Through

And now to something completely different… a beautiful ballad where you sit completely still and maybe have the ligther ready for the powerfull finale. That however doesn’t quite come and some will feel a bit robbed. It sounds like the songwriters were stuck between to styles – and ended up not finishing the song as they couldn’t decide. Sine is dressed in a black strapless knee lenght dress. The background is blue with white and purple lights. A man sneeks on to the stage half way through, walks slowly around and then starts dancing around near the end where he takes her hand and they end with a kiss – clear resemblence to Denmark’s 1957 entry Skibet Skal Sejle I Nat.    

 

6: Stine Kinck – Hvad hjertet lever af (What the heart lives from)

This is very different than we have heard before in a Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. It is interesting and it catch you attention. If you didn’t know better you could guess that it is written by Lise Cabble who wrote Fra Mols Til Skagen (Denmark 1995) as it has a bit of that sound to it. Towards the end of the song you lose a bit attention to it. The songwriters joins Stine on stage to give the feeling of having a band there. Two female backing singers have joined as well. Stine is dressed in a suit with hotpants and a two coloured top. The staging is kept in dark red adding to the interesting feeling this song gives.     

 

7: Lee Hutton – Hollywood Girl

1980’s Pet Shop Boys meets modern R’n’B and get a dance sound thrown on top of it – at least that is what he is trying to create. He doesn’t quite manage though to get that special sound Pet Shop Boys were so good at, but it does have a chorus that gets stuck in your head. Lee is casual dressed in a t-shirt and trousers. Behind him he have three male choir singers and to his side two female dancers in white Marilyn Monroe dresses which of course also blows up – this time it is a bit too much though! The background is kept in purple colours.   

 

8: Christopher Brandt – Emma

A pop sound very much Danish in both its sound and lyrics. Christopher sounds like a mix of Jacob Sveistrup (Denmark 2005) and Rasmus Seebach. It can easily become a hit in Denmark, but I would not recommend a direct translation of the lyrics. They are too simple and too Danish. Where else would you start a song with "waking up with hangovers, I have a feeling there is something I must not forget – Fuck, it’s you" and later "fact is that I was a jerk, where was my conscience last night, I was just too drunk, didn’t actually want to stay" not to mention the simple chorus line "Emma, you’re my dilemma". You can from time to time be in doubt about if he is serious or just trying to make a joke out of the Rasmus Seebach style Denmark has been lulled in to. Christopher is dressed in a black suit, the stage clours are red and purple. A 1950’s microphone is used for this song. He has three famle choir singers behind him in red dresses. Not to be underestimated as he really does well on stage.   

 

9: Kat & Justin Hopkins – Black and Blue

It gives an interesting sound to put these two vocals together for this only duet in the Danish final this year. It is a catchy pop song of the kind people would say have Melodi Grand Prix written all over it although it is not as strong f. ex In A Moment Like This. This one starts out in the same way though with the male singer singing first and the two standing quite a apart before they finally meet. Both are dressed in black. Him in a suit and her in a short dress.  

 

10: A Friend in London – New Tomorrow

We end with what has turned out to be the big favourite. It is a catchy pop song with rock elements that catches your attention from the start – maybe also because you can’t help thinking that you heard this a couple of years ago from Swedish Andreas Johnson. It has a strong similarity to his Sing For Me, but for this song they have added some interesting "Åh Åh" stadium chant that kicks in half way through. It sounds like a winning song. The band is quite sure in their performance and half way through they kick a ball out to the audience – this ends with more big balls falling on the audience. Pyros are added near the end.   

 

The show: 

 

The show opens with a humming version of Te Deum coming from a girl sitting inside a big star. A rock band takes over and continues Te Deum. The hosts enter the stage and proclaims that this year Denmark is winning the Eurovision Song Contest so that they next year gets to say "Welcome Europe". Felix asks his co-host Lise Rønne if she wants to be hosting the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest together with him…. no, the arrogance is not present at all in Denmark!

 

All through the show the hosts keeps talking about how to win. At some point Felix goes to the akvarium to ask some fish if Denmark will indeed win this year. Hmm… are the Danish piratfish better than the German octopus Paul predicting football results during the Wold Cup? Time will tell as they clearly said yes for a danish victory. Lise isn’t sure however so she decided to ask the Olsen Brothers who gives the advice that it is about coming out over the stage and be confident. 

 

Tonight’s show featured a tribute to Tommy Seebach, who represented Denmark three times at the Eurovision Song Contest. Last time being in 1993 where he went from hero to crook in no time when Denmark was excluded from participating the following year. This increased an already existing drinking problem that ended up killing him in the age of 53 years old. In the past year there has been quite a focus on Tommy Seebach in Denmark with a documentary film made and the release of a book and a CD box set that includes all of his albums.

 

Tonight’s tribute consist of Keld Heick, ten times Eurovision Song Contest lyrics writer, Dario Campeotto, who represented Denmark in 1961 with the song Angelique and Kirsten Siggaard, the female part of the duo Kirsten & Søren/ Hot Eyes that represented Denmark three times in 1984, 1985 and 1988.

  

All three are singing together with Tommy Seebach – as well as you can when one doesn’t live anymore. The song choosen for this is Tommy’s 1993 entry Under Stjernerne På Himlen.

 

(This tribute is recorded from the dress rehearsal as all these three singers are on a job in Jutland tonight).

 

Before the super final the participants from MGP, the Danish junior show enters the stage for a song about what MGP is. In just a week these participants will fight to win on this stage.

 

The result: 

 

In Denmark they are good at squezing three shows down in to one. Tonight was preliminary round, a semi-final and a final al in one. The jury consisted of pianoplayer and composer Bent Fabricius-Bjerre, DJ and radio host Le Gammeltoft, singer and songwriter Erann DD, singer and composer Karen Rosenberg and singer and composer Martin Brygmann. The jury had 50% to say in the first elimination.  

 

After the first voting the following four songs qualified for the semi-final:

 

Semi-final 1: 

 

– Anne Noa singing Sleepless

– Stine Kinck singing Hvad Hjertet Lever Af 

 

Semi-final 2: 

 

– A Friend In A London singing New Tomorrow

– Le Freak singing 25 Hours A Day

 

The winner of each of the two semi-finals meat each other in the final. It is now time to say goodbye to the jury as from now on it will only be the TV viewers voting now.

 

Winner of Semi-final 1 was announced before the performances in the second semi-final. The winner was Anna Noa. She is now up against A Friend In London.   

 

After yet another performance from both of them the result was ready: Denmark have decided that it will be the band A Friend In London who will represent them at the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest with the song New Tomorrow. The song is written by Lise Cabble og Jakob Glæsner. Lise also wrote the 1995 Danish entry Fra Mols Til Skagen.

 

On stage Chanée & N’evergreen hands out the trophy to the lucky winners.