The snippets for the 13 songs of Portugal’s Festival da Canção first semi final have been released. This marks the first time since 2011 that RTP releases part of the competing songs before the actual show.
For the first time in seven years, Portugal’s broadcaster – RTP – has released snippets of 45 seconds for each song competing in Festival da Canção before the show takes place next 18th of February. Those are now available in Festival da Canção’s official website and in its brand new YouTube channel.
According to Gonçalo Madaíl – Festival da Canção 2018’s coordinator – this will allow fans to get to know a little of each song and have certain preferences before the main show: “There were many requests from the fans. This way, everyone will get to taste every song and have the chance to rank their favorites”, he said in an interview to RTP.
Below, you can find the acts that will compete during the show:
1. Peu Madureira – Só Por Ela
2. Anabela – Para Te Dar Abrigo
3. Joana Barra Vaz – Anda Estragar-me os Planos
4. Janeiro – (sem título)
5. Rui David – Sem Medo
6. José Cid & Gonçalo Tavares – O som da guitarra é a alma de um povo
7. JP Simões – Alvoroço
8. Catarina Miranda – Para não sorrir eu não preciso de nada
9. Joana Espadinha – Zero a Zero
10. Beatriz Pessoa – Eu Te Amo
11. Bruno Vasconcelos – Austrália
12. Maria Amaral – A Mesma Canção
13. Rita Dias – Com Gosto Amigo
Festival da Canção’s first semi final is scheduled to take place next 18th of Feburary in RTP’s studios in Lisbon. Out of the 13 songs, 7 will qualify to the grand final to be held in the beginning of March. As for the results, the decision will be shared between the public and the jury.
Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest
This year will mark the 50th participation of Portugal in the Eurovision Song Contest. Having participated this amount of times, only last year Portugal won the contest for the first time with Salvador Sobral’s Amar Pelos Dois.
Even though it found great success with Salvador, Portugal hadn’t yet had a really successful entry this decade. Not only the country didn’t take part in 2013 and 2016 due to its poor results, but it failed to qualify every other year aside from 2010 with the song Há Dias Assim. While we wait for the show’s first semi final, remind yourself of Salvador’s semi final performance at last year’s Eurovision Song Contest:
