Tonight saw the second heat of Melodifestivalen held in the city of Malmö. The top two tonight, which means a secured place in the final on 12 March, was David Lindgren and Wiktoria. Isa and Molly Pettersson Hammar went to the Second chance heat.
The second out of five heats that leads up to the final was held tonight in Malmö Arena. Two songs goes straight to the final while the third and fourth placed songs are getting a place in the fifth heat. We had Ace Wilder and Robin Bengtsson qualifying from last weeks heat in Gothenburg – read this article from last Saturday.
The songs
1. David Lindgren – We Are Your Tomorrow (Text & Music: Anderz Wrethov, Sharon Vaughn, Gustav Efraimsson)
David Lindgren has a nice record with two starts leading to two finals in Melodifestivalen (Shout It Out 2012 & Skyline 2013). His strength lies in being an excellent entertainer and dancer who knows how to get the crowd going. This year he is back with another uptempo song but with a new song writing team. This is a dance and song number with David, who wears a black black jacket with a black lacquer shirt under, on stage together with his six male dancers surrounded by green laser beams and smoke. The song itself remembers slightly of the sweidsh summer hit Sun Is Shining with Axwell Λ Ingrosso. There seems to be a good chance that David is heading towards his third consecutive final.
2. Victor och Natten – 100% (Text & Music: Dag Lundberg, Melker, Jesper Lundh)
Viktor och Natten sounds like the name of a group but only consists of one man, Victor, who performes his song 100% which is a swedish pop song with a touch of rap. Victor starts on the stairs down from the green room. He then moves to the stage where he is backed up by five cheerleaders dancing behind him on podiums. Both Victor and the cheerleaders are dressed in black and white. As the song is in swedish it is extremely important that the message of the text reaches and grabs the viewer. Anything but last place seems like a surprise for Victor och Natten even though these type of song has come 6th both in 2008 and 2012.
3. Molly Pettersson Hammar – Hunger (Text & Music: Joy Deb, Linnea Deb, Lisa Desmond, Anton Hård af Segerstad, Molly Pettersson Hammar)
Molly Pettersson Hammar is the big talent who participated and came 4th in the swedish talent show Idol 2011. Something that still stays fresh in people’s minds is the big debacle of Melodifestivalen 2015 where Molly clearly became a victim of the new voting app that was introduced for the first time in the competition. While the majority of the voters were still downloading the app Molly had finished singing her song that started from position 1 in the first heat (you were only allowed to vote with with the app during the song). Molly is wearing a white dress and starts singing the first verse and refrain on a podium. She walks of the podium for the second verse and stands singing at the front of the stage for the rest of the song. There are fireworks around her towards the end. The song is in mid-tempo song and while she is very good vocally the song itself might not be strong enough to take her directly to the final.
4. Isa – I Will Wait (Text & Music: Anton Hård af Segerstad, Joy Deb, Linnea Deb, Nikki Flores)
Last year the unknown 17-year old Isa enjoyed quite a big success after coming 7th in the MF-final 2015 with the uptempo song Don’t Stop. Now she is back with a song that is more in the league of Sanna Nielsen’s Undo and the team behind the song is also the same songwriting team that wrote last years ESC winner Heroes.
Isa, wearing a white dress, starts alone on stage and is then joined by a male dancer. Behind her is a big grey-colored piece of cloth where the shadow of Isa falls upon making. The cloth changes color towards the end of the song and looks to be symbolising a pulsing heart. This is a strong performance vocally from Isa so things are looking good for her tonight.
5. Krista Siegfrids – Faller (Text & Music: Krista Siegfrids, Gabriel Alares, Magnus Wallin, Gustaf Svenungsson)
Krista Siegfrids is back in the city where she represented Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013, the song back then was called Marry Me. This time she’s sinigng her song Faller (Falling) which is in swedish language and is about falling in love with someone. Krista is dressed in red pants and top just like her dancers. At the end of the song the dancers are waving checkered flags. The song’s style has very much of swedish singer Veronica Maggio over it and a also a bit of what could be described as schlagerpop, a bit like in the same division as Linda Bengtzing’s past MF-entries. Krista has a charming personality and that has to work 100% with the viewers for her to get into the top 5 tonight.
6. Patrik Isaksson, Tommy Nilsson & Uno Svenningsson – Håll mitt hjärta hårt (Text and Music: Patrik Isaksson, Tommy Nilsson, Uno Svenningsson)
The experienced trio of Patrik Isaksson, Tommy Nilsson and Uno Svenningsson have all done Melodifestivalen before with Tommy being the most successful by winning Melodifestivalen 1989 in Globen (which was a newly opened arena at the time). This is a ballad with the three singers appears on three different locations with Tommy singing the first verse out in the audience on a smaller stage, Patrik sings the next verse on a stair to the green room and Uno sings the first refrain alone on the stage. During the second verse the three joins Uno on the stage. This is probably the song that is hardest to tell where it will end up, surely it should have more appeal on the older audience rather than the younger, but are the older generations using the voting-app to the same extention as the younger ones?
7. Wiktoria – Save Me (Text & Music: Jens Siverstedt, Jonas Wallin, Lauren Dyson)
Wiktorias has tonights coolest effect – she’s wearing a projection body suit! An array of different patterns and images are not only displayed on the backround but alson Wiktoria while she is standing at the same spot during the whole
performance (which is extremly important to make the projection possible). She will be remembered for the projection effects but will people also remember to vote for her countrypop style of song? The reaction from the audience after the song is big.
The show
After a quick recap of the first semifinal the show opens with a cabaret inspired show and dance number with the host Gina Dirawi and the guest artist Charlotte Perrelli in hats and with walking sticks singing a well known swedish song (Flickorna i Småland) but with new lyrics (Flickorna från Sverige) which are about Gina & Charlotte.
Charlotte Perrelli was first planned to be the co-host tonights show together with Gina DIrawi tonight but earlier last week SVT decided to remove her from the job since she is doing a commercial job for a telecom company. SVT knew about the job but had not calculated with that she would still be doing it during Melodifestivalen. Instead she is being a “guest artist” in tonights show.
Between song 6 and 7 there is a pre-recorded video with two famous swedish actors reading the lyrics from a previous entry in Melodifestivalen 2002 Vem é dé du vill ha (which was performed by Kikki Danielsson, Elisabeth Andreassen and Lotta Engberg). The lyrics are read in a serious way by the actors which makes it rather hilarious.
After the seven performances there is a video about how the schlagerdiva is a dying species (clearly with a reference to the next performer) we have a performance by Charlotte Perrelli who sings the german superstar Helene Fischers song Atemlos but with swedish (tongue-in-cheek) lyrics.
After the first round of voting there is new lesson in comedian Jonas Gardells “Schlager school” where he takes a (humorous) look back at Eastern Europes entrance in the Eurovision Song Contest.
The result
Five songs went through from the first round of voting:
Song 1: We Are Your Tomorrow by David Lindgren
Song 3: Hunger by Molly Pettersson Hammar
Song 4: I Will Wait by Isa
Song 5: Faller by Krista Siegfrids
Song 7: Save Me by Wiktoria
After the second round of voting ended the first finalist to be announced was David Lindgren. The second finalist was Wiktoria. Molly Pettersson Hammar and Isa were 3rd and 4th and goes to Andra chansen (the second chance heat)
The rest of the results:
5. Faller by Krista Siegfrids
6. 100% by Victor och Natten
7. Håll mitt hjärta hårt by Patrik Isaksson, Tommy Nilsson & Uno Svenningsson
(Note: who came 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th is not revealed until after the final in March).
Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest
With six Eurovision victories, Sweden is catching up on Ireland who is front with seven wins. Sweden joined the contest in 1958, didn’t participate in 1964 and 1976, and as such have 55 appearances on their Eurovision card. Since the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, Sweden failed to qualify only once which was Anna Bergendahl’s This Is My Life, which finished just outside the 10 qualifiers in 2010.
Sweden’s first victory came in 1974 where ABBA’s Waterloo took Europe, and later the rest of the world, by storm. After that another 10 year passed before three brothers in golden shoes captivated in particular the hearts of teenage girls when Herreys won with the catchy song Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley. In 1991 fan favourite Carola won with the Swedish languaged Fångad Av En Stormvind, and in 1999 the Eurovision trophy once again headed to Sweden when Charlotte Nilsson (Now Perrelli) secured it with Take Me To Your Heaven. In 2012 it was then Loreen’s smash hit Euphoriawhich most of Europe listened to – and voted for, and finally, just three years later Måns Zelmerlöw and his songHeroes brought the contest back to Sweden.
Below you can watch a video with Swedish highlights from the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 – 2015. The video include clips from more than just their actual Eurovision performance, and as such, most likely something you haven’t seen before. Enjoy, while we wait for next week’s second heat of Melodifestivalen 2016. This time, hopefully, with seven participants.
