Day 10 - Semi Final Preparations!

As we are making last minute preparations for the semi final, due to take place tonight at 11 PM Moscow time, the excitement is building up and our overall schedule is getting tighter by the minute!

While most of the delegation parties are beginning to wind down (until the big night on the 16th) most of the participants are spending less time on the dance floor.Everyone is devoting all of their energy to the upcoming semi finals tonight, and on the 14th. As it happens, we are in the first group of semi finalists, hence the madness and major anticipation of the event.

Although the absolute highlight is bound to be the grand finale itself, tonight is quite a big deal, too – it’s pretty much down to a fantastic performance by Yohanna (we are VERY confident!) and of course, one of the primary ingredients – LUCK.

We simply MUST qualify tonight and go through to the finals, but I admit I’m a little nervous – who wouldn’t be? We all are, and if anyone says otherwise – they’re either insane or just lying!

And here’s the line up (I almost wrote the “track listing” – I’m too much of a studio nerd, I guess!)

(Composer/lyricist in brackets)


Montenegro - Andrea Demirović - Just get out of my life (Ralph Siegel/Bernd Meinunger, José Juan Santana Rodriguez)

Czech Republic - Gipsy.cz - Aven romale (Radoslav Banga)

Belgium - Copycat - Copycat (Miam Monster Miam/Jacques Duvall)

Belarus - Petr Elfimov - Eyes that never lie (Petr Elfimov/Valeriy Prokhozhy)

Sweden - Malena Ernman - La voix (Fredrik Kempe/Fredrik Kempe, Malena Ernman)

Armenia - Inga & Anush - Nor par (Mane Akopyan/Avet Barseghyan, Vardan Zadoyan)

Andorra - Susanne Georgi - La teva decisió (Get a life) (Pernilla Georgi, Susanne Georgi, Rune Braager, Lene Dissing, Marcus Winther-John/Josep Vila)

Switzerland - Lovebugs - The highest heights (Adrian Sieber, Thomas Rechberger, Florian Senn)

Turkey - Hadise - Düm tek tek (Sinan Akçil/Hadise, Sinan Akçil, Stefan Fernande)

Israel - Noa & Mira Awad - There must be another way (Noa, Mira Awad, Gil Dor)

Bulgaria - Krassimir Avramov - Illusion (Krassimir Avramov, William Tabanou/Casie Tabanou, Krassimir Avramov, William Tabanou)

Iceland - Yohanna - Is it true? (Tinatin Japaridze, Óskar Páll Sveinsson, Chris Neil)

FYR Macedonia - Next Time - Nešto što kje ostane (Damjan Lazarov, Jovan Jovanov/Elvir Mekić)

Romania - Elena Georghe - The Balkan girls (Daris Mangal, Ovidiu Bistriceanu, Laurenţiu Duţă/Laurenţiu Duţă, Alexandru Pelin)

Finland - Waldo's People - Lose control (Karima, Ari Erik Veikko Lehtonen/Karima, Annie Kratz-Gutå, Ari Erik Veikko Lehtonen, Waldo)

Portugal - Flor-de-Lis - Todas as ruas do amor (Pedro Marques/Pedro Marques, Paulo Pereira)

Malta - Chiara - What if we? (Marc Paelinck/Gregory Bilsen)

Bosnia & Herzegovina - Regina - Bistra voda (Aleksandar Čović)

And the rules? Oh, that’s the scary part!

18 countries listed above will present one song each, including “Is It True?” representing Iceland. Nine countries will be chosen by televoting to move forward to the grand final this Saturday and the tenth spot will go to the country that placed the highest in the voting of the juries but did not qualify through televoting. Only the qualifiers will be announced during the show, and the complete results will be revealed after the final.

There’s so much more I want to tell you about the last couple of days but it’s now time for me to rush over to a meeting with my publishers (and I have to sort out one of my publishers’ lost baggage – I keep forgetting I’m one of the very few Russian speakers in our delegation… if not the only one! I love it, most of the time) and I do promise to give you all the details following our semi final. It's all just a few hours away! I'm excited, sleepless and a little nervous – but not really. So stay tuned for the results and don’t forget to Vote for Iceland!