ON HER STAGE SHE SINGS HER STORY… LIKE A QUEEN IN ALL HER GLORY

Well! That was a VERY exciting final heat, wasn’t it? From the camptasticness of Charlotte strutting around the stage in her sparkly disco frock to Linda’s highland hip-hop, from Sibel’s ‘express train’ to Diva-ville to the surprisingly captivating Nordman song, the final Melodifestivalen semi-final treated us to some great performances and gave us the schlager performances we’d been hoping for from both our leading ladies of the night.

Charlotte, of course, absolutely blew the crowd away with her slice of Kempedisco, complete with a glittery microphone that I make NO secret of wanting (my birthday is over the summer if anyone wants to start shopping now…). From top to bottom, this was the kind of performance that wins this contest. In fact, I daresay right now that we have our winner for this year. I’ll get to a more complete handicapping of the Andra Chansen and Finals later on in the week, but for now, this rests hands down in my top contenders spot.

Linda, as well, made a fantastic showing. She looked adorable. In fact, she looked like she was having a BALL, and most importantly, she HIT THE KEY CHANGE! It looks like she’s finally spent some time working on that because it was spot on. I’ll admit, going into the bridge I was white-knuckling my chair a bit, as I know that La Bengtzing’s relationship with modulations is spotty at best, but she nailed that “Hur svart kan det… vaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” just right, and you could hear the audience go wild.

And, while I think that Charlotte will probably walk away the winner of MF’08, I think Linda will place higher than her last two entries since she’s finally managed to learn to deliver a home-run performance, and she should be extremely proud of herself. (Also, did anyone watch the post-interview with Char and Linda? Linda making Char cry was a highlight for me. I don't care if the rumours were rampant that they didn't get along, that was a nice moment for both of them.)

I’m surprised to not include Daniel Mitsogiannis in this entry, but let’s face it, as great as Pame is on record, he was sort of painful to watch live… His song was overchoreographed, and as such, he was noticeably out of breath for chunks of it, he looked like he was starting to get very sloppy towards the end, and any statements I might have made about his ‘aesthetic appeal’ are taken back. Is it just me, or does his hair and unnatural rectangle-shaped head make him look like the love child of Martin Rolinski and Lurch from the Addams Family?

As for Sibel and Nordman… These were the right two picks for Andra Chansen, I think. Sibel was clawing her way up the Diva hierarchy with a vengeance, pulling out all the schlager clichés that put Sonja in the finals last year. Heartrending ballad? Check. Wind? Check. Flow-y chiffon princess dress? Check? That said, she was entirely deserving of moving on. The song itself was lovely (and, again, makes Empty Room look like an amateur attempt at songwriting) and her delivery was excellent, though I do wish she’d stop looking at the camera all ‘meaningfully’ like I’m convinced they teach contestants to do on Idol (“Look at the camera… Now tilt your head down, but keep staring into the lens. That’s called ‘eyefucking’ and it’s how you get votes!”).

Nordman… He was the surprise for me. First off, I know that some other people didn’t think this was a good entry into the contest, and, okay. Granted. But the performance was lovely. The dancer playing the witch-girl was great, and I liked that they didn’t get all literal and have her, like, dancing around on top of the fire. The visual imagery was just enough to be captivating, without going overboard into cheesy. As well, I’ve been singing that chorus all weekend. Nordman won’t win, especially against Carola and Andreas, but this is a song that won’t go anywhere for a while.

So, now it’s down to Andra Chansen. Like I said, I’ll handicap that later in the week, but for now, let’s just rest easy knowing that we can get to the real meat of this competition now!