Norway: Third semi-final of MGP 2022 tonight!

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The selection process for the Norwegian participation in the 66th Eurovision Song Contest continues tonight. Melodi Grand Prix 2022 will keep us company for another Saturday, with another artist getting a ticket for the grand final in February 19th.

Format

Melodi Grand Prix 2022 consists of six shows: four semifinals, a second chance round and the grand final, which will determine the representative of the Scandinavian country in the 66th Eurovision Song Contest. Four artists compete in each semifinal, with only one of them advancing to the final.

Those eliminated from the semifinals (four from each) will take part in the second chance round. Four of those, who will be chosen by the televote, will compete for the fifth ticket that leads to the grand final of MGP 2022.

So, after five shows we will reach the night of the grand final, in which a total of ten artists will participate: the four winners of the semifinals, the winner of the second chance round and the five direct finalists.

The finalists

Five artists have qualified directly for the grand final of MGP 2022:

In the first semi-final, the ticket for the grand final was won by Frode with the song Black Flowers.

In the second semi-final, the ticket for the grand final was won by Farida with the song Dangerous.

Third semi-final

The four artist that will be competing in the third semi-final tonight are:

NRK has decided not to proceed – yet – with the announcement of the two duels that will determine the two ticket winners for the grand final of the Melodi Grand Prix 2022.

Direct finalist Northkid will be making a guest appearance, performing their song Someone.

Presenters of the evening will be Kåre Magnus Bergh, Annika Momrak and Mikkel Niva.

You can watch the third semifinal of MGP 2022 at 19:55 CET on the official website of norwegian public television, by clicking here.

Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun for all news regarding Norway’s participation in Eurovision 2022!

Norway: Interview with Frode Vassel | From The Voice Norway to the finals of Melodi Grand Prix 2022 ! (Video)

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After the announcement of the contestants of the Norwegian National Final, Melodi Grand Prix 2022, Frode Vassel talks exclusively to EurovisionFun reporters, Apostolos Bogiannos and Apostolis Matamis.

Frode is one of the finalists of the Norwegian national selection process for Eurovision 2022 and is bidding on representing his country with the song “Black Flowers”. In 2021, even though he is an experienced  artist already, he took part in the Norwegian version of The Voice, where he managed to get a four chair turn by impressing the judges. Fast-forward to now, he wins his semi-final earning him a ticket to the finals of Melodi Grand Prix 2022.

In the first duel, I was very stressed out, to such an extent, that I forgot a part of the lyrics. Thank God, nobody had realised that. When I reached the gold duel, I was more laid back and it was a wonderful experience. 

Him securing a place at the finals of MGP, contradicted all the betting odds for the night:

I was not the favourite for that semi-final, but “Black Flowers” is one of those songs that sound better, when they’re performed live. I had a good feeling about the results and I kinda new that with a nice live performance, I could convince even those having the most doubts. Due to COVID-19, there was no audience at all at the venue. But I hope that we will have a live audience at the finals, it will make the whole show even better. 

Regarding his final performance, Frode admits that there might be some slight changes and these will mostly affect the camera shots. After that, he discussed the meaning behind his song “Black Flowers”.

The title has a metaphorical meaning and the song is all about the decisions that everyone has to make on a personal level, or maybe on the society or the world, for example the environment. There’s always somebody that makes some decisions and these have an impact on everyone else. Whoever can’t do this, is the one who has to pay the consequences of these decisions. We make decisions that we don’t know if they’re right and this happens quite often, just because this is the most convenient way of doing things. So “Black Flowers” speaks exactly about that, about the maturity of a person and how they eventually use their own powers. 

Frode is very satisfied with his song and as he states, “Black Flowers” had been selected from a bunch of different songs he had prepared, when the idea of competing at Melodi Grand Prix 2022 came up. He might release some of those songs, after the contest.

From his competitors’ songs his favourites are those of Subwoolfer, Elsie Bay and NorthKid.

His favourite Norwegian entry is the one of Alexander Rybak (2009) while his favourite entries from the entire contest are Loreen (Sweden 2012), Go_A (Ukraine 2021) and Sanja Ilić & Balkanika (Serbia 2018).

We couldn’t help but ask his thoughts about Amanda Tenfjord, who is half-Norwegian as well, Frode commented:

I haven’t met her in person but she is well known in Norway. It would be interesting, if I got selected to represent Norway and met her in Turin. Of course 12 points go to Greece, this year.

A while before we said goodbye to Frode, he sang a part of his song acapella.

Don’t miss out on our exclusive interview with Frode! You can watch it on the video below:

You can listen to “Black Flowers“, Frode’s song for Melodi Grand Prix 2022 at the video below!

Norway: Subwoolfer won’t perform during Semi-Final 3 of MGP 2022!

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Subwoolfer will not appear in the Third Semifinal of the Melodi Grand Prix 2022 this Saturday due to a positive test on Covid-19. The Subwoolfer is now the betting favorite to win the Melodi Grand Prix 2022 and is competing with the song “Give That Wolf A Banana”.

Subwoolfer confirmed the diagnosis of Covid-19 via NRK statements:

“On our journey of discovery around the earth, we met a creature called omicron!”

Subwoolfer, who are already qualified for the final, will perform during one of the remaining semi-finals. NorthKid, who were due to perform in Semi-Final 4, will perform this week instead. Band member Bilal Saab commented:

“It came on very abruptly. There is quite a lot to be done in relation to the stage show, mostly rehearsing of the song which we now have one week less to work on but as they say: ‘The show must go on’ “.

This is not the first instance of Covid-19 within Melodi Grand Prix this year. Frode Vassel, who advanced to the final from the first semifinal of the Melodi Grand Prix, tested positive for Covid-19, a few days after the end of the semifinal.

Stig Karlsen, head producer of MGP, made the following statement:

“We are working hard to keep this year’s production afloat, but the audience should know that nothing stops Melodi Grand Prix, not even a pandemic.”

The schedule for the remainder of Melodi Grand Prix 2022 is as follows:

  • January 29 – Semi-Final Three
  • February 5 – Semi-Final Four
  • February 12 – Second Chance Round
  • February 19 – Grand Final

source: NRK

Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun for all the news related to Norway’s participation in Eurovision 2022!

Eurovision 2022: Here are the results of the allocation draw!

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The Semi-Final Allocation Draw for the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 took place in Palazzo Madama in Turin. Find out below in which of the 2 Semi-Finals your country will perform and vote in. The annual event was hosted by Carolina di Domenico and Mario Acampa.

The Semi-Final Allocation Draw and Host City Insignia Exchange are key milestones on the path to the Eurovision Song Contest each year.

During the ceremony, Ahmed Aboutaleb, Mayor of Rotterdam, passed on the Host City Insignia to Stefano Lo Russo, Mayor of Turin. The insignia key chain, weighing over 30 kilograms with the new addition of Rotterdam’s insignia, was handed over to Turin. The Italian city is now officially the Host City of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022.

Draw Procedure

The 36 countries competing in the semifinals were divided into six pots, based on the points they have exchanged in recent years. This is done in order to avoid, as much as possible, the alliances and bloc voting that appear every year in the voting.

Allocation Pots

Big 5

With the host Italy, directly in the final, along with the rest of the Big 5 (UK, France, Germany, Spain), the first part of the draw determined the semifinal that the direct finalists will vote.

Will vote in the 1st Semi-Final:

  • France
  • Italy

Will vote in the 2nd Semi-Final:

  • Spain
  • Germany
  • United Kingdom

Their performance in the dress rehearsal will be shown in the semifinals where the six aforementioned countries were drawn to broadcast and vote. This was done at Eurovision 2016 for the first time, for reasons of equal visibility of the countries that are directly in the final and the countries that compete in the semifinals. Essentially, viewers watch each entry twice during the shows.

Allocation Draw

The draw of the countries for the two semifinals had two parts. In the first part, the 36 countries that participate in the semifinals, were drawn in which of the two will compete. 18 countries will compete in both the first and the second semifinal.

In the second part each country found out if it will appear in the first or in the second half of the semifinal that will compete. The exact order of appearance will be determined by the EBU and the producers of the show at a later time.

First Semi-Final (10 May):

1st Half

  • Albania
  • Switzerland
  • Latvia
  • Slovenia
  • Moldova
  • Bulgaria
  • Ukraine
  • Lithuania
  • Netherlands

2nd Half

  • Norway
  • Russia
  • Portugal
  • Denmark
  • Armenia
  • Austria
  • Croatia
  • Iceland
  • Greece

Second Semi-Final (12 May):

1st Half

  • Australia
  • Georgia
  • Cyprus
  • Serbia
  • Finland
  • Azerbaijan
  • San Marino
  • Israel
  • Malta

2nd Half

  • Montenegro
  • Romania
  • Czech Republic
  • Poland
  • Belgium
  • North Macedonia
  • Sweden
  • Estonia
  • Ireland

Turin will host the 66th Eurovision Song Contest from May 10th to 14th at the Pala Alpitour. The motto of this year’s event, as chosen by the organizers, is “The Sound of Beauty”.

You can see the draw again through the following link:

 

 

 

Norway: Results of MGP 2022 Second Semi-Final!!

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Tonight we watched the second semi-final of Melodi Grand Prix 2022, which took place at 19:50 CET. Four artists competed for the one ticket that leads directly to the Grand Final of 19th of February 2022. We also had the chance to enjoy the performance of the pre-qualified entry “Wonder of the World” by Christian Ingebrigtsen.

The hosts of the show were Kåre Magnus Bergh, Annika Momrak, Mikkel Niva.

The four contestants of the second live show were:

Those aforementioned candidates have been divided into two duels, the winners of these will compete for the ticket to the final. The duels are:

  1. Lily Lowe – Bad Baby VS  Stefen Jakobsen – With me Tonight
  2. Farida – Dangerous  VS  Daniel Lucas – Kvelertak

The betting odds before the show looked as follows:

The winner of the first duel (Lily Lowe – Bad Baby VS  Stefen Jakobsen – With me Tonight) was

Stefen Jakobsen – With me Tonight

The winner of the second duel (Farida – Dangerous  VS  Daniel Lucas – Kvelertak) was

Farida – Dangerous 

Afterwards we had the chance to listen live to the automatic finalist Christian Ingebrigtsen and his entry “Wonder of the World”

Stefen and Farida once again performed their entries in this final duel.

 Stefen Jakobsen – With me Tonight VS Farida – Dangerous 

After this battle the second qualifier of MGP 2022 was Farida with the song “Dangerous”

The next semi-final is going to take place on 22nd of January at 19:50 CET! You can watch MGP 2022 by clicking here.

Stay tuned to EurovisionFun, for all the news regarding the Norway’s participation at Eurovision Song Contest 2022!

 

Norway: The betting odds just before the second MGP 2022 semi-final!

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The norwegian national final MGP 2022 continues tonight, with the second semi-final. Four songs will compete for the next ticket leading to the final on February 19th. But what do the bets predict for today’s semi-final?

The bets

Two songs seem to be fighting for the next ticket that will lead to the MGP Final. Stefen Jakobsen, with the song With me Tonight, has taken the first place in the bets the last few days, while he is also first in Spotify streams. On the other hand, Farida with Dangerous seems to be reducing the difference, being first in the rating of NRK critics.

We remind you that Frode Vassel with the song Black Flowers was the one to qualify from the first semi-final, overturning betting odds and charts, as he was last in both.

Second semi-final tonight

The second semi-final takes place tonight and includes the following four candidates:

The four participants have been divided into two duels, from which the two who will duel for a place in the grand final of the norwegian national final will emerge. The pairs, as they emerged from yesterday’s draw, are:

  1. Lily Lowe – Bad Baby VS  Stefen Jakobsen – With me Tonight
  2. Farida – Dangerous  VS  Daniel Lucas – Kvelertak

After both duels are completed, the winners advance to the golden duel and the winner advances to the final.

A guest appearance will be made by one of the five direct finalists, Christian Ingebrigtsen, who will be performing his song  Wonder of the world.

The presenters of the evening will be Kåre Magnus Bergh and Mikkel Niva.

You can watch the second semifinal of MGP 2022 at 19:55 CET through the official website of the norwegian public television, by clicking  here.

Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun for all news regarding Norway’s participation in Eurovision 2022!

Norway: Spotify streams of the second semi-final of MGP 2022

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Tonight is the second semifinal of MGP 2022, Norway’s national final for the selection of the song that will represent the nordic country in Eurovision 2022.

There are four songs that competing tonight. The competition is going to be in the form of duels, and the winners of each duel will compete against each other for a ticket to the grand final. The duels are:

  1. Lily Löwe – Bad Baby VS  Steffen Jakobsen – With me Tonight
  2. Farida – Dangerous  VS  Daniel Lukas – Kvelertak

All four songs are available on Spotify and here is the rank by number of streams:

  1. Steffen Jakobsen – With me Tonight 67866
  2. Daniel Lukas – Kvelertak  56364
  3. Lily Löwe – Bad Baby  46223
  4. Farida – Dangerous 41896

Regarding all the songs of MGP 2022, Death Of Us by Elsie Bay and Give That Wolf A Banana by Subwoolfer are far ahead of the others.

Will we will see Steffen Jakobsen in the grand final of MGP? In just a few hours we will know the answer!

You can watch the second semi-final of MGP 2022 at 19:55 CET through the official website of NRK by clicking here

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun.com for all the developments regarding Norway and their participation at the upcoming contest in Turin.

photo: JULIA MARIE NAGLESTAD / NRK

Norway: Interview with Elsie Bay from Melodi Grand Prix 2022! (Video)

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After the announcement of her participation in this year’s national final of Norway, Melodi Grand Prix 2022, Elsie Bay talks exclusively to EurovisionFun and George Zefteridis.

Elsie Bay is one of the automatic qualifiers at MGP 2022 finals, that also appeared and performed her song “Death of us“, live at the first semi final.

She mentions that she is really happy about her performance, as that was something she highly anticipated and with regards to the staging of her song, she mentioned that she had to keep it a secret, until she eventually performed it live.

I received quite some positive feedback and really nice messages about my semi-final performance. Currently we are working on my performance for the MGP finals, where there will certainly be some changes. But we’ve not decided on that, yet. 

“Death of Us” was born during a songwriting camp where she participated and as she says, she never expected she’d write a song which she would have to perform in the end.

I didn’t expect to compose a song for me, specifically for MGP. Last year, I’d composed the song “Witch Woods” which I decided to give to Emmy, as it suited her quite nicely. This year I had no idea what I could write about, flicked through some of my old notes, mixed and matched and then “Death of Us” came to life. And now I really believe that I got a chance to win the national selection.

From those songs of her competitors, she likes the songs of NorthKid, Subwoolfer, Vilde and Farida. Her favourite past Norwegian entry was the winning song “Fairytale” by Alexander Rybak (2009) and generally from the contest the loved last year’s winners Maneskin (Italy 2021), Loreen (Sweden 2012) and Gjon’s Tears (Switzerland 2021).

We couldn’t help but ask her about Amanda Tenfjord that will represent Greece this year, who is also half Norwegian. Elsie commented:

I know Amanda. I’m not sure if we’ve ever met in person, however, I think we’re under the same management. I’ve also worked with her producer, Bjorn. 

A few moments before we had to say goodbye to Elsie Bay, she sang a part of her song for us, acapella.

You can watch the entire exclusive interview of Elsie, one the video below:

You can listen to “Death of Us“, Elsie’s entry at MGP 2022 below!

Stay tuned at EurovisionFun, for all the latest developments regarding Melodi Grand Prix 2022 and the Norwegian entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest!

Norway: The duels for the second semifinal of the MGP have been announced!

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Norwegian broadcaster NRK has announced the duels for the second semi-final of the Melodi Grand Prix 2022. Four artists will compete for a ticket to the final, while Christian Ingebrigtsen has already qualified for the grand final.

Program director Kåre Magnus Bergh did the draw for the duels. It will be two duels between a ballad, a pop, a rock and a country song.

The first duel is between rock star Lily Lowe and country singer Stefen Jakobsen.

Lily Lowe– Bad Baby VS  Stefen Jakobsen– With me Tonight

The second duel will be a showdown between Farida‘s dynamic voice and pop artist Daniel Lucas.

Farida– Dangerous  VS  Lucas– Kvelertak

After both duels are completed, the winners advance to the golden duel and the winner advances to the final. Only one of the candidate songs will make it to the grand final and one will compete at the second opportunity to get a ticket to the final.

We remind you that the second semifinal will take place this Saturday 22-01 at 19:50 CET .

Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun for all the developments regarding Norway’s participation in Eurovision 2022!

Source: NRK

Norway: Subwoolfer is the new favorite to win MGP 2022!

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Subwoolfer have become the new favorite to win the Norwegian national selection for Eurovision.  Previously Elsie was on top of the betting odds.  However, after performing her song last Saturday, she started losing ground.

The Odds

Subwoolfer are now the bettors favorite to win Melodi Grand Prix 2022.  They are competing with their song Give That Wolf A Banana.  Elsie Bay has fallen to second place in the odds with her song Death Of Us. Northkid is currently in third place.  However the remaining acts lag behind the first two spots with similar chances of winning Melodi Grand Prix 2022.