James O'Brien

I looked at the bloke on the big screen today and thought to myself I really could be Swedish, after all. What do you think? Half-brother, long lost cousin, or just a similar looking bloke with a round face and blonde receding hair? This bloke is reporting the results of one of the local juries, feeding into the Swedish finals leading up to Eurovision, by the way.

The way in which the Swedes select their song for the Eurovision Song Contest is quite an interesting one. They have a series of heats in different parts of the country with public tele-voting, a bit like all of the Idol programs. Except they play acts off against each other, asking the public to choose one or the other. Then the winners of these duels sing again, and the public votes again choosing one or the other, until finally they have winners who make it through to the final. They also have an International Jury which allows for a “wild card” to make it through. And they have something called “Andra Chansen” (literally another chance), where good acts who fail to make it through are given another opportunity.

And then on the night of the Grand Final, held at Stockholm’s Globen Arena, they combine celebrity juries in locations around the country with nationwide tele-voting. I suspect winning Melodifestivalen is a bit like winning the lotto. Totally unpredictable. Anyway you could have heard a pin drop when the results came trough and suddenly, and unexpectedly “La Voix”, was selected as the Swedish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Thanks to the wonders of the interweb, today a group of us in Sydney gathered to watch Melodifestivalen on “the big screen” at one of our local pubs. I suspect we may have created a bit of Swedish pop history in Sydney today :) In addition to the regular group of ABBA/Swedish pop fans including Pat who came up from Canberra, we were joined by overseas visitor, Mikey, recent arrival from the UK and Eurovision fan, Louisa, and my half-Swedish colleague, Carrie and her boyfriend. The final scores for the “Sydney Jury” revealed a clear preference of Alcazar’s “Stay The Night”. We would have been happy if Mans Zelmerlow had made it through, but we really hoped Alcazar would finally make it. And for a good while it looked as though they had a really good chance. But finally, the public vote came through and “La Voix”, an operatic pop song, emerged with the most number of votes, and was catapulted from about a lower placing (according to the jury system) to first place. I’m reasonably sure the sing said the unvocalisec”f” word (a bit like cricketers and rugby league players do) when she won. It’s not that we all disliked the song. It’s just that we liked others more.

The final results from the Sydney Melodifestivalen Jury were… out of a possible 180 points.
1. Stay The Night – Alcazar 147
2. Moving On – Sarah Dawn Finer 130
3. Hope and Glory – Mans Zelmerlow 125.5
4. La Voix – Malena Ernman 119.5
5. You’re My World – Emelia 108
6 and 7. Love Love Love – Agnes 99 + Baby Goodbye – E.M.D 99
8. Snalla Snalla – Caroline af Ugglas 97
9. Alla – Sofia 91
10. Sa vill stjarnorna – Molly Sanden 77
11. 1000 MIles – H.E.A.T 57

Despite the unexpected and slightly disappointing result, we had a great afternoon. It was loads of fun. But of course, the worst thing about having a socially very active weekend is that by Sunday night, you feel so exhausted you feel like you need an extra couple of days off. And that’s how I feel right now.