March saw me return to Sweden for the Melodifestivalen final with Alex. We were guarenteed a good show with six of my favourites from the competition in the running for the chance of representing Sweden at Eurovision. For me, there could only be one winner and that was the "comeback queen" Charlotte Perrelli.
During the day of the final I was able to catch a PA from Ola and meet him. Upon meeting him he seemed surprised that I had come from the UK to catch the final of Melodifestivalen and even more so when I told him that I had seen him perform at his semi-final a few weeks previously.
At the final Charlotte Perrelli was first up with her schlager-by numbers "Hero", wearing a fantastic silver dress she gave a flawless performance that was amazing to watch - Charlotte really set the standard for the rest of the finalists.
Next out was the cute Sibel with "That is Where I'll Go" for a tiny girl she could really belt out this power ballad. Following Sibel was Rongedal with their Scissor Sisters sounding "Just A Minute" with kitch dance routine - it was a good performance and certainly got the audience dancing. Linda Bengtzing's "Hur svårt kan det va?" was a great song but sadly was a bit of a car crash performance onstage as it was just too frantic and messy with Linda running around the stage. Christer Sjogren followed Linda with the extremely dated "I Love Europe". The youngest performer in the final Amy Diamond gave an energetic performance of her Rachel Stevens sounding "Thank-You" which was one of my favourite songs of the competition - sadly Amy got a bit out of breath during the performance and her vocals occasionally went screachy.
The emotional ballad "Empty Room" changed the mood of the final when Sanna Nielsen performed next, it was a beautiful and flawless vocal delivered by Sanna. Carola and Andreas Johnsson's nemesis, Nordman (who beat them in the second chance round the week before) was next and was popular in the arena. Frida & Headline the act that in my opinion didn't really deserve to be in the final came next with "Upp o Hoppa" as they performed I couldn't help but think it should have been Caracola with "Smiling In Love" there instead.
The last song of the final came from the mighty BWO with the discotastic "Lay Your Love On Me", it was a great stage performance with a big production using a metal cage that elevated lead singer Martin above the stage. With the ten songs performed I thought it had to be either Charlotte, Sanna or BWO that would be going to represent Sweden in Belgrade. As the results came in I was prooved right as Charlotte took first place with Sanna taking the runner-up position and BWO coming third.
Squeezy x
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