I normally do a longer preview before each semi-final but as my good friend and “Eurovision husband” Clive did a full video on our predictions for semi-final one, I may restrict this to embedding the video here and also a quick update on predictions following the jury semi-final. This is by far the more open semi, and there are more “maybes” than dead on certs to qualify.
So, here is the video Clive and I did – we will see if it stands the test of time!
To summarise, we see the following qualifying:
Cyprus, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Belgium, Australia, Iceland, Portugal, Greece
And the following not qualifying:
Montenegro, Finland, Poland, Belarus, Georgia, Estonia, San Marino
Since we recorded the video, the jury show has taken place. Based on what I’ve heard about that on Twitter etc (and also following ESCunited‘s excellent livestream) I would now swap Belgium and Poland round (with Poland now qualifying and Belgium not). Eliot didn’t have his best performance while Tulia’s vocals were excellent and their performance really stands out within the running order. Georgia or even Belarus might surprise after all, and I think Cyprus has moved from “certain” to “maybe” with some ropey sounding vocals.
I would like San Marino and Estonia to qualify (of the predicted non-qualifiers) and of course Portugal and Greece are my two favourites in this semi (HUGE fingers crossed Portugal qualifies!)
Not long to find out…