Amber for Eurovision 2015!

Amber has just won the Malta Eurovision Song Contest! She will represent Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 with her song `Warrior´. She has got a marvelous score - the maximum score! She got from all the voters (5 juries + televoting) 12 points which made a clear victory with a landslide for her with 72 points - that´s 25 points more than the runner-up Christabelle!

It was a long show. After the 14 songs were sung, there was a load of interval acts to happen! Many Junior Eurovision Song Contest interval acts were recycled, Firelight sung three songs (from which one Coming Home, Malta´s 2014 song, was), Conchita Wurst who performed her songs "Rise like a Phoenix" and "Heroes", and of course a lot of commercials. BUT, everybody survived it and there was a clear winner! Congratulations, Amber!

Amber Bondin was born 26th May 1991 and participated four times at the Maltese pre-selection - 2011, 2012, 2013 and this year. In her first attempt, she sung Touch Wood, which didn´t qualify for the final. However, the next year she reached a nice third position with her song `Awnser with your eyes´ (and went to Eurovision in Baku as backing singer for Kurt Callejah´s `This is the Night´. Last year, she sung `In Control´ and reached a fourth position. And this year, she won on a landslide. 

Listen here to Malta´s Eurovision entry for 2015:

MALTA EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2015

AMBER - WARRIOR

live

studio version

The other results are:

1. Amber - Warrior - 72 points

2. Christabelle - Rush - 47 points

3. Glen Vella - Breakaway - 39 points

4. Chris Grech - Closed Doors - 35 points

5. Franklin - Still Here - 26 points

6. Daniel Testa - Something in the Way - 24 points

7. Ekklesia Sisters - Love and Let Go - 23 points

8. Lawrence Gray - The One That You Love - 18 points

9. Jessika - Fandango - 18 points

10. Trilogy - Chasing A Dream - 12

11. Deborah C - It´s OK - 12 points

12. Dominic - Once In A While - 11 points

13. L-Ahwa - Beautiful To Me - 11 points 

14. Karen DeBattista - 12, Baker Street - 0 points 

What do you think of Malta´s song? Tell us in the comments box! 

Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2014-2015 Final tonight!

Tonight, Malta will choose their entry for Eurovision Song Contest 2015 in the second national final of Eurovision season 2015. Who will succeed Firelight, the artists that won the national final earlier this year? Tonight, you will be able to see this live at the webstream of the official Eurovision site, starting 20:45 CET. We don´t know how late it will end - yesterday´s semi final lasted thirty minutes longer than scheduled. 

In this semi final, 14 of the 20 participants of this national final, were chosen to be in the final. These are the contestants in the official running-order from tonight:

1. Glen Vella - Breakaway

2. Karen DeBattista - 12, Baker Street

3. Dominic - Once In A While

4. Trilogy - Chasing A Dream

5. Chris Grech - Closed Doors

6. Ekklesia Sisters - Love and Let Go

7. Jessika - Fandango

8. Deborah C - It´s OK

9. Amber - Warrior

10. L-Ahwa - Beautiful To Me

11. Franklin - Still Here

12. Christabelle - Rush

13. Lawrence Gray - The One That You Love

14. Daniel Testa - Something In The Way

From these contestants, there are some old Eurovision artists. Glen Vella, for example, has been Malta´s artist in 2011, and Gianluca, who participated in 2013 and managed to be in the top 10 with his song `Tomorrow´, tries it again with his sliblings as the group L-Ahwa. Also, Ludwig who participated in 2004 with `On Again, Off Again´ is in the group called Trilogy and Daniel Testa, which gain a 4th place in Junior Eurovision 2008 in Cyprus, is also participating and closes the show. Also, the biggest-margin Eurovision winner ever, Alexander Rybak (Norway 2009), is the writer of Franklin´s song. Will one of them be on the big Eurovision stage again? Or will another artist will see the big stage for the first time?

The Ekklesia Sisters are the most notable participants of the national final. These are nuns and hope to get to Vienna. But, in the Eurovision rules it says, that religious content isn´t allowed. IF they win, how does this have to happen? They´ll be singing 6th in the running order! 

Big favorite to win is Amber with the song "Warrior". She will perform as 9th. 

This national final counts a 3/4 jury voting. This means that the televoting, has actually nothing to say. Last year, Jessika (which participates this year aswell) got the televoter´s 12 points, while Firelight got 7. The juries, however, didn´t excactly enjoy the dance-able song Hypnotica and turned it down with only two juries giving it points, which were only 2 and 4. Will the Maltese jury agree with the televoting this year? Or will they do the opposite again? 

Also, during the final, last year´s Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst is invited to do the interval act! She will perform at least two songs, her winning song `Rise like a Phoenix´ and her newest song `Heroes´. 

Immediately after the final we will anounce the winner on this blog. Stay tuned! 

WARNING - If you´re watching a Maltese national final for the first time tonight, you´ll notice that there are a lot of ANNOYING commercials. Be prepared. 

Enjoy last year´s MESC winner: Firelight - Coming Home, which recieved a 23rd place in the grand final in Copenhague with 32 points! 

Pleasant suprise! A 39th country joins us in Vienna!

A country which has confirmed that it won´t be in Vienna, has changed their minds. With other words, the opposite of what Bosnia & Herzegovina did... but which country is it? It is...

THE CZECH REPUBLIC!

The Czech Republic is a country with a short Eurovision history. Despite being a big country with one of Europe´s biggest cities, the Czech Republic has only joined the party trice- from 2007 till 2009. And twice from these three times they recieved a last place. The poor Czechs.

But hopefully this will change! After a withdraw from the 2010 contest, they haven´t been in the show for 5 years. But they´re back. Their artist will be selected internally and they said to hope to send a big star. Will it be another last place or will it rise to the top? Whatever they´ll send, I can tell you, every Eurovision fan is very suprised - but on a pleasant way!

It´s kinda sad, but their last entry recieved nil points. That was in 2009. Gipsy.cz performed a rememberable performance which everybody will remember when they watched the first semi final from that year. Hopefully Gipsy.cz will be succeeded with something better!

Sad news from Bosnia & Herzegovina

We just recieved bad news from Bosnia & Herzegovina: broadcaster BHRT isn´t able to pay for a participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. They were about to return, but did the same as last year: they pull out in the last moment. Very sad news - Bosnia & Herzegovina is a very popular Eurovision country and qualified every year - until their withdraw in 2013 due to these financial problems. We hope to see Sarajevo back in 2016.

The contest counts 38 countries now, with Bulgaria as a possible 39th country. 

Bosnia´s last entry was in Eurovision 2012, where Maja Sar sung Karoke ti znam which ended on the 18th place with 55 points. 

 

Germany, Hungary and Ireland could make a debut in 2015´s Junior Eurovision

Today it has been reported that observators from Germany, Hungary and Ireland have been obervating the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 and seemed to be very positive about the event. Could they make a debut in 2015? Ireland and Hungary were mentioned possible participaters for 2014 but both didn´t make it, Ireland due the costs. 

ZDF, the German broadcaster which has observated the Junior Eurovision last Saturday, did also observate the contest in Kyev in 2013. Could they´ve changed their mind and decided to join the event in 2015? 

Montenegro: wants to be there in 2015 too!

Montenegro has anounced a possible return in Junior Eurovision 2015. They really liked the 2014 contest and said that if they were able to find sponsors for the next edition, they certainly would like to participate for the second time. 

They debuted this year with Maša Vujadinović and Lejla Vulvić singing a happy song called Budi dijete na jedan dan (Be a child for a day) and ended on the 14th position with 24 points. You can see their performance here below:

Bulgaria: happy with the second place

After Bulgaria recieved the second place in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 (their first ever top 3 spot!) last night, there are big rumours about Sofia and Eurovision!

Junior Eurovision

Last night, Krisia, Hasan and Ibrahim recieved Bulgaria´s best result on an Eurovision event ever! They performed second after Belarus in the final of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest and climbed to the second place during the voting, despite the fact that Krisia was a bit sick during the Junior Eurovision week. Bulgaria, which didn´t participate in the 2012 and 2013 contest, came back as never before. Whole of Bulgaria was really happy about this, and shortly after this there came rumours that Bulgaria will join the Junior contest in 2015 too! Which sounds very legit, after this great result! There was a Tweet from the Bulgarian Eurovision account on Twitter which awnsered the question if they would come back next year too with:

" there are no doubts that we will ;) " 

Watch the Bulgarian performance here:

Eurovision Song Contest 2015?

After questions from enthousiastic Eurovision fans if they would return in the adult contest after this second place in the kids´ contest, their response sounded like they never stopped thinking about being in Vienna. In this year´s contest, the country withdrew because of the high costs to participate. This year they send a preliminary application to participate in Vienna. On 10 October however, they withdrew again for the same reason as in the 2014 contest: stupid financial reasons. But later, - here it comes - they confirmed on the 31th of October that they got extra time to solve their financial problems and try to participate by the EBU. Will they be able to do this? And when they don´t, might their second place be a big motivation for them to be there anyway? 

Bulgaria debuted in the 2005 contest, but failed to be in the final every year, except for 2007, when Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankoulov reached a great 5th place with 157 points. In 2013, when they participated for the last time, they didn´t reach the final and got stucked in the semi final with a 12th place with 45 points. See their last performance at Eurovision here:

As you can guess, Krisia with her second place is a Bulgarian hero now. She, Hasan and Ibrahim will arive in Bulgaria in a few minutes, where their placing will be celebrated. You can watch their arrive in Bulgaria on the Bulgarian Eurovision site: http://eurovision.bnt.bg/. 

Italy wins Junior Eurovision 2014!

Italy has won the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014! They were a big dark horse, but managed to gain the first position with their debuting entry last night. Vincenzo Cantiello delivered a mighty performance on the Maltese stage last night and convinced all the people to win with his almost flawless performance.  

Bulgaria and Armenia filled the other two spots of the top 3. It was a big race between Italy and these two during the voting. It was the first ever top 3 spot for Bulgaria ever. 

Among the fans, there was a big shock that Slovenia was only 12th. Eurovision fans all over in social media were shocked that Ula Lozar was stuck on the twelfth place, despite being a big favorite to win the victorious spot. 

The last place went to Croatia. She only got one point - not counting the 12 points which were given by executive supervisor Vladislav Yakovlev - from San Marino. 

The eventual results: 

1. Italy - 159 points

2. Bulgaria - 147 points

3. Armenia - 146 points

4. Malta - 116 points

5. Russia - 96 points

6. Ukraine - 74 points

7. Belarus - 71 points

8. The Netherlands - 70 points

9. Cyprus - 69 points

10. Serbia - 61 points

11. Georgia - 54 points

12. Slovenia - 29 points

13. Sweden - 28 points

14. Montenegro - 24 points

15. San Marino - 21 points

16. Croatia - 13 points