Again, it was a busy weekend. Ten live shows in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest national final season were held all over Europe in eight different countries: Slovenia, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark and Azerbaijan made up their minds for Belgrade, Latvia kicked off its selection and Belgium and Iceland continued theirs.
Slovenia
From the total of 20 songs, ten were chosen in the two semi finals on Friday and Saturday to move forward to the grand final of EMA 2008 on Sunday. In the second round of televoting, Rebeka Dremelj and Skupina Langa remained, and Rebeka eventually won the national final only 395 votes ahead of the runner-up. Her song Vrag naj vzame was written by Josip Miani-Pipi & Amon and of course performed in Slovene in the national final, but the language might be changed for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Latvia
Eirodziesma 2008 will kicked off on Saturday with the first semi final being held. It was the only show on Saturday with no webcast so only few internationalfans could watch the first five songs being chosen for the national final on 1st March.Two of the songs were chosen by a jury and three by televoting. As expected, the runaway winner of the televoting were Pirates Of The Seawith Wolves of the Sea getting about four times the amount of votes the runner-up got.
Denmark
After two semi finals and two second chance rounds on Danish radios, Denmark has eventually selected its participant for the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest: Simon Mathew will represent the country in Belgrade with All night long written by Jacob Launbjerg, Svend Gudiksen and Nis Bøgvad. After the Czech Republic, Denmark is already the second country this year that chose the song performed second in the national final – is another Eurovisionmyth about to be debunked? Nevertheless, it was a very close victory, the singer received only two points more than the runner-ups UNITE.
Estonia
Estonia is one of the two unlucky countries that were eliminated in all four semi finals broadcast so far. Comedy duo Kreisraadio will try to be more succesful in Belgrade as they and their song Leto svet (performed in Serbian, German and Finnish) were the clear winners of Eurolaul 2008. It was a landslide victory indeed, they got almost twice as many votes as the runner-up Iris Vesik.
Lithuania
After three semi finals, the Lithuanian representative in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest was chosen: Jeronimas Milius will represent his country in Belgrade with the operatic song Nomads in the night, which was written all be himself. He was an early favourite but won the national final only by a very small margin, getting 432 votes more than wildcard entrant Aistė Pilvelytė from the total of 107,673votes cast.
Azerbaijan
The Azeri national final for the Eurovision Song Contest was held on Saturday. Actually, it was in main a concert of three former Eurovision Song Contest winners: Sertab Erener, Ruslana and Marija Serifovic. The three entrants in the selection performed two song each and Elnur Huseynov was chosen by a 13-member professional jury to represent Azerbaijan in Belgrade this year. The song will be chosen in the next few days, but Day after day from the national final is the likely choice.
Iceland
The third of four semi finals in Iceland was held on Saturday with another three acts competing. Two entries went forward to the national final on 23rd February: EurobandiðwithFullkomið líf and Dr. Spockwith Hvar ert þú?. Pálmi Gunnarsson & Hrund Ósk Árnadóttirand their songLeigubílar have been eliminated from the competition.
Belgium
The second of four quarter finals was held on Sunday with another five acts competing. Again, the top two were chosen by televoting while the third and fourth places entries will be still in the running to get one of the jury wildcards. The last placed entry was eliminated for good.
