It's Super Saturday and Eurosong 2008 day has finally arrived and tonight all eyes will turn to Limerick and the selection of Ireland's entry for the 53rd Eurovision Song Contest to be staged in Belgrade, Serbia in May. The six Eurosong finalists have spent most of the week rehearsing in Dublin, and those that have seen the rehearsals say that we are in for one of the most interesting Eurovision selection shows in many years.
The six Eurosong finalists have now take the 200km journey from Dublin to Limerick, Ireland's third biggest city and will be during further rehearsals of in the actual venue, The University of Limerick Concert Hall. Insiders suggest that the slickest choreography belongs to Donal Skehan and his team of three dancers and two backing singers. Dustin The Turkey's entry uses one of the more unusual stage props; a shopping trolley and that both female singers Maya and Leona Daly are really impressive vocally, however if Irish fans are looking for something more safe and traditional from an Irish perspective, then Liam Geddes and Marc Roberts, may be thepeople to do well.
Despite the fact that seven other countries holding competitions tonight, most international attention seems to be focused on Ireland, due in part to the country's successful Eurovision history but also due to the participation of Dustin The Turkey.
There's no question that most of the attention has been pointed at the popular television puppet and recording star, but over the past few days the air of inevitability about tonight's result seems to have blown away. On Thursday last the six songs that are in competition to represent Ireland in May were aired for the first time on Derek Mooney's radio show and an assorted panel gave their opinions. Suffice to say, that while Dustin's entry "Irlande Douze Points" certainly got people talking, the full enormity of sending a joke entry to the Eurovision Song Contest hit home for the first time. Also many people seemed to be impressed by the quality of the other five songs in the competition.
Currently, the bookmakers still have Dustin as favourite at 2/9 with Donal Skehan at 5/1 Leona Daly at 8/1, Liam Geddes 18/1, Marc Roberts 20/1 and Maya the outsider at 33/1.
Judge for yourself tonight at 20:00 CET (19:00 local time) with results at 22:45 CET (21:45 local time) on esctoday.com
Stay tuned to esctoday.com for up-to-date news and tonights live reports and live webcasts.
Special thanks to allkindsofeverything.ie for this article.
