This afternoon's dress rehearsal for Finnish final had just completed. Thanks to Juha Repo, esctoday.com brings this exclusive report from Helsinki.
Grunge rockers Crumbland do their cool act very similarly to the heats.Next Hanna Marsh takes to the stage:shehas removed the grand piano and the dance routines and the rose petals. Instead she now has two male guitar players and three female backing singers.
Vuokko Hovatta sings her powerful ballad about Virginia Woolf wearing a new purple dress. A string section is in the background of the stage bathed in purple light. Former tango princess Jenna is last of the six. Her poppy Sinua Varten may benefit from the extensive radio play it has received since her heat and she also has changed her outfit and hairdo.
After the voting finishes there is a guest performance from former Finnish national final entrants of 1996 and 2002 Aikakone. They perform their comeback song Vuoristorata, which would not be wrong as a Eurovision entry itself.
The actual final starts about 40 minutes into the live transmission and starts with 90s dance act Movetron. They have beefed up the trance arrangement of the song and their styling has been polished from the qualifying heat. The second act comes from Idols finalist Kristian Meurman with his self-penned song. The performance is already familiar from the heat with Kristian in a black suit.
The third performance is by drag act Cristal Snow, wearing a black hoodie supported by five dancers in similar white hoodies. The spoken part was changed for the dress rehearsal and it remains to be seen what she will say tonight. The fourth act Mikael Konttinen has kept his 60s inspired performance from his heat for the song Milloin, written by the same team that were behind big fan favourite Shanghain Valot in then 2006 Finnish selection. Kerkko Koskinen has also written the song Virginia that is competing for the second chance earlier on.
Biggest favourites to win are metal rockers Teräsbetoni. The metal loving Finns are expected tovote for in large numbers, even if the slightly camp act might not please all metal purists. Finally we get the grand old man of Finnish schlager, Kari Tapio. The truth about tabloid stories about what he really has said about travelling to Belgrade will be revealed tonight, as some papers said he had said he would not travel to Serbia even if he won. This seems not to be the case now and he will almost certainly be in the three act superfinal.
After Kari Tapio the two acts that qualified from the second chance round will take to the stage again.
The interval act will be last year's Finnish representant Hanna Pakarinen. She will perform hereurovision entryLeave Me Alone in drastically different style wearing a new hairdo and a green 50s inspired dress. After Hanna the three superfinalists will be announced and will perform their song again.
The separate results show will start with the awarding of the annual fan favourite, as voted by the visitors to the Finnish ESC site www.viisukuppila.fi and this year the winner's song will also be sent directly to the international OGAE Second Chance contest. The third placed song will be announced first and Hanna Pakarinen will then help to congratulate the winner of the final.
The show starts at 20:00 CET.
