Tonight, another country will kick off its televised selection for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest: in Norway, the first semi final of MGP will be held. Seven acts will perform one song each and the top two will qualify directly for the national final.
The show
The first semi final is held at Kongsvinger. The seven acts will perform perform their songs and then televoting will choose two acts to move forward to the national final on 21st February. The third and fourth placed songs will enter the "last chance" round on 14th February. The show, which will be broadcast on NRK 1, starts at 19:55 CET and it will be hosted by Per Sundnes and Maria Jaukaas Storend, who represented the country in Belgrade last year.
Webcast
A webcast will be made available on NRK's official website here before the show starts.
Participants
Composer/lyricist in brackets.
- Surferosa – U look good (Surferosa, Lars-Erik Westby/Mariann Thomassen)
- Chicas del Coro – Men, men, men (Hilde Marstrander)
- Ke Sera – Party (Robin Nordahl, Thomas Ewel/Ke Sera)
- Espen Hana – Two ofa kind (Trond Andreassen/Trond Andreassen, Christian Bloom)
- Charite – Sweeter than a kiss (Christian Ingebrigtsen, Laila Samuelsen)
- Velvet – Tricky (Hanne Sørvaag, N2, Niklas Bergwall, Niclas Kings)
- Thomas Brøndbo – Det vart en storm (Thomas Brøndbo)
Maria Haukaas Storeng easily won the 2008 Melodi Grand Prix final getting almost 80,000 votes more than runner-up Torstein Sødal. With the song Hold on be strong, she finished 5th in the Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade giving Norway its best placing since 2003. The song was a #1 hit in Norway and also entered the charts in Sweden and Denmark.
