The line-up for 'Siste sjansen', the last chance round of the Norwegian selection for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, MGP, is now complete. As announced earlier, instead of only six, eight acts will try to get another chance for the national final on 21st February.
The first addiditional wildcard was given to the act that had got the most televotes and SMS votes in first place despite finishing outside the top four, which was KeSera from the first semi final with their song Party. The second wildcard was given away by the readers of vg.no, who decided to give Foxy from the third semi final and their song Do it again another chance.
The complete line-up for Saturday:
- Foxy – Do it again
- KeSara – Party
- Surferosa – U look good
- Espen Hana – Two of a kind
- Publiners – Te stein
- Jani Santillan – (Like you did) yesterday
- Jane Helen – Shuffled
- Sunny – Carrie
The last chance round will be held in Ålesund on Saturday and the two qualifiers will be chosen through a new voting procedure similar to 'andra chancen' in Swedish Melodifestivalen: In a first round, the eight songs will compete in pairs and four will move forward to the next round, where the two eventual qualifiers will be chosen.
The current MGP format was introduced in 2006 and so far, only one last chance qualifier has made a major impact in the final: Jannicke Abrahamsen finished second in 2007 overall. In the other years, the last chance entrants all finished outside the top four in the first round of voting not making it to the 'superfinal'.
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.
