Finland kicked off their Eurovision season tonight. The first Finnish semifinal was held in Lahti. Six songs competed for three places in the final. A & N (pictured) won with 24% of the votes. I'Dees and Urban Community have also qualified for the Finnish national final.
The first Finnish semifinal took place tonight in the Sibelius Concert Hall in the town of Lahti. People were able to phone and SMS vote during the show. After the live performances by the six participating songs, the Finnish broadcaster YLE took a fifteen minute break before returning with the results of the vote.
The three songs with the highest amount of votes qualified for the final:
1. 24% | A & N – Miss one-night good-time
2. 19% | I'Dees – Yeah, yeah
3. 17% | Urban Community – Whole wide world
4. 14% | Hanna-Riikka Siitonen – Forever and a day
5. 14% | Place-2-Go – Kissed by a fool
6. 12% | Petri Munck – Melody
Before the results were announced Laura, the Finnish Eurovision Song Contest representative in 2002 with the song Addicted to you, gave a guest performance. As previously reported on esctoday.com, Finland will have four semifinals before the Finnish national final takes place in Tampere on 19th February. In total, 12 semifinal songs will proceed to the final. The second semifinal will be held next Friday 21st January at 20:00 CET in the Paviljonki venue in the town of Jyväskylä.
