With Tomi Metsäketo, Jennie and Lordi, Finland starts its 2006 Eurovision Song Contest season. After the first semifinal of Eurovision Laulukilpailu, all three artists proceed to the final with one song left. Tonight it is up to the Finnish audience which song they take to the final on 11th March.

Tomi Metsäketo
Will be singing two songs in Italian in the first semifinal of the Finish selection. Eternamente Maria and Un posto fra le nuvole. Tomi has a background as classical opera singer and has been thaught at the famous Sibelius academy and studies in Italy and Germany. He has also played in several musicals and had roles in Les Misérables, The Sound of Music, Me and My girl and Calypso. With his two Italian entries tonight Tomi wants to bring a touch of the classical back to the Eurovision, like Volare.

Jennie
Will sing Look at your love and Take me higher . Only 22 years old but not a debutant in the Eurovision. Last year Jennie finished on third place in the Finish selection with her entry Kiss Me. She is a huge fan of the Eurovision. Other merits that can be mentioned in Jennies career is a lead role in the musical Miss Saigon and in the musical Oskar.

Lordi
This groups two entries are called Hard Rock Hallelujah and Bringing Back the Balls to Rock. Lordi is a hardrock/metallband and is described as a combination of theatre, fire and horror. Lordi is best experienced as a live performance. Lordis second full-length album The Monsterican Dream earned them international fame and scored successes around Europe as well as in South America. Lordi consists of Lordi, the leadsinger, Amen – guitarist/ backingvocal, Kalma – Bas/backing vocal, Kita – drums/ backingvocal and Enary � keyboards/backingvocal.

The fact that Tomi Metsäketo sings two songs in Italian means the final on 11th March will at least contain one song in Italian. Those who are looking forward to hear songs in Finnish should wait until next week's semifinal.

The televoting numbers of tonight's show can be found here. Voting is only possible calling from Finland. The show starts at 21:00 local time, the results will be presented around 22:15.

You can find the complete list of participants and the song's lyrics here in the Finland 2006 section (in running order!)