The first ever Danish qualification heat had an intro seen before: some kind of a medley. This time it was Flaskedrengene (the bottle boys) which performed a medley of three former Danish entries: Kloden Drejer from 1983, Hallo hallo from 1990 and Ka� du se hvad jeg sa�e from 1988 by playing on bottles as the name reveals.
After some karaoke clips we were ready for some action: (by clicking the name of thesong you will be guided to DR's Melodi Grand Prix sitewherethe lyrics can be found under "læs sangteksten")
If you were among those who suffered from a broken webcast or a bad TV transmission videos of the songs can be found on DR's website by clicking here.
Song nr. 1: Paparazzi – Christoffer Brodersen
Christoffer gave a very cool and relaxed performance in the song which tells the story of a paparazzi photographer always chasing pictures of famous like Wayne Rooney, David Beckham, Jim, Carey, Madonna and Steven Spielberg. The song is very latino inspired although he himself doesn’t look like Ricky Martin.
Song nr. 2: Listen to love – Jacob Andersen
This was beforehand the big favourite by the bookmakers and as usual Jacob gave a very professional performance where he was in front of a classic rock band line-up which is very untraditional for a typical Danish final. The song can best be described as classic pop/rock a la Oasis.
Song nr. 3: Flammer indeni – Dariana & Olau
This song had the traditional Danish line-up with afour people backing choir containingtwo male andtwo female. Now we were back with the traditional music style for a Danish selection. All through the show DR had problems with the TV transmission and unfortunately this song suffered from quite a lot of break-ups.
Song nr. 4: Copenhagen Airport – Annette Heick
Gina G. no longer have the record of how much bare skin can be shown. Annette Heick dressed in almost invisible short hot pants and some kind of a stewardess shirt. Half way through the show she was joined by two male dancers dressed in pilot uniforms. This song was quite clearly inspired by the traditional Swedish Schlager style and it left one wondering where the microphone holder was! Despite the English title the song was in Danish,
Song nr. 5: Meaning of life – Danni Elmo
Danni finished second in last year’s Danish final and therefore the expectations to him is quite high this year. He was without his guitar in front of a traditional backing choir and joined by a female singer who was placed on a podium in front of him. This song was pop/rock a la Robbie Williams.
Song nr. 6: On top of the world – Heidi Degn
She was alone on stage in the beginning, but later joined by a three people choir and two dancers. This song is a traditional song in a style which have been heard many times before in the Eurovision Song Contest. Sometimes it was hard to tell if this was Denmark or Estonia.
Song nr. 7: Fly – Annika Askman
Once again we had the very unusual full band on stage. Annika herself was sitting at an electric piano that she left half way through the song. She was dressed like a real rock mama which matched quite well with this rock song.
Song nr. 8: It ain’t for the money – Camille feat. DJ Mary
This was the most unusual song ever seen in a Danish selection. Camille had to dancers, two backing singers and of course DJ Mary, one of Denmark’s best DJ’s and the song let people to believe they were at a discothèque. It is one of those techno/dance songs which is good to dance at when you had too much to drink, but impossible to sing a long to.
All on stage was dressed very different from each other, but all seemed to have been along the second hand shop on the way as it was a mix of all styles.
After the break the show continued. First we saw examples of Danish fans trying to sing Disco Tango, the Danish entry for the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, as a karaoke performance in front of a web cam. Let it be said right away, none of these are going to be the Danish singer for the 2008 competition!
We continued with Disco Tango as Flaskedrengene once again entered the stage. After the first verse played on bottles Simone, a young 14 year old talented girl continued the song. She was afterwards asked for her favourite Grand Prix song and told that it was Tænder på dig, the Danish 2005 entry. Simone then sang her new song As if and we were now reaching the final moment; who would qualify for the final?
All participants joined the stage and thefour lucky winners were announced:
Danni Elmo – Meaning of life
Jacob Andersen – Listen to love
Annette Heick – Copenhagen Airport
Annika Askman – Fly
These four songs are directly qualified for the Danish final held on 10th of February. One of the remainingfour from tonight will however be given a second chance as two radio stations on the 5th of February will chose a wildcard from each of the two qualification heats.
With all three rock songs chosen Denmark continues the style from the Nordic Junior Contest which Denmark won with a rock band. Next Friday we’ll know if the Danish rock continues through the second qualification heat.
DR had been inspired from SVT's continuing story from last years Swedish selection. That was about the life of Lena Philipsson's microphoneholder! ThisDanish version was about Gordon Kennedy who esctoday.com have previously mentioned in relation to his new CD with rejected songs. Tonight we heard about his first twoattempts to get into the Danish final -for the secondqualification heat this story will continue. Click here to read more about it and to listen to the songs.
UPDATE
The selection process for choosing the 2 wildcards will begin on February 5th and it will last 4 days. Two radiostations, P3 and P4, will share the 8 candidate songs (4 from each semi-final). Each station will dedicate one entire day per song and the people will be voting via telephone and sms as usual.
