Thea Garrett represented Malta during the Eurovision 2010 Semifinal tonight 25/5/2010. Unfortunately she did not qualify to get to the final which will be held next Saturday.

From 2100 CET viewers from the whole world viewed and voted for Europe’s popular (sometimes silly though) tv show and song festival. ESC 2010 is presented by Nadia Hasnaoui, Erik Solbakken and Haddy Jatou N’Jie.

Malta’s entry was overshadowed by legal threats by Thea Garrett’s manager Grace Borg who filed a judicial protest against PBS claiming a breach of her legal rights.

The following songs were included in the semifinal tonight.

1. Moldova: Sunstroke Project & Olia Tira – Run Away
2. Russia: Peter Nalitch & Friends – Lost And Forgotten
3. Estonia: Malcolm Lincoln – Siren
4. Slovakia: Kristina Pelakova – Horehronie
5. Finland: Kuunkuiskaajat – Työlki Ellää
6. Latvia: Aisha – What For?
7. Serbia: Milan Stanković – Ovo Je Balkan
8. Bosnia & Herzegovina: Vukašin Brajić – Thunder And Lightning
9. Poland: Marcin Mroziński – Legenda
10. Belgium: Tom Dice – Me And My Guitar
11. Malta: Thea Garrett – My Dream
12. Albania: Juliana Pasha – It’s All About You
13. Greece: Giorgos Alkaios & Friends – OPA
14. Portugal: Filipa Azevedo – Há Dias Assim
15. F.Y.R. Macedonia: Gjoko Taneski – Jas Ja Imam Silata
16. Belarus: 3+2 Feat. Robert Wells – Butterflies
17. Iceland: Hera Björk – Je Ne Sais Quoi

A disappointing performance for Chiara, representing Malta, in the Eurovision 2009 final.
This is probably Malta’s worst entry since the time when Lynn Chircop almost placed as bad…

Meanwhile Joe Demicoli has produced his Parody version of What if we!
People are searching for it so here it is for you!

With her song “What if We?” (Marc Paelinck and Gregory Bilsen), singer Chiara has won Maltasong 2009, the Go Malta Song festival for europe, which was held in the Malta Fairs and Convention Centre in Ta’ Qali. She will be representing Malta for the third time in the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow next May.

This year’s festival was different in that a jury voted for 3 songs, the so called “super-finalists”. Then people had to call in or sms to vote for their favourite from the 3 songs.

Chiara, 33 years old, won the Maltasong festival back in 1998, with “The One That I Love” and in 2005 with “Angel”, ending up in third and second place in the Eurovision Song Contest respectively.

Televoting won Chiara 12249 points. Chiara has to get through the ESC semifinal on 12th May in Moscow if she is to sing on the final night.

Second place was won by Eleonor with her song “Some Day” (Paul Giordimaina and Fleur Balzan), while Q, with their song “Before You Walk Away” (Paul Giordimaina and Fleur Balzan) ended up at the third position.
Some commented to me that it was not clear that you had to vote for the three songs only, and some even tried to vote for the other songs, unsuccessfully. And the show dragged on to very late.. Perhaps this is why less people voted this year compared to previous years.

Lyrics for What if We

Words of wisdom, prophets and quotes
Wise men talking, tales from the old
I reach for the stars, wherever they are, in darkness
We’re lost, fading away

What if we could be free?
Mystify our wisdom in time
and one day we’ll see
What if we found the key?
Throw the dice, unravel our lies
and learn how to be

All the madness feeding our soul
Take a wild guess out of control
There will be a star, no matter how far, shining
One day we’ll sail away

What if we could be free?
Mystify our wisdom in time
and one day we’ll see
What if we found the key?
Throw the dice, unravel our lies
and learn how to be

If you don’t know your destination
Who determines your destiny?

What if we could be free?
Mystify our wisdom in time
and one day we’ll see
What if we found the key?
Throw the dice, unravel our lies
and learn how to be

Olivia who represented Malta with the song Vertigo, failed to obtain enough televiewer votes to quality for the EUROVISION 2007 final…
Sorry for the lack of photos but that’s due to the missing Press Section on the official Olivia Lewis site.

My comments – it’s useless sending two “popular” people for the choreography – nobody knows them abroad anyway. Also what does Dracula have to do with the Japanese motif? I didn’t get that.

Next time, we should send either Lucienne Cassar (who won LA CORRIDA)
or a trio of Joe Demicoli, Martin Sapiano and is-Sur Gawdenz!

Soon viewers will be voting for the song which will be representing Malta in Eurovision 2007, from the finalists Scar, Klinsmann Coleiro, Pamela, Olivia, Kevin Borg, Trilogy.
Voting is all in the hands of the public – 100% televoting.
Todays voting numbers are different from the semifinal voting numbers…

Above: Eurovision / Maltasong 2007 Xarabank Parody video by Joe Demicoli – You Never Gonna Sing Again

Comment – olivia’s song featured two well known tv personalities (Eg joseph who is a lawyer too).. did that influence the voting process?

RESULTS:

1st place – Olivia – Vertigo 30977 votes (compos. philip vella/author gerald james borg)
2nd place – Trilogy – Starlight 7647 votes (author joe julian farrugia)
3rd place – Klinsmann Coleiro – She Gives Me Wings 7550 votes (compos. mark spiteri, lyrics rita pace)

Above: Olivia singing Vertigo after being announced the winner in the final – congratulations to Olivia!

Above: Natasha and Charlene singing Open Your Eyes in the Bulgarian Song Festival for Eurovision 2007. Unfortunately they didn’t make it to the final. The chosen final songs were picked up at random from a bowl. I guess that’s something which hasn’t been tried in Malta yet

Above: Klinsmann, sort of like uk boyband, singing “She gives me wings”.