Finland heads to Vienna with Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen’s ‘Liekinheitin’. It won the increasingly brilliant UMK in Tampere with the sort of crushing margin that tends to end arguments before they properly start.The pair go into Eurovision as one of the bookmaker favourites. This isn’t a phrase Finland has always used without irony. They get to perform in the first half of the first semi-final.
The song itself is very Eurovision in the old, unapologetic sense of the term. It’s big, polished, dramatic, and precision-engineered to make something happen in an arena. Officially, it’s described as combining rock, classical and dance elements, with Lampenius’s violin set against Parkkonen’s (prone to wobble live) lead vocal, and that broad mix is exactly what gives ‘Liekinheitin’ its shape. As a package it’s professional, clean and built to hit hard and fast. Lampenius’s violin lends flash and movement, and there’s no shortage of confidence in the arrangement. Even so, there’s a fair case that once the opening half has made its point, the rest mostly reinforces it. For all the craft involved, there’s little here to surprise and lend the song that last little pinch of something that winners tend to have.
Finland has turned UMK into one of the contest’s more reliable selection machines, and ‘Liekinheitin’ arrived with serious momentum even before the final. Yle was already reporting how Finland was topping the Eurovision odds before the act had officially been chosen, with Lampenius and Parkkonen strongly fancied to emerge from the national final. The assumption now is that Finland will turn up with a package, not merely a decent song with strong performers. Lest we forget, there was talk of winning last year – and look how that turned out!
History
Käärijä gave Finland second place in 2023. Windows95man still defied every sane expectation and reached the final in 2024. Eurovision sauce pot Erika Vikman followed with 11th place in 2025. That’s not a fluke or a one-year spike.
As for 2026, this sounds to me like an obvious qualifier and a credible left-side of the board contender. Juries should respond to the professionalism and scale. Televoters are unlikely to ignore something so efficiently built for a big stage. The question is whether it has enough beyond that. Favourites rarely collapse for no reason, and Finland should score well. There’s a slight risk that ‘Liekinheitin’ ends up ‘doing a KAJ’ and ends up more loved more than running away with the votes. Sometimes that still gets you very close to the dreadfully tacky (and easy to break) glass microphone. Sometimes it gets you a respectable top ten finish and a lot of satisfied nodding.
8 Points
