This article forms part of the OnEurope archive and was originally published on oneurope.co.uk. It has been permanently migrated to oneurope.net, the official home of OnEurope.
Albania, Armenia, Russia, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Estonia, Georgia, Serbia and Belgium proceed to Gate 27, please…
Moldova, Netherlands, Finland, Macedonia, Belarus and Denmark… go back to your constituencies and prepare for victory! (Though it’ll have to be next year, probably).
That was the result of the first semi-final of the 60th Eurovision Song Contest, held at Vienna’s Wiener Stadthalle on Tuesday 19 May 2015. Sixteen countries competed, with the ten qualifiers announced in random order rather than by score.
9/10 for me. Not bad in a quite messy semi, and I’m not at all unhappy with that set of qualifiers. Russia’s Polina Gagarina and “A Million Voices” made it through alongside Belgium’s Loïc Nottet and “Rhythm Inside”, Estonia’s Elina Born and Stig Rästa with “Goodbye to Yesterday”, and Georgia’s Nina Sublatti with “Warrior”.
Romania, Greece, Armenia, Hungary, Serbia and Albania completed the line-up with “De la capăt/All Over Again”, “One Last Breath”, “Face the Shadow”, “Wars for Nothing”, “Beauty Never Lies” and “I’m Alive” respectively.
The later published scoreboard put Russia top of the semi-final with 182 points, followed by Belgium on 149 and Estonia on 105. At the other end, Finland finished last with 13 points. Denmark and the Netherlands both scored 33, but Denmark placed higher under the tie-break rules.
So, Gate 27 was indeed boarding: these ten joined the automatic finalists, host Austria, the Big Five and Australia, plus the ten qualifiers from the second semi-final, for Saturday’s Grand Final.
And, with the benefit of hindsight, Russia went on to finish second in the final, Belgium fourth and Estonia seventh. Not a bad set of passengers after all. You?
