Good evening Europe , God Kveld Europa, God morgen Australia . Tonight,Norway continues its search for the act who will represent them at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool , UK. .This year the acts have been split into three semi finals .Tonight we are bringing you our live blog of Semi Final 3 , where we have 7 acts competing for three places in the Grand Final, which will take place in Trondheim Spektrum on 4th February .The hosts will be Arian Engebø and Stian “Staysman ” Thorjørsen. Voting tonight will be 100% public vote.

The acts competing tonight are :

1. Akuvi — “Triumph”
2. Tiril — “Break It”
3. Skrellex — “Love Again”
4. Eline Thorp — “Not Meant to Be”
5. Stig van Eijk — “Someday”
6. Maria Celin — “Freya”
7. Atle Pettersen — “Masterpiece”

Join me, Sarah, where I will be bringing you my thoughts and comments on the acts and show throughout the evening. Please feel free to leave your own thoughts and comments, it’s always interesting to see how different our opinions can be. You know the drill by now, you can follow our live blog by REFRESHING THIS PAGE.

You can watch the action live from Oslo HERE

It’s a bit early yet but please come back and #joinus at 19:50 CET ,18:50 GMT .

LIVE BLOG STARTS HERE …..

And welcome back ! Shortly we are hoping the live link to Norway will be available and we can relax and enjoy the show. Who are you looking forward to seeing tonight? Once the link comes through we’ll start our blog .

So here we go …….the show is starting ! We have previous melodi Grand Prix participants talking about their experiences and an introduction to tonight’s performers.

We meet our hosts, Arian and Stian and the 7 acts on stage

They are telling us it’s the last semi final and remind us of those already qualified for next week’s final. Who will be the final 3 to join them? Just going through the voting rules , tonight is a 100 % public vote

We get a video link of various supporters of the 7 acts . They are a merry lot !Hopefully we’re ready for the first act now .

Akuvi — “Triumph”

Akuvi has appeared in MGP , in 2020 with “Som du er” . She says she is a fan of Afrobeats hits and jazz . We do get a bit of the African influence in her song “Triumph , with an element of the warrior like gear , reminds me a bit of Ruslana ‘s outfit in 2004 . There’s fire on stage, we have four backing dancers . It’s lively and very much geared up for Eurovision . A great opener .

Tiril — “Break It

Tiril is 21 years of age , she’s alone on stage, in all red with a dress that looks as if it’s been cut half way through. Staging is dar with a a red curtain background. There are backing vocals which sound as if they are recorded backing vocals. As she finishes the song the curtain behind her falls down. It’s a nice song but I worry it would get lost amongst some of the other uptempo numbers and stronger ballads that have already qualified for the final. A nice performance though , I would like to see her engage more with the camera.

Skrellex — “Love Again”

Skrellex is a drag artist and in his preview , sweetly talks of how his mother accepted his choices and helps him with his costumes and stage gear. His mother looks a lovely lady 🙂 Skrellex starts off on top of a set of steps , then walks down the stage revealing a spangly purple , knee length dress. There’s scantily dressed male backing dancers and slick choreography .This reminds me a bit of DQ who sang for Denmark in 2007 with “Drama Queen”. I can’t fault the performance but wonder if it would risk going the same way as DQ in 2007 if Skrellex makes it to Liverpool.

Eline Thorp — “Not Meant to Be

Eline is in a short pink dress with pink jacket to match , she’s joined on stage by backing musicians . with a drum , guitar ,etc. She interacts with them , however, she seems at times to be looking away from the camera and that’s not a good look to TV viewers watching .The song includes a bit of rap , added in. It’s very Indie like . A good performance but need to work more on her camera engagement .

Time for some Green room chat with the acts who have already performed. Akuvi seems happy when talking with Stian. Attention now on Skrellex.

The Norwegian’s don’t waste any time, we back to the show and the 5th song already .

Stig van Eijk — “Someday”

Stig represented Norway way back in 1999 in Jerusalem at the tender age of 17 .Now 24 years later , he’s back for another go with the song “Someday ” .He’s a reggae fan. The song starts with a child staring at a model of the world, singing “Someday”. You can see and hear the reggae influence in Stig’s song yellow and black outfit , dancing in which he’s joined by two , then four rather tough looking female dancers who look a bit like they are dressed for a part as prison guards in Prisoner Cell block H ! They dance reggae moves along with him. It’s a good party song for a reggae themed show but I am not sure how the public will take to it. An interesting performance.

Maria Celin — “Freya”

Oh wow, this is very electro pop and reminds me of a mix of Oda from last year’s MGP when she sang Hammer of Thor and Margaret Berger who sang for Norway in 2013 . It’s dramatic, there’s fire , smoke and Maria really sells the song well,. This stands a good chance of going through I think .

Atle Pettersen — “Masterpiece”

And we’re at the final song already !Atle took part in MGP 2021 with World on Fire .He’s back for another go. He’s alone on stage stood on a podium . There’s strobe lighting effects .His vocals are sound , there’s some backing vocals but no backing singers on stage , so could be recorded. I think it would elevate the song a bit more to have backing singers join him on stage in the final part of the song. Not a bad performance.

And that’s it! You have seen and heard all the songs. I thought the quality was quite high tonight . What do you think?

We are getting another reminder of how to vote , but please only vote if you are in Norway as it could be a bit expensive ! More banter from the hosts and the voting has started , literally with a bang ! If you’re watching the show, you’ll see what I mean .Stian firing what looks like some kind of cannon, with confetti like paper in it which I think didn’t quite go to plan !

And we get another recap of tonight’s songs. This semi is a hard one to call .

We are now seeing a film on the streets of Europe , asking the public what they think about some of the MGP songs

More chat in the Green room with the contestants

We are now having the now traditional look back at past MGP’S . Hard to believe how formal these shows used to be back in the 60’s and 70’s .

Hopefully we’ll soon have the results, just to remind you ,NRK seems to have adopted the Strictly Come Dancing way of announcing the results by announcing not just who has qualified but those who haven’t qualified too.

Another recap of the songs , my bets are on Maria Celin, Akuvi and Eline Thorp as the qualifiers but as the late , great Terry Wogan used to say , “What do I know ? “

We are about to close the voting .Back in the Green room to pass the time away .

It’s party time , lots of thumbs up for Stig from the children !

This is all really to pass the time away until the result .

Here we go…. the results .

Akuvi ….is not through

Tiril ……is not through

Maria Celin ….is not through

Eline Thorp……IS THROUGH !

Atle Pettersen …IS THROUGH

Stig or Skrellex left

Skrellex …..IS THROUGH !

Well, I have to say I wasn’t expecting that ! 1/3 ! What do you think? Do you think the right acts went through ? Thank you for following our blog tonight and Goodnight Europe, Good morning Australia !

Author : Sarah Rudman

Source: NRK