Iceland and Sweden

The second semi-final starts with the amazing, glittery Iceland (Euroband) with the gayest anthem of the contest: This is My life! With a title like that, what else could this song be like? Pall Oskar was involved in the making of this, which is also more than enough to have me jump up and down in excitement. Who’s Pall Oskar? Pall Oskar is the first out gay performer at Eurovision back in 1997, when he took part for Iceland with four latex-clad ladies, a white leather sofa and lots of eyeliner. Because the voting was still done by juries then (as opposed to televoting) and there was a live orchestra instead of a bass-filled backing track, Minn Hinsti Dans got very few votes, but his performance is a classic. Check it out here (and note how sexy Icelandic sounds). Iceland may well be one of the gayest Eurovision countries out there, at least judging by the national preselection they had. Also competing was “The Wiggle Wiggle song” by Haffi Haff, whose performance might have even been a tad more fabulous than that of Eurobandid. Iceland is one of my favourite countries in this contest. I just hope they make the choreography a little more dynamic, though they deserve credit for the mini-clothes change in the beginning.



And here’s another Euro-stomper: Sweden’s Charlotte Perelli with Hero. Charlotte Nilsson (as she was then called) won Eurovision in 1999 with the very Abba-sounding “Take me to your heaven”. Kinda like Carola (another Swede who took part three times so far: Watch Carola getting more (1983 – 3rd) and more (1991 – winner) botoxed and Born-Again-Christianed (2006 -5th)), she can’t get enough of Eurovision and decided to take her chances again. Even without the introduction you should be able to tell straightaway that this is a Swedish Eurovision entry. It ticks all the boxes: blonde pretty ladies (though Charlotte looks a bit scary in my opinion), an Abba dance routine, the typical Swedish Eurobeat and look, they’ve even recycled Carola’s windmachine yet again! Another hit in gay clubs and a definite candidate for the final, without a doubt.