Hooray! Måns Zelmerlöw made it through to the Melodifestivalen final with his excellent entry Hope and Glory. Amy Diamond and Lili & Susie went to Andra Chansen (the 2nd chance round – like being a wildcard on American Idol), with Amy also getting the vote of the International Jury, which gives her an extra chance of reaching the final. The only bad thing was that rock band H.E.A.T. are also going to be in the final, but after seeing their performance I fully expected it. The song was better than I’d realised (more Bon Jovi than Guns & Roses), the singer is quite a belter, and it stood out from the rest for being in such a different style.
I was surprised that Cookies & Beans didn’t do better because I thought their performance was excellent too, and that was even before I realised that one of them was the singer of Release Me by Oh Laura, a huge recent hit. But it still wasn’t enough. Markoolio put on a pretty good performance (he can sing!) but the joke of the song wasn’t really good enough, and neither was the song itself. The Dima Bilan-esque ridiculous gimmick was quite funny, though – I advise you to look it up on YouTube later! Lasse Lindh was ace too, but I was not surprised by his failure to get through on such a tough week. I’m sure he had fun anyway, and perhaps gained some new fans from a different audience to his usual one.