1st Semifinal Rehearsal Impressions and Predictions

It’s time once again to test my crystal ball and make some predictions. Despite what the rest of the blogging world thinks, I think that Finland has a chance. The song’s rehearsal videos have a very large number of views on Youtube. Just by looking at eurovision.tv’s videos, the two Finnish rehearsal videos have the second highest number of combined views as of Monday night, only behind Turkey. Since those views can’t all be from Finland and me I think it shows that there is some interest in it that may result in some televotes. But perhaps I'm just being overly optimistic.

I'm not optimistic about Sweden though - although I like the song itself I never liked the Melodifestivalen performance, with its blinding green and white backdrops, and this one seems to be similar. I'd love it if Israel qualified but I'm not sure it will happen. I'm also hesitant about Malta because Malta is neighborless Malta, but it's also Chiara and if for some reason this does not please viewers it will almost certainly please the juries. I know FYR Macedonia and Portugal were especially low on my rankings, but their performances seem pleasant enough to attract viewers.

Here are my predicted qualifiers for the first Semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009.
ARMENIA
BELARUS
BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
FINLAND
FYR MACEDONIA
ICELAND
MALTA
PORTUGAL
ROMANIA
TURKEY

Good luck to everyone involved, and I'll post again once the show is over with my reactions.