Eurovision 2017 Semifinal 1 Reactions

Better late than never, right? I got 9 out of 10 right, with Finland as the only incorrect pick. Their failure to qualify shocked a lot of people who had it as one of their favorites. I was shocked too since so many people liked it, but the song does seem more like a grower than something that instantly resonates on first listen. The qualifier I failed to predict, or even have on my backup list, was Cyprus. Their choreography wasn't impressive in the rehearsal footage but looked a lot better on screen.

The other non-qualifiers weren't really surprising. Montenegro had a Eurovision gem with an amazing backdrop, but it was an inconsistent performance. Half of the choreography was fabulous Ultraman posing but the other half was galloping across the stage and braid spinning that looked unstructured and messy. If it had all been smoother like in the music video, who knows, it could have done better.

I'm very happy that my top 3 songs in this semifinal all qualified, with two seeming to have really resonated with the audience by most statistics. Australia wasn't as impressive as it could had been but was still a good show. Rehearsal footage portrayed Belgium's performance as weak, but with some tweaks the strength of the song was clear. And Portugal seems to have had the biggest reaction from the general public. If someone told you last year that this year Portugal would be considered a contender for the win, nobody would believe them going by their decades-long track record, but here we are, and deservedly so.