The seven acts competing in the first heat of Melodifestivalen 2017 brought pink wigs (Dinah Nah), body (DJ Hunk) and a few ballerinas (Adrijana). But in the end it was Nano singing “Hold On” and Ace Wilder singing “Wild Child” who advanced direkt til final. Boris René (“Her Kiss”) and De Vet Du (“Road Trip”) came closest to them, but not close enough, and will have to fight it out at Andra Chansen in Linköping on March 4.
Semi Final 1 Qualifiers: Dirket Till Final
Nano – “Hold On“
His performance may have been dark, but Nano brought plenty of light with his inspirational message of perseverance. A former prisoner who turned his life around through music, he seemed to feel every note and verse — and that power really shined through. The presence of a gospel choir re-iterated that this song is bigger than him, resulting in a truly visceral performance.
Ace Wilder – “Wild Child“
She recently confessed that last year’s elaborate performance left her wracked with anxiety and suffering from panic attacks. But she’s clearly put all of that behind her as tonight Ace was the picture of cool as she performed “Wild Child” — an upbeat, feel-good number about doing you. Rocking a midriff-exposing pistachio coloured outfit and hitting her camera angles, Ace brought energy and poise. Melodifestivalen is a jungle, but she is a tigress! Well done!
Semi Final 1 Qualifiers: Andra Chansen
Boris René – “Her Kiss“
After rehearsals we worried his song was a tad too retro. But Boris danced off any and all concerns with this disco-inspired number. As ever he popped and locked to perfection, suggesting that the football pitch is a great place to cultivate dance skills.
De Vet Du – “Road Trip“
They aren’t known for their singing, but rather their humour, sarcasm and good spirit. And those traits were on fine show as they rode out in an orange mini. Swift camera cuts and flashing lights gave this a sense of pace and energy, which was enough to forget about the lacklustre vocals. Special shout out to DJ Hunk.
He's got a beautiful voice. #melfest #melodifestivalen #eurovision #devetdu pic.twitter.com/czx1qJaKdy
— William Lee Adams (@willyleeadams) February 4, 2017
Semi Final 1 Eliminated Acts
5. Dinah Nah – “One More Night“
Channeling Nicki Minaj with her pink wig and Britney Spears with her circus outfit, Dinah brought sufficiently crazy style for her electro dance number. The song fit her style well and got our feet tapping, even if it didn’t quite reach the height of “Make Me (La La La)”. Her “Wall of Fierce” — the all-female backing dancers — didn’t do that much and the stage seemed to swallow poor Dinah. But wHAteVer. We still love her!
Not her natural hair colour…but it looks amazing! Love @Dinah_Nah! #melfest #melfest2017 pic.twitter.com/zrH8Ht7sLI
— wiwibloggs (@wiwibloggs) February 4, 2017
6. Adrijana – “Amare“
Adrijana had a cold this week and unfortunately it showed. Her performance lacked the confidence and swagger we know she’s capable of. The chorus of her song wasn’t particularly musical — it was very chatty, rappy, spoken-word — and that made it less musical and less memorable. But it’s clear this Albanian-Macedonian-Swedish starlet has a lot going for her, and we hope she returns to the contest soon.
7. Charlotte Perrelli – “Mitt Liv“
She’s already won Melodifestivalen twice and Eurovision once. So Miss Perrelli — aka “The Girl” — has nothing to prove to anyone. So good on her for showing up to Melodifestivalen with a guitar and proving she can do more than schlager. What she did she did very well. But I’m not convinced that Melfest fans want to see a schlager diva reborn as a bored Indigo Girl.
What a difference a year makes. Charlotte, is everything OK?! #melfest2017 #melfest #melodifestivalen pic.twitter.com/AknapBQWvv
— William Lee Adams (@willyleeadams) February 4, 2017
Melodifestivalen continues next week with Deltävling 2 live from Malmö, where Mariette, Roger Pontare, Etzia, Allyawan, Dismissed, Lisa Ajax and Benjamin Ingrosso will fight it out to make the final at Friends Arena on March 11 or Andra Chansen on March 4. You can follow all the action live from 8pm CET on SVT Play.
I like Nano’s song way better than Ace’s. Glad he made it through.
http://www.svtplay.se/video/12141770/melodifestivalen/melodifestivalen-2017-deltavling-1-4-feb-20-00?start=auto here you can watch semi 1 back, it will be deleted soon, cause of the direkt qualifierss
Nano has potential, but he needs to take some singing lessons. He shouts ‘hold on’ with no control of his voice, making it sound rather awful at times.
Nano is overrated. His vocals are terrible and his show was scary, tetric and unappealing. To me To the final should have go Ace and De vet du. Andra for Nano and Dinah Nah, and the others eliminated. I can understand the elimination of Dinah, thought, her show was so old, so of other era… But Boris son is ugly and boring. And his moves? he looks like a little girl of 5 years old dancing…
The general show was great, as always with Sweden.
Two times winner Charlotte Perrelli – last! This proves that Swedes are voting songs, not names. Does this mean Loreen (and to extend – Mariette, Wiktoria, Jon Fredrik…) could also get eliminted in the first round if their new songs don’t meet up with high expectations?
When the first minute of the songs was released, I was rooting for Nano and Ace.
But then when I saw the performance, I found Nano’s performance to be blend. The song got very repetitive and it felt like 5 minutes to get through his song. I don’t even understand why he was even compared to Frans, who has so much stage presence and charisma.
Felt bad for Dinah though, she did great but that’s melfest, it’s cruel.
@Denis: And that’s why Dinah didn’t make it this time. I suspect Lidia Isac’s song (Moldova 2016) wasn’t the only song it reminded you of.
It is 2:39 A.M. in New York City, and I stayed away from this board long enough to watch and score the 1st round of MF, and watch a wild child put on just a bit of a display of maturity, and a wild card steal the show and use a Volkswagen as their getaway car! 🙂 9.313 Nano: “Hold On” (Finalist) Excellent use of the stage graphics and camera shots for dramatic effect. No surprise here. 9.300 Ace Wilder: “Wild Child” (Finalist) The song title is a paradox, given that this was easily her most mature performance in MF.… Read more »
@Greqt: Honey, sugarpie … read this carefully … anyone with some good music taste can always enjoy both Andras Kallay Saunders’ Running and Nano’s Hold On since both incorporate urban and soul music with a contemporary sound that unfortunately is not common in Eurovision and therefore cannot be compared to the zillions of ballads everybody says they sound the same and cannot be compared to all the rubbish pop songs you so much love but funny enough also sound the same … The fact that you’re not into the style of both Runnin and Hold On just show lack of… Read more »
@DJ Tiggeh: Comparing apples and oranges is offensive towards our forever beloved classic smelly cat … 🙂 It’s not his fault Charlotte lost her grip by trying to put on an Stevie Nicks/Jewel-whatever … What are they feeding her with? lol
@an esc fan: They may be taking advantage of the crazy juvenile gay fandom around them but still all those gay fans scream further and further for these singers who instead of injecting credibility and everlasting appeal into their craft … just wanna be regarded as divas … well for Charlotte trying to act out like a Stevie Nicks-wannabe all these years later is just … pathetic to watch. Who is she trying to fool this time? And far more urgently … who is she anyway? Maybe she herself doesn’t even know it …
Charlotte….or was it Phoebe from Friends?
Quite expected results, the only surprise for me was Dinah Nah not making the Andra Chansen round, I thought Boris would be 5th . Otherwise everything else was a predictable result. My top after the show: 1. Ace Wilder- Wild Child: Fantastic! Really uplifting with cool verses and a banging chorus! I don’t know if I’m the only one that’s feeling this so much but I liked it a lot. Better from last year in my book. 9/10 2. Nano- Hold On: Also great! Great message, great voice, great choir. It gets a bit repetitive on the chorus and the… Read more »
Ace had the best song of this semi-final. She was calm on stage and the song is powerful and makes you wanna join her. Nano’s voice is impressive and the song has a good message, with a little gospel spice. Boris is really charismatic and seems to have fun on stage. His song is retro/disco, which makes you wanna dance. It reminds me of Pointer Sisters. Det Vet Du – Their show was hilarious. You just need to nod your head with them. They are also better singers than Samir & Viktor were. Dinah’s song was typical schlager song, except… Read more »
I felt out of all of them, Dinah and Adrijana were pretty much the best. Ace was actually good, but Nano was so disappointing for me, and the ACs were terrible. Weird results in my opinion.
esc 1234, watch the full show at SVT.se. Should work outside of Sweden.
where i can find the full show?
None of them will win anyway.
@Jonas: Ah right, fair enough. Thanks for that. I speak five languages, but Swedish isn’t one of them unfortunately. Maybe one day I will though 🙂
Purple Mask, do you speak Swedish? The presenters were okay, but the script was poor.
Charlie, I agree about the “backing vocals” – the pre-record was especially noticable especially for Ace Wilder – maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like the whole chorus was lip-synced. There was definitely two “Ace” voices at times. Odd.
Surprisingly, I quite enjoyed the acts by DVD and Dinah Nah. Guess I’m a sucker for upbeat fun songs. Ace Wilder deserved the final, as did Nano, but his singing isn’t so great tbh. Too bad Charlotte didn’t brings us the schlager we expect from her: underwhelming. Overall, fairly predictable results. Things will really heat up in semis 3 and 4! 😀
On a slightly different topic, a shout-out to the three presenters tonight, all of whom were fantastic! There should be a warning on Wiwibloggs to expect the “F-bomb” with these presenters more than once! 🙂
(Just don’t use “MelodiFu**ingFestivalen” as a hashtag, or Twitter will probably ban you.)
Well, I’m sorry but Dinah’s performance was totally average. I truly think she did deserved the 5th place. That song had nothing special compaired to the others and the performance was boring. At least it wasn’t like Charlotte or Adrijana, I mean not onnly their songs were not good but neither was the performance. My thoughts about the qualifiers: 1.- Ace: Good song but she has to be careful with two things: 1.- Work those moves. 2.- The tricky thing about Melfest is that they can use playback for backing vocalists, so it may sound good at the national final,… Read more »
Predictable. Still, feel like this semi is only around to pick the bottom-placed acts for the final. Better songs shojld be coming!
2 out of 2! Both my favourites went to the final! Ok, Boris’s song seemed dated in the studio version, but live it was great! I liked it from the beginning, but now I like it even more. I saw an amazing peprformance, full of energy, and his voice was great! Litterally, I stood up and started to dance! The surprise for me was Ace and Dina Nah. I have to admit I expected more from Ace. I found the song repetitive at some point. Dina’s performance was better. Also surprising was “Road Trip” going through. Seriously? Personally, I would… Read more »
@ Charles : ”Charlotte Perelli trying to be a singer songwriter at this stage … after years of being a diva-schalger-gay-focus-on-me-b**** is just … arghhhh”
About this topic I agree with you. Those female singers use in a very hypocritical way the fact that ESC has many gay fans. It is a mystery to me why they buy it.
Good move ditching Charlotte. The good people of Sweden clearly remember what happened last time they sent a girl with a guitar to Eurovision.
Predictable in the only way MF likes to be … but I’ll say this a) “Don’t worry” was far better …. period. b) Nano was the TRUE artist both vocally and performance wise in this semi. Nobody mingles soul, gospel and dub-step with such ooze and class the way he did. He is the one to own the “SLAY” tag. Plus c) Charlotte Perelli trying to be a singer songwriter at this stage … after years of being a diva-schalger-gay-focus-on-me-b**** is just … arghhhh … that last place was rented right from the start … Carola? Don’t you even dare… Read more »
For me Dinah Nah, Ace Wilder or Boris Rene… in Andra Chansen De vet Du. In 5th place for me was Charlotte in 6th Adrijana and in 7th Nano: nothing special and for me the worst performence of the night.
Glad that Nano through the final, i can’t get it when people hate it bcs his song was so current (and compare it to some song etc). Not interested with Ace’s song it so lame. i’m sad that Adrijana not getting through 🙁
I thought Ace was fantastic tonight. Her vocals tonight were fantastic and probably the best I’ve ever heard them. I really liked the ‘stripped back’ staging she had too, and you could tell she was having a lot of fun and enjoying herself on stage. I could honestly see Ace winning if Loreen doesn’t have a good song, since we all know the international juries love her. Nano bores me, don’t see the appeal in him whatsoever. Good vocals, but the song is bland. Dinah was also robbed, it was cruel for SVT to put her in the same semi… Read more »
OMG, Nano is so nothing special.
I cant say nano was bad but his song was only a copy of beyonce&naughty boy “running ” . Ace was the clear winner of this semi final for me .
I’m happy with the results, though slightly disappointed Charlotte finished 7th, predictable as it was. She remains a total star. Better luck next time!
Dissapointed with results :/
Funny how people tend to outlook both ends of the tempo spectrum in here. If something is a ballad… it’s boring. If it’s a ‘joke act’ or crazy fast, then it’s annoying. I guess people would prefer if the ESC finals is consisted of 43 mid-tempo safe pop songs. I am glad Road Trip got the second chance. I know that even if they make it to the finals, the chances of them winning are more than slim. Perhaps I wouldn’t even want that, considering how many acts are yet unannounced. However, hearing something different is cool for me.
Dinah Nah deserved a spot in the second chance instead of De Vet Du, other than that I’m happy with the results, Ace & Nano were both great!
All I want is one more Melodifestivalen night with Dinah Nah… 🙁
I don’t get why people are so over the moon with Dinah Nah Nah. It’s the typical schlager disco entry we have heard til death. Moldova had a similar song last year. Yawn!
The best songs made it, and De Vet Du is much funnier and smarter than Samir & Viktor. Glad to see them!
Oh Sorry – I meant
I CAN’T get the hype over Ace Wilder’s song.
Jasmine, unless we get some surprises in semi 2 or 3, I feel the same. Nano appeals to both public and professional juries, he brings a ton of emotion to a competition that usually lacks it. I can’t wait to see what Loreen brings but I’m positive she adores Nano’s song.
I’m still watching the Ukraine results, LOL. Of the MelFest performances tonight, there was a lot of good production. Musically though, Charlotte Perrelli was the best singer (with the worst song). Nano perhaps had the best song, but wasn’t the best singer. I loved Dinah Nah – it’s awful that she’s not in Andra Chansen! The ‘RoadTrip’ was corny fun, but it doesn’t deserve its place in Andra Chansen.
Also, I miss Samir & Victor from previous years. 🙁
Nano all the way, THIS is music.
He made everyone else irrelevant.
I’m just gonna say it. I think it’s going to be between Loreen and Nano. Nano gave me some serious Hozier-chills. Dinah nah was good, I liked the middle part a lot. But the rest was pretty “meh”. I have to agree with @eurovision6 as a fellow swede I can’t say that she made that big of an impact on me. I think it’s a bit harder to impress a swede with a simple pop song, since we’re such a pop nation. Loved Adrijanas song too. The whole production reminded me a bit of Silvana Imam, Sweden’s most praised female… Read more »
Karl
Or he got his votes because he had the best song of the night
I can get the hype over Ace Wilder’s song.
I’m so dissapointed Adrijana didn’t go through to Andra Chansen, but I’m happy Dinah floped as well. I was a huge fan of Make Me, buy One More Night was such a disposable piece of pop, I felt like I’d heard it at least thrice before. I hope the lyrics of Road Trip are like super hilarious or something, because otherwise they totally robbed Adrijana of her spot.
Nano and Ace both killed it, there was no doubt who would go DtF.
The only one of the four that’s any good is Ace. How Boris keeps getting through with dated songs is beyond me, especially when his performances are so lifeless. Nano’s song is average, but the staging is bland.
De Vet Du – seriously?
Nano is so unattractive and has no stage presence :X but I’m sure he’ll get votes purely because of political correctness.
DE VET DUUUUU