It was back to Lisbon on Saturday for another night of Portuguese music courtesy of Festival da Canção 2024 semi-final 2.
Ten new acts hit the stage, but only six of them made it to next week’s grand final.
Festival da Canção 2024: Semi-final 2 results
Voting took place over two rounds. An initial combination of 50% televoting and 50% jury votes determined the top five acts of the night who advance to the grand final:
- Buba Espinho – “O Farol”
- Cristina Clara – “Primavera”
- Leo Middea – “Doce Mistério”
- No Maka feat. Ana Maria – “Aceitar”
- Silk Nobre – “Change”
The public then had another chance to vote from the remaining five artists, ultimately selecting one to secure the final qualification spot:
- Rita Onofre – “Criatura”
Non-qualifiers
- Filipa – “You Can’t Hide”
- João Couto – “Quarto para Um”
- Huca – “Pé de Choro”
- Maria João – “Dia”
Do you agree with the results? Who was your favourite of the night? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
I’m not gonna lie, not the most inspir national final I’ve ever listened to. In general I’m a bit disappointed in this season.
So, we’re still waiting on Australia, Sweden, Portugal, & Azerbaijan. And for them to figure out what they are going to do with Israel. Am I missing anyone?
You left out Armenia and Georgia.
Georgia is always a wild card. Either brilliant or gawdawful. But at least they try new things.
Also Greece
Greece has a release date, March 7
I don’t think we’ve seen the FdC winner tonight
No, we didn’t.
Rooting for Iolanda in the final! She would be a perfect addition to the 2024 lineup
Same
Same!
Absolutely !
So while we hardly ever get returning artists in Festival da Canção—both of this year’s returnees João Borsch and Mila Dores both NQed after NQed in their previous entries. Maybe best to bring back people who actually were popular in their previous tries.
I meant *João Couto*!!
Why can’t wiwi let me edit my comments ?
So 3 of my favourites from this semifinal did not qualify… that is crazy. LOL!
Line up complete for this year and my winner is still João. I get the appeal for Grito for sure but I prefer Pelas Costuras personally,
This is a very based take. With a revamp at the end of the song, Joao could easily qualify for Portugal. I fear Iolanda might get lost despite a brilliant performance.
Filipa was my favorite, but she should have at least spent a few hours thinking about the staging to show that she was taking this job seriously.
as someone who as loved many of the underdogs for this selection, i’m so pleasantly surprised with the finalists. time to root for …pelas costuras <3
Iolanda!
Iolanda is AMAZING (listening to it rn haha) and I would love to see it go to Malmo! I just tend to root for underdogs and get WAY too attached to them LOL
I like João also! But i do think is too out there and this year is full of crazy songs…
Power to Joao! He is like an older Nickolas Alves!
Whhaaattt??
Huca???
Crazy!!! What happened?
I will never unerstand how portugal votes. If the public wildcard is not huca or rita then what are we even doing here?
Agree with you lolol but we all know that the real contenders aren’t among these songs
I mean yeah, but still
I love ac/dc, my wife hates them 🙂 music, like any other art, has its beauty in the eye of the beholder, or in this case, in the ear of the listener 🙂
Teya Dora pulled a suprise win it seems! Noone expected this! Really interesting result!
(Wrong post)
Damn, Zorja isn’t going to Eurovision.
I like Konstrakta but I REALLY hope she doesn’t go back to Eurovision this year.
The jury TANKED Breskvica
Milhanas!! <3
I’m guessing based on history of Portuguese juris and televote patterns, the qualifiers are: Huca, João, Rita, Noble, Maria João and Buba.
I think my 4 nqs are going to be:
Buba Espinho – “O Farol”
Filipa – “You Can’t Hide”
No Maka feat. Ana Maria – “Aceitar”
Maria João – “Dia”
Basically everyone but Silk Nobre need to elevate for the final
Huca was A M A Z I N G!
The RTP screen captions keep telling me: “You Can’t Hide.” But then I realise that was actually the title of one of the songs, and not a reference to Orwell’s “1984” or to “V for Vendetta.”
Everything was so middle-of-the-road (with one or two surprising flops), that it’s hard to predict the 6 finalists. It can literally go anywhere.
I don’t have difficulties to pick my 5 qualifiers here. In the other of their performances – Leo Middea, Joao Couto, Huca, Rita Onofre, Silk Nobre.
Who’s your wildcard sixth?
Good question… Probably between Buba Espinho (for its sweet lyrics) and Maria Joao (whose song is pure chaos, but offers some diversity).
10. Silk Nobre (“Change”) – I was enjoying the musical theatre of this one, but I was interrupted. I hope it went well.
It went, Sink knows how to entertain
*Silk
Change was cool. But with Filipa’s fiasco tonight ( it’s my opinion and I have my doubts that she will uplift the song with the staging if she goes to the final) everything will be between Iolanda and Borsh ( and very happy about that because both have amazing songs)
Change is a camp song with on-the-nose lyrics and a really uplifting message that was needed to finish the evening. It sounds like something straight from The Princess and the Frog. I enjoyed it!
Criatura is a pretty song with really nice ambiental vocal moments. There are ballads with a more of a punch, but I like this one too. I can imagine myself in the woods or by the lake while listening to it.
Change had great energy and a good message. Definitely in the final
9. Rita Onofre (”Criatura”) – Great song. Beautiful lyrical melodies, 12/8 time signature and a poetic meaning about the earth and our connection to nature. This was okay, but some of the vocals were under pitch, and that’s not to my taste. The staging was too generic for this song as well. It needs more context to work at the ESC.
Rita was the best tonight
Ok Rita might be my winner for this semi
If there is a song this year that I can equally see as my winner and my last place of its selection, it would have to be Dia. I mean… what to say? It’s creative, but messy. Maria was mesmerizing to watch, yet I feel like they should have amped up the staging to super-bonkers for this to fully work.
Dia is so totally niche
8. Maria João (“Dia”) – Oh dear. Almost unlistenable. Terrible outfit. I never want to hear this song again. But I wish Maria well.
7. No Maka feat. Ana Maria (“Aceitar”) – That’s novel; a song about feeling homesick! She knew the pre-Chorus went wrong at the start vocally, so I could see she adjusted her vocals and improved through the rest of the song. Bravo, this might be enough to qualify. We shall see. The song is a bit boring though. Everyone misses home.
Aceitar is pretty, but i dont really have anything else to say about it
Aceitar was rather pleasant on stage, no?
I love the angolan Kizomba rhythm , she has a puerile interesting voice but I am not sure about the singing itself
Ok, Huca didn’t have my kind of song but at least he had stage concept
6. Huca (“Pé de Choro”) – Beautiful lyrics. Loving the improvised vocal runs into the head voice. This is a real spectacle, and it’s nice to have the creole and the diversity; a little bit of gospel is in there too. Really interesting, thank you.
A beautiful homage to Sara Tavares!
Pe de Choro was very interesting! Perhaps its melody isn’t as striking, but it certainly makes it up with unique rhythms, a wonderful staging, and a great message! We miss you, Sara!
João Couto’s song is so slight, non-competitive and inoffensive but has enough energy for this national final that if Perpetua can make it last week then this will probably sail through.
Filipa—I love that song but the staging let her down. The walking around was too awkward. If she was not going to elevate the song with a concept on stage then she should’ve just stood at the mic and allowed the camera to work over her.
Quarto para Um: another fun feelgood song. Probably the best staged so far.
Cuarto para um was really fun on stage! Really engaging and well-performed!
From the first half of songs, Leo and Joao are the ones that just have to qualify.
Leo has enough charisma to help elevate what could’ve been a very sweet and sexy staging that required 2 couples dancing around him. But that mega-watt smile might be enough if Portuguese audience can get over that he’s Brazilian.
Number 5 even looks refreshing after Filipa’s….
5. João Couto (“Quarto para Um”) – It’s another song about an empty room after someone left him (there was a similar one in Serbia)! A surprisingly cheerful and upbeat performance. The sound is a bit 1980s retro. Weird distorted guitar solo in the middle; what was that supposed to be? Good choreography. Pretty good overall.
Festival da Canção as always investing whatever was under the sofa cushions on stagings.
I like the dark pop vibes You Can’t Hide has. Perhaps it would need just a bit bigger oomph instrumentally and staging-wise to bring it to a banger level. This was solid.
PS. And yes, her vocals weren’t the best either, sadly.
The more I’m retroactively thinking, the less I like the performance. 🙁
Aha, I thought this one was a car crash (sorry)
Oooh… it was… I think that the song itself has a lot of potential (with a stronger instrumental power-up), but the performance was easily the worst one among the first five songs. And probably the worst one at FdC 2024 overall so far. She was without a breath throughout. I *kinda* liked the color scale and what they were going with the lightening-shaped letters on LED screens, but in the end, the staging was so monotonous as well. And she was not up to task either, sadly.
Sthe music reminds me of bishop Briggs white flag but reminds me even more of another song I just can’t remember and I’m eating my brain
4. Filipa (“You Can’t Hide”) – English lyrics. Mic stand cliché. Oh no, this is creepy. The tuning with the backing singers is not great. Plus she’s all by herself, so who is she singing to? Us?! Applause started in the middle of the song! Oh, what a car crash! Filipa recovered well at the end, but this was a dreadful concept, in my opinion.
I kinda expected this to happen, to be honest… :/
I am shocked there was not much style to the staging given how well stylized her music videos typically are.
Don’t hide Filipa out of the runnings to win the whole thing!
It might actually be the flop of the whole thing tonight…
Unfortunately I think it is a total flop… she sings well but… she is just… there,… nothing is going on visually 🙁
Try saying that to the other contestants with their minimal staging
As if Filipa’s staging was anything maximal… LOL
I am not comparing to the other contestants, you are. , I wanted to see what SHE was going to do on stage, and it was disappointing