Frans won tonight Melodifestivalen, the Swedish song contest. He will represent Sweden with the song "If I were sorry" in Eurovision! The national final happened in Friends Arena.

Hej! Now that we now all the songs that are going to compete in the Swedish national final next week to choose who is going to represent the country in the Eurovision Song Contest, I decided to share my favorite performances of this year's contest!
My comments will be focused in the visuals and not in the meaning of the lyrics itself. I know it's kind of odd to comment a song contest this way, but that's how I like to talk, ok? Ok.

Anna Book's Himmel för två
This year's contest was marked by the declassification of Anna Book's song Himmel för två, because this song was sent to the Moldova national song contest back in 2014. You can listen here. Obviously, due to the rules of Melodifestivalen and ESC, the song had to be declassified.
The singer was not aware that the first version was already online, because she was not apart from the writing and composing.

Still, Anna had the chance to sing the song on the semi final but the song was not apart of the competition.

I liked the performance, I imagined it on the Andra Chansen...   Here it is.

It's clear that Anna was a bit sad. After spending months practicing her performance, it was just 2 days before the live show that the contest producers found out the first version online..

Robin Bengtsson's Constellation Prize
*Possible winner!
​That patterned backlight looks so so good! Plus there's the harmonic that he is not really playing it, but its still the perfect candidate to win the contest!

And also in

And now my opinion about the performance:
I was really impressed to see the technique of video mapping in a contest like this. For the folks who don't know what video mapping is, its a projection technique where usually buildings, important monuments or even bodies are illuminated using one or more projectors which can have an animation or recorded video or even live footage. It's not a completely new technique but it exists since some time ago. I was not expecting to encounter video mapping on a performance at Melodifestivalen, because this technique that require a lot of time to prepare; it's required time to set up the projectors and the objects, in this case, the wall and the bench, and it's needed time to map those objects into a software, for eg. Resolume. Next the animations are created and then synced with timecode so that it triggers at the time of music.
The graphics and animations were interesting and I think they made justice to the lyrics of the song. 
If I had to define this performance in one word it would be INTERACTION. Måns is always "interacting" with the animated fellas. It was nice!


Without wind machines, fog machines or even confetti machines, this performance is going to revolutionize the contest!


The lyrics are interesting, and I'm looking forward to see how Sweden is going to bring "Heroes" into Eurovision. Will they use holograms?!?  We will have to wait to see...
Good luck Sverige!

Here's an UPDATE with a side by side comparison with the melodifestivalen and Eurovision performance!

PS: in case you don't know, he won the ESC contest!

If you're a fan like me of Melodifestivalen (haven't I told you?), you may be asking yourself "what does the live audience see at the arena?". 
Well, probably the best seat is the sofa at home because we must not forget that this is a TV show, so the target are the people watching on their screens. Of course it's great to be part of it live, and who knows, you may appear in the end on one of the songs clapping and cheering for your favorite artist!
I've compiled some videos captured by fans during this year selection.
You can watch them below, or save the playlist on Youtube to see later, because if you haven't seen yet, I also have a Youtube channel called "PPG" where I post some of my work. To visit it click on the Youtube icon in the upper bar on the blog or at the side bar!

• Dolly Style - Hello Hi

Videos from the first semi-final in Göteborg
I nice way to teach people how to greet others!

This was what the cameras showed http://www.svtplay.se/klipp/2661259/dolly-style-hello-hi

The Swedish national selection for ESC just started, so today I'm sharing the 3 performances that were eliminated, and also the 2 songs that are going to the second chance show. 

http://www.svtplay.se/klipp/2661232/molly-pettersson-hammar-i-ll-be-fine

http://www.svtplay.se/klipp/2661237/daniel-gildenlow-pappa

http://www.svtplay.se/klipp/2661252/elize-ryd-rickard-soderberg-one-by-one

http://www.svtplay.se/klipp/2661259/dolly-style-hello-hi

Remember that SVT doesn't keep their videos online forever, so you must hurry up to watch them!

Stand-ins, in the case of the Eurovision Song Contest, are local artists or students who practice all the performances, including the songs (even the ones spoken in the native languages) and the choreographs, and then perform them on stage so that the camera and lighting technicians, and the rest of the crew can practice and test if the camera angles are good or if it is need some tweaking. Stand-ins practice by watching videos sent by the delegations. By having stand-ins, delegations don't need to travel so soon to the hosting country. In this way the national broadcasters spend less money in their staying. The performances are recorded and sent to the delegations to see if they agree with want is being made.

At ESC 2013, in Sweden, an interview was made to some of the stand-in artists of that year. They have even performed the songs in live concert outdoors. Here's the interview and some of the concert videos.

There's not much information about these rehearsals because they happen before the contest weeks, in the period when everything is being mounted and tested, and the arena is getting complete (it's not allowed to capture images during this time). But there's always some leaking footage.
The video below shows the rehearsal at ESC 2013 of the French entry. It's sung by the Swedish singer Ellen Benediktson (she also got known in the Melodifestivalen 2014 with her entry "Songbird", she ended up in 7th place in the final.)

Note that the video may not be available after the publishing of this post.

And here's the final performance by Amandine Bourgeois, live at ESC 2013 Grand Final!

What do you think of those poor guys and girls who work so much but in the end people won't see them? Would you like to be a stand-in for the ESC? (You could know how the show is going to be even before the press releases!!!)

Sweden - Recently, SVT announced the 28 participants for the 2015's edition of the Swedish national contest to choose their representative for ESC.
If you want to know who they are, there are 2 articles on the Eurovision website here, and here !

I'm a fan of Melodifestivalen for some years, but to tell the truth, I don't really speak Swedish, so most of the time I don't understand what the presenters and the Swedish lyrics are saying. I've been learning some words with the show like "tack" (thank you), the numbers (at least from 1 to 10 :) ), and "välkommen" (welcome).
Besides that, I think it's one of the best national selections from Europe. From what I see, looks like they're serious when choosing someone to represent them.

So, while I'm waiting for 2015 Melodifestivalen, I would like to share with you some of the most memorable performances from the past 2 years. Enjoy!