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Hatari win Iceland's ticket for Eurovision!

02 March 2019 at 23:36 CET
Hatari is Iceland's choice for Tel Aviv RUV
Iceland just held the final of their national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, 'Söngvakeppnin', in Reykjavik where Hatari won enough votes to beat the competition and will now represent the country in Tel Aviv with the song 'Hatrið Mun Sigra' (Hate will prevail).

The band Hatari just won the national selection for Eurovision in Iceland, Söngvakeppnin, with a song called Hatrið Mun Sigra which translates as 'Hate will prevail'. They will represent Iceland in the first Semi-Final of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv on Tuesday the 14th of May.
Hatari will perform their song in Icelandic as the rules of Söngvakeppnin state that the winning song must be performed at Eurovision in the same language in which it was performed in the final in Iceland.

About Hatari

Hatari are describes as an 'industrial bdsm band' consisting of three art school friends: Klemens Hannigan, Matthías Tryggvi Haraldson, and Einar Stéfansson. They started playing live in 2017 and have been chosen the Best Live Band on Icelandic Airwaves.

The final show

After two semi-finals held earlier in February, today it was time for Iceland's national final for the Eurovision Song Contest, Söngvakeppnin, to take place at Laugardalshöll venue in Reykjavik. Five acts managed to qualify from the semi-finals into tonight's show (winner in bold):

Friðrik is one half of Euroband, who represented Iceland in 2008. Hera Björk participated in the 2010 Song Contest with the song Je Ne Sais Quoi. In 2009, they were both backing singers for Yohanna as she took second place in Russia.

Two of the five participants were voted into a superfinal thanks to a combination of votes from an international jury and televoting:

A second voting started between these two songs and in this voting only the tv audience was allowed to vote through televoting. The two songs kept the televotes from the first voting. The song which got the most votes from the first and the second voting, Hatrið Mun Sigra, will represent Iceland in Tel Aviv in May. 

Guest performances in the show came from Ari Olafsson, the representative for Iceland in 2018 and Eleni Foureira, who came 2nd in Eurovision 2018, competing for Cyprus.

Iceland in Eurovision

Iceland made its Eurovision Song Contest debut in Bergen in 1986 and have reached 2nd place twice in the competition: in 1999 with Selma's All Out Of Luck in Jerusalem and with Yohanna's Is It True? in Moscow in 2009. Check out the Top 10 entries from Iceland in Eurovisin here:

What do you think of Hatari as Iceland's choice for Eurovision 2019? Tell us below!