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Estonia picks last finalists, completes final lineup

19 February 2011 at 22:41 CET
 "We had no other option than to remove the song from the competition. Everybody knows the rules." - Heidy Purga, the Executive Producer of Eesti Laul and the Estonian Head of Delegation, commented on the disqualification.
 

If last week a total of ten acts were in line to qualify for the final, then this time it was 9 artists trying to do that. Namely, one of the acts - Uku Suviste's Jagatud Öö - was disqualified this week due to its lyrics being used already in 2004 in another song.

This didn't, however, change the number of songs that qualified for the final - it was still five songs out of nine (qualifiers in bold).

  1. Sõpruse puiestee and Merili Varik - Rahu, Ainult Rahu
  2. Shirubi Ikazuchi - St. Cabah
  3. Sofia Rubina - My Melody
  4. Mimicry - The Storm
  5. Orelipoiss - Valss
  6. Tiiu Kiik - Second Chance
  7. MID - Smile
  8. Ithaka Maria - Hopa'pa-rei!
  9. Rolf Roosalu - All & Now

The winners were picked in a joint vote between a jury - consisting of music industry professionals - and the viewers.

Once again, during the voting a sketch where an "online reporter", called Leemet Muna (Leemet Egg in English) from a made up tabloid Õhtuelu25.ee, was trying to find more intrigues between the participants of this semi-final. 

Jury favourites were revealed before the end of the televote as well - being Orelipoiss, MID, Rolf Roosalu, Mimicry and Ithaka Maria. The jury members also praised the level of the songs in this semi-final, stating it was very hard to pick the qualifiers. 

Before the show

The pre-show favourite was Ithaka Maria who has scored over 40% in most polls in the local media. Thus, she's also considered to be one of the main contenders for the Estonian trophy next week.

By the way - her song was composed by her father and herself - as he said in the show. Namely, the song was written when Ithaka Maria was just one month old and the chorus line - hopa-pa-rei - comes from the sound she made when her father threw her up into the air. 

Rolf Roosalu, also known by the name Rolf Junior, was a frontrunner in the predictions in the media as well.

Orelipoiss was in the spotlight due to winning several prizes two nights before at the Estonian Music Awards, most prominently the Best Male Artist award. Also, the winner of last year's Eesti Laul, Malcolm Lincoln, was one of his backing dancers.

However, the show was hosted by an artist who got the most awards that night - Lenna Kuurmaa, together with her band mate from Vanilla Ninja (which represented Switzerland in 2005 at the Eurovision Song Contest), Piret Järvis.

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Now, tonight's winners will join Victoria, Noorkuu, Jana Kask, Getter Jaani and Outloudz on the 26th of February. Check out the Estonian first semi-final winners in our last week's article!

The winner of the Estonian selection for the Eurovision Song Contest will be picked in a combined vote between a professional jury and the viewers.

They will pick the two so-called superfinalists out of which the Estonian representative for the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest will be picked by a televote. 

Last year, Estonia was represented by Malcolm Lincoln who didn't qualify for the Grand Final in Oslo with their song Siren.