Spain decided: Lucía Pérez to Düsseldorf!

It was an exciting night in the TVE studios in Sant Cugat (Barcelona) as there was no clear favourite to win the Spanish ticket to Düsseldorf. The host Anne Igartiburu and her partner in the backstage Daniel Diges, last year's Spanish representative, introduced the expert jury.

The power of the jury

The members of the expert jury were once again singers/songwriters Albert Hammond and David Ascanio, popular TV personality Boris Izaguirre, Eurovision expert Reyes del Amor and this week, replacing Merche, the singer Sole Gimenez. This jury had a real voting power during all the procedure and tonight was no exception, their duty was to eliminate two songs from each artist to leave to the audience only one song per act.

The competition

The first three songs were performed:

• Melissa - Eos (Jesús Cañadilla & Alejandro de Pinedo)
• Auryn - Evangeline (Kjell Jennstig, Dejan Belgrenius & Kristin Molin)
• Lucía Pérez - Que Me Quiten Lo Bailao (Rafael Artesero)

After this, the first guest and jury member of the night, took the stage, Sole Giménez.

Time for the second block of songs:

• Melissa - Sueños Rotos (Primoz Poglajen, Jonas Gladnikoff, Camilla Gottschalck & Christina Schilling)
• Auryn - El Sol Brillará (Rafael de Alba)
• Lucía Pérez - Abrázame (Antonio Sánchez-Ohlsson & Thomas G.son)

During the performance of Abrázame, the loud speakers at the studio went off, but Lucía went on performing as if nothing had happened.

And the final three songs followed:

• Melissa - Diamonds (Nestor Geli, Susie Päivärinta & Pär Lönn)
• Auryn - Volver (Primoz Poglajen, Jonas Gladnikoff, Camilla Gottschalck & Christina Schilling)
• Lucía Pérez - C'est La Vie, It's Alright (W&M, Nestor Geli, Susie Päivärinta, Per Andersson y Mats Lindberg)

The Interval Act

It was time for the UK act, Blue, to go up on stage to perform one of their classic hits Breathe Easy, which the presenter described as being similar to the song they'll perform in Düsseldorf, I Can. Simon, from Blue declared that they won't perform it in other countries until it's officially presented in the UK.

The Jury Votes

The jury then voted for the songs of Melissa:

• Eos 14 points
• Sueños Rotos 11 points
• Diamonds 5 points

After this they judged Auryn's songs:

• Evangeline 9 points
• El Sol Brillará 6 points
• Volver 15 points

And finally the veredict for Lucía Pérez's songs:

• Que Me Quiten Lo Bailao 12
• Abrázame 12
• C'est La Vie, It's Alright 6

There was a polemical tie-break between Que Me Quiten Lo Bailao and Abrázame. The final decision was for the song that got more "highest marks" from the jurors, Que Me Quiten Lo Bailao, in spite of the open preference by both singer and audience for the ballad Abrázame.

The Super Final

In the end these were the three songs that the viewers could televote:

• Melissa - Eos
• Auryn - Volver
• Lucía Pérez - Que Me Quiten Lo Bailao

While the votes were being cast Daniel Diges performed Robbie Williams' Angels in Spanish and jury member Albert Hammond sang his popular composition Entre Mis Recuerdos.

Finally the results were announced and the winner was Lucía Pérez with Que Me Quiten Lo Bailao and 68% of the total votes. The second classified got 20% and the third 12%.

Lucía is from Lugo and has been trying to reach the mainstream for some time now. It's the first time that a singer from Galicia will represent Spain the Eurovision Song Contest. She was also the televoting winner of the artist's semi-final. The composer of the winning song Rafael Artesero also wrote the entries for Andorra in 2005 and 2006.

Lucía Perez will perform in the Final in Düsseldorf on the 14th of May trying to match the success of Massiel in 1968 and Salomé in 1969, the two Spanish winners of Europe's favourite TV show.