Malta has chosen Firelight as their representative in Copenhagen. Will they be "Coming Home" with the grand prize?
Country: Malta
Song Title: "Coming Home"
Artist: Firelight
Semi-Final: Second, Position 1
Last year's entry: "Tomorrow" - Gianluca (8th Place)
Malta is keeping on the folk-pop path they started last year with Gianluca's "Tomorrow". This doesn't seem to be the worst strategy for them - that song placed 8th in the grand final, their highest placement in the final standings since 2005. In his first listen, Mike seemed conflicted about the song - while the instrumentation was good, the current performance left something to be desired. Let's check the official promo to see what's changed for the big show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZB2OWwFvrY
It's as if Malta heard Mike's initial criticisms! While I find the sections of the video where characters are literally writing the lyrics to the song as part of their stories, the video definitely helps what was already the strongest of the folk-pop songs in the second semifinal. The band looks like a unified whole (thanks to a similar color palette across everyone's outfits) and the use of some more dynamic camera angles breaks up what was a more static performance at the national final. I'd like to see both of these stick with the band in Copenhagen...
...because they're performing first. The Eurovision producers usually give the first and last spots to more dynamic entries (see: Romania), so I'm a little concerned that if Malta doesn't step up their performance enough, they'll be easily forgotten (especially since performing directly after them is Israel, an entry that's likely to have some visual panache if they keep the samurai trend from their promo video). Juries may like the song, but televoters will need to remember the entry in order for it to make the finals.
Malta's solved a lot of the problems with their entry in its video, but it'll need to keep up the good work if it wants to bring home a ticket to the Grand Final.