If Romania makes it to Stockholm, will Ovidiu Anton's "Moment of Silence" make the finals?
Country: Romania
Song Title: "Moment of Silence"
Artist: Ovidiu Anton
Second Semi-Final: Position 12
Last year's entry: "De La Capat" - Voltaj (15th Place)
Romania is usually one of my favorite nations to watch in the Eurovision Song Contest, because they know how to bring the drama. Sure, last year's entry went for a different, more personal sort of drama, but you can always count on Romania to bring some sort of theatrics. After selecting Ovidiu Anton to represent them in Stockholm with "Moment of Silence", let's take a moment to re-assess their chances of taking the crystal microphone from Sweden at this year's contest.
I enjoyed the staging this song was presented with in the Romanian National Final, but every subsequent live performance I've seen since then has been more and more...casually styled, for lack of a more elegant term. Ovidiu certainly has the live vocals to pull the song off live, but I hope that by the time they get to Stockholm they're doing a little more than just showing up to perform with the backing track. Then again, I hope they just get to the stage - it looks like Romania's having some money issues with the EBU and may not get to perform at all if they don't get that resolved in time.
Looking at the running order for semi-final 2, Romania is right after Slovenia and right before Bulgaria and Denmark. The contrast between all of these entries seems like a potential benefit for Romania, whose dark and powerful ballad would stick out amongst the country and high-gloss pop, but could also sink them. A dull performance that counterbalances the emotion of the song could also cause issues if and when they hit the stage.