Eurovision 2015: first semi-final is coming

After all the rehearsals, after the press conferences and after the oppening cerimony, here we are: in the day of the first semi-final!

Controversies

This semifinal is full of controversial performances. First, from Finland the punk band with people with  developmental disabilities. The song is considered awful by almost everyone, and it cames in the bottom 5 of people's preferences very frequently. However, let's not be naive. People don't vote only based on the best song or performance: many times do exactly the opposite. And if the finnish people selected this song as their entry, probably it was because the finnish people believed that there are other aspects besides the quality of the performance. I'm not seeing the juries loving this entry, but on the public's side, a mass adhesion could put this band with the shortest song of all time in Eurovision, in the final.

Second... Armenia. The entry that already changed its name due to allegations of political connection with the armenian genocide in 1915, made by Azerbajan and Turkey. Even arguing that the theme of the song is to not deny your armenian root, the images used in the background with the region of Nagorno-Karabakh and all the caracthers in the videoclip using clothes from the time of the genocide, doesn't leave space for doubts.

And Russia of course. For the same reasons like last year, it's expected to receive a lot of booing anytime Russia will be in the center of the attentions.

This year, the ukranian withdraw will probably make the tensions stronger and the people to remember it easier. Also, after the victory of a drag queen last year, it will stand out all the problems Russia have with the LGBT people.

Voting

In this semifinal we will have many political blocks. Romania and Moldova, Russia, Belarus and Armenia are the main blocks in this semifinal. Also Belgium and The Nteherlands will change votes between them, giving also many points to Armenia and Greece due to the immigrants. Greece have Hungary too, that usually gives them many points. On its side, Hungary usually receives points from Finland and Romania.

From the balkan block, we have in this semifinal Serbia and Macedonia.

So, will many songs receive more points than their performances deserve?

(Possible) qualifiers

The rehearsals made some changes in the predictions. If reinforced some as favourites, put others out of the possible qualifiers and grew the chances of some of the less popular.

Russia, Belgium, Albania and Estonia remains as the favourites, after their good rehearsals, and in the case of Russia thanks to the political voting too. The Netherlands has its chances very hard now, but a qualification could be possible thanks to Trijntje Oosterhuis voice. However, it's far away from the success of 2013 and 2014. Serbia gained lots of favouritism and could be a surprise tonight. Finland, Denmark and Hungary remains in the bottom of the favourites, but many believe in the qualification of Finland thanks to the controversy. The good vocal capacity of Boggie, make some believe that Hungary can qualify, supported by the juries. As for the rest, the oppinions are more divided. Georgia, Belarus and Greece still have great chances, but many are surprised by the performances of Romania, putting it in the qualifiers, unlike its neighbor Moldova, which the chances were never too high. Finally, about Armenia, its between the 9th and the 12th place in many bettings.
We cannot forget that many people will watch the songs for the first time tonight, and of course the juries has an important role, which cannot be so well predicted by the beookmakers.