Welcome back to ESCBubble’s coverage for Eurovision 2021! It’s been a busy few days, and today marks the final set of first rehearsals for our semi finalists, with the countries performing in the second half of the second semi final getting their chance to take to the big stage.

As always, you can check out our ongoing coverage through both our Live Rehearsal Blog and also rolling  daily updates on our Twitter Account.

If you are avoiding potential rehearsal spoilers then don’t read any further! Semi Final Two will take place at 21.00 CET on Thursday 20th May 2021 with sixteen countries competing for ten qualifying spots for the final.

First up after lunch… Finland!

First Rehearsal

Why change what already was so effective? is probably the question that Finnish broadcaster asked themselves because this performance is pretty similar to the one from the UMK final earlier in the year. It was effective then and it is equally as effective now, if not even more so with the upscale of the stage & production. Dark blues and reds overwhelm the stage with backdrops of the two singers hanging upside as per UMK.

A thoroughly enjoyable performance, they are fantastic performers and have such a high energy on the stage, jumping around. Those playing instruments are equally having a fantastic time with some great action shots and jumping around. Noteworthy is that instead of putting their middle fingers up as the lyrics dictate, their middle fingers are painted red which is probably a reference to what the middle fingers up context stems from.

As you may expect, there is a LOT of pyro going on! Which of course looks fantastic and does a great job of spicing things up after a run of ballads.

Before Eurovision

Finnish broadcaster YLE were one of the first to confirm that they would be hosting UMK again for their 2021 participation, with Aksel being told he wouldn’t be confirmed a spot at the contest. However, 2020 representative Aksel did end up appearing at the show. Finland had a fantastic selection of songs though, and perhaps looking at their past voting records you wouldn’t be surprised to see the punk rock song cruise to victory with an incredible vote share in the televote!

Band Blind Channel will be representing Finland at Eurovision this year with their metal song “Dark Side”. The group from Oulu describe their genre as “violent pop”. You can check out the official video for their song here: