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Aussievision? Two Australians through to Eurovision grand final

Michael Idato

As the dust settles on the the strange and surreal clash of nations known as the semi-final heats of the Eurovision Song Contest complete, the field has narrowed dramatically ahead of this weekend's grand final.

Sweden, Italy and Portugal are now firming as the countries to beat if Australia is to come close to matching Dami Im's unprecedented second place finish in last year's competition.

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Aussie career-singer hits Eurovision finals

After performing throughout her childhood, Australian-born singer Anja Nissen makes it into the Eurovision semi-finals representing Denmark.

The second semi-final even came with a marriage proposal: the boyfriend of Macedonia's Jana Burčeska proposed marriage in the delegation seating area while the camera was trained on the couple as audience voting closed. (She said yes.)

But in a tragic twist that only Eurovision could deliver, a moment later they were eliminated from competition.

Looking like the sequinned love child of Coachella and the United Nations the second semi, held this morning in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, anointed 10 additional finalists, including Australian Anja Nissen, who is representing Denmark.

The 10 finalists through today were Bulgaria, Belarus, Croatia, Hungary, Denmark, Israel, Romania, Norway, The Netherlands and Austria.

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Those countries join the 10 winners of the first semi-final - Australia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Greece, Sweden, Portugal, Poland, Armenia, Cyprus and Belgium - and all 20 now advance to this weekend's final.

Once there they must compete with the host country, this year Ukraine, and the "big five" - France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK - who automatically book spots in the final each year.

Just a week ago there were 42 countries competing; just 26 are still contenders for the 62-year-old European music crown which blends commercial pop music with quaint charm and Euro-camp.

The semi-final heats did not let fans down on the last of those: there was yodelling, lots of sequins, fireworks and an alarming over-use of wind machines, all the tried and trusted staples of past Eurovision glory.

There is one noticeable absence in this year's competition: Russia, who in the last decade have emerged as one of the strongest players on the Eurovision stage.

Ukraine banned Russia's entrant, Yulia Samoylova, and when a diplomatic solution could not be found by the organising body, the European Broadcsting Union (EBU), Russia withdrew.

Australia's entrant Isaiah Firebrace did not perform this morning; he secured his place in the grand final during Wednesday morning's first semi-final.

But the other Australian in the competition, Anja Nissen, who is representing Denmark, performed and successfully secured a berth in the final.

After the event, Nissen said she was hopeful that Denmark could take the Eurovision crown and host next year's telecast. (In one of those curious television ironies, the winner foots the bill for the following year's event.)

"I really, really hope so," Nissen said.

"I feel so lucky to be here and this whole opportunity has been incredible," the 21-year-old Blue Mountains-born singer added. "I can't believe I have made it here and I couldn't have done it without [the support of the fans]."

Nissen said she was proud that she had been accepted by both of her homelands. "I feel like I have been accepted by my country having an Australian background and Danish heritage," she said.

Her win in the semi-final secures Denmark's position in the final; last year the country did not make it that far.

"To bring the final back to Denmark is a weight lifted off my shoulders," Nissen said. "Everybody has been, can you do this, are you going to do this? I have had a chance to prove myself today, to say, this is who I am, this is me."

During the press conference after the show, Nissen was asked if she had a message for her parents and broke down in tears.

"I want to say thank you so much to my mum and to my family," she said, crying.

"Even though I have gone all the way to Denmark and they have stayed in Australia they have supported me through thick and thin."

Struggling to compose herself, Nissen added she "could not have had a better family".

"Everyone has been saying that to me, that I am so lucky," Nissen said. "I feel so grateful to have such a family that have supported me."

Both of the Australians competing this year used television talent programs to launch their careers: Firebrace was the winner of the eighth season of The X Factor Australia in 2016 while Nissen won the third series of Nine's The Voice in 2014.

Nissen won the right to represent Denmark by winning the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, a national music competition in Denmark which is each year to select a Eurovision entrant.

Using Australia's third consecutive wildcard, Firebrace sailed into the competition a favourite thanks in part to the unusually strong affection the other competing countries have for the newcomer Australia.

But there were a couple of glitches in Firebrace's televised performance, notably a high note which he reached for but missed while performing his song, Don't Come Easy.

His passage into the final was almost certainly secured by a much stronger performance the night before during the "jury" show, which is not broadcast but is played on a private feed around the world to international professional juries.

The scoring system used in the Eurovision semi-final heats aggregates a score from the professional juries of competing countries with audience voting.

The scoring system for the grand final is slightly different; it stacks the audience and professional jury scores, assigning the latter in a series of blocks intended to heighten the tension in the last moments of the competition.

Firebrace told Fairfax Media he was focusing his energy on delivering a next-level performance of Don't Come Easy this weekend.

"I can't wait to smash the shit out of the song in the grand final," he said.

Without doubt two of the strongest contenders in competition this year are Italy with Occidentali's Karma, performed by Francesco Gabbani, and Sweden, with I Can't Go On, performed by Robin Bengtsson.

Portugal and Bulgaria's entries are also both considered strong contenders; Portugal's Salvador Sobral, in particular, generates a massive reaction from the audience inside Kyiv's International Exhibition Centre.

Of the two, Sweden has been the gold class performer in recent years: in the last five years they have cracked the top five four times, and won the competition outright twice. (Fun fact: Azerbaijan also performs well, and almost exclusively uses Swedish songwriters.)

The six-decade old song competition has served as the launchpad for a string of high-profile artists, notably ABBA, who won in 1974 with Waterloo, Celine Dion, who won with Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi in 1988 and Brotherhood of Man, who won in 1976 with Save All Your Kisses For Me.

More recently, the contest has launched artists such as Lordi, who won with Hard Rock Hallelujah in 2006 and Conchita Wurst, whose anthemic Rise Like a Phoenix in 2014 has become one of the most memorable Eurovision songs of the last decade.

The contest has also notably launched countless European pop hits, including 1964's winning song Ho l'Eta ("I Am Too Young") by Italy's Gigliola Cinquetti and 1967's Puppet on a String, by the UK's Sandie Shaw.

The 2017 competition is being held at the International Exhibition Centre in Kiev, Ukraine; the three live shows are hosted by local personalities Oleksandr Skichko, Volodymyr Ostapchuk and Timur Miroshnychenko.

The first and second semi-final heats of the 62nd annual Eurovision Song Contest will be screened on SBS One tonight and tomorrow night; the grand final will be aired live on Sunday morning from 5am and replayed on Sunday night.