{"id":40163,"date":"2026-05-13T00:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/40163\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T00:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T00:06:18","slug":"israel-finland-reach-eurovision-final-as-five-countries-boycott-music-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/40163\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel, Finland reach Eurovision final as five countries boycott music contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Favourites Finland<\/a> made it through the first Eurovision<\/a> semi-final on Tuesday alongside Israel<\/a>, whose participation saw five countries boycott<\/a> the world’s biggest live televised music event.<\/p>\n

With blasts of dry ice and jets of flame, the Eurovision party got started inside the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, where 11,200 revved-up fans saw 15 acts do battle for 10 places in Saturday’s grand final.<\/p>\n

Belgium<\/a> upset the odds to make it through, with Croatia, Greece<\/a>, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Serbia and Sweden<\/a> also progressing.<\/p>\n

However, it was the end of the road for Estonia, Georgia, Montenegro and Portugal’s dreams of Eurovision glory.<\/p>\n

Tiny San Marino also bowed out, despite featuring guest vocals from 1980s Culture Club star Boy George.<\/p>\n

Viewers were treated to a range of styles from around the continent.<\/p>\n

The performances ranged from upbeat Estonian guitar pop to soaring Polish high notes and the brooding mystery of Lithuania’s silver-painted Lion Ceccah.<\/p>\n

Moldova opened the show with rapper Satoshi pumping up the energy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Greece has been gaining traction with “Ferto”, featuring performer Akylas in tigerprint coat, shorts and hat against a retro video<\/a> game backdrop that also showcased knitting, a glitterball and classical statue that came to life.<\/p>\n

Croatia<\/a>‘s ethno-pop group Lelek delved into mythical fantasy visuals on “Andromeda”, opening with the lines “When you light a candle, ask your grandmother \/ Why she gave birth to daughters in fear”.<\/p>\n

Portugal’s all-male quintet Bandidos do Cante flipped the script with their stripped-down choral song “Rosa”, the singers dressed down to the max.<\/p>\n

Serbian progressive metal band Lavina closed the concert with throat-shredding growl.<\/p>\n

Read moreSpain, Ireland, Slovenia will not broadcast Eurovision over Israel’s participation<\/a><\/p>\n

Biggest-ever boycott<\/p>\n

This year marks the 70th edition of Eurovision, which despite the razzmatazz rarely escapes the politics in the background.<\/p>\n

Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip<\/a> prompted five countries to withdraw from the glitzy annual extravaganza — the biggest-ever political boycott.<\/p>\n

Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Iceland pulled out, with the first three refusing to broadcast this week’s contest at all.<\/p>\n

The withdrawals meant 35 countries are taking part this week — the fewest since entry was expanded in 2004.<\/p>\n

With fans waving Israeli flags, Noam Bettan performed “Michelle”, a song in Hebrew, French and English.<\/p>\n

Earlier, a few dozen pro-Palestinian activists<\/a> placed coffins in central Vienna in protest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Israel has become an aggressor,” demonstrator Karin Spindlberger, 67, told AFP.<\/p>\n

“Music should be universal, and it is. Music<\/a> should bring people together — but not in this way.”<\/p>\n

Eurovision director Martin Green told a press conference the protests showed that Vienna allowed everyone to express themselves.<\/p>\n

“It is a profoundly good sign of a democracy<\/a> where you can have this show happening on one side of the city and a protest<\/a> happening on the other side and they can both co-exist. Maybe the world can learn from that,” he said.<\/p>\n

Read moreThousands of fans arrive in Vienna as 70th edition of Eurovision kicks off<\/a><\/p>\n

Finnish flamethrowers<\/p>\n

Thanks to operatic singer JJ’s victory in Basel with “Wasted Love”, Austria is hosting for the third time, having staged the 1967 and 2015 contests.<\/p>\n

This year, the semi-finals are being decided both by public vote and, for the first time since Turin 2022, by professional juries, in a bid to restore fans’ faith in the voting.<\/p>\n

Finnish duo Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen are the overall Eurovision favourites with “Liekinheitin”, or “Flamethrower”.<\/p>\n

“We are so much into the music and what we are doing in the numbers, so that’s what we are actually always going for: the feeling. It has to come from here: from the heart,” violinist Lampenius told AFP.<\/p>\n

At Eurovision, normally only the lead vocal is live, with the music on a backing track.<\/p>\n

However, Lampenius was given special dispensation to play her instrument live — a rare event since orchestras were phased out after Birmingham 1998.<\/p>\n

Fifteen more acts will compete in Thursday’s second semi, with 10 going through.<\/p>\n

Alongside Eurovision’s major financial backers Britain, France<\/a>, Germany<\/a> and Italy<\/a>, hosts Austria have a guaranteed spot in Saturday’s 25-country showpiece final.<\/p>\n

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Favourites Finland made it through the first Eurovision semi-final on Tuesday alongside Israel, whose participation saw five countries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20858],"tags":[21217,967,23927,20859,20860,941,145,106,20865,22960],"class_list":{"0":"post-40163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eurovision","8":"tag-boy-george","9":"tag-croatia","10":"tag-culture-club","11":"tag-eurovision","12":"tag-eurovision-song-contest-2026","13":"tag-greece","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-portugal","16":"tag-vienna","17":"tag-wiener-stadthalle"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}