{"id":481466,"date":"2026-05-12T20:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/481466\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:59:12","slug":"eurovision-song-contest-2026-watch-the-first-semi-final-live-from-vienna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/481466\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision Song Contest 2026: Watch the first semi-final live from Vienna"},"content":{"rendered":"

The almost perfect Eurovision song, the bookies’ favourite and a guttural scream… What to look out for tonightpublished at 20:12 BST<\/p>\n

20:12 BST<\/p>\n

\"\"Mark Savage<\/strong>
Music correspondent, at the semi-final<\/p>\n

\"LionImage source, EBU \/ Alma BengtssonImage caption, <\/p>\n

Like a 1984 electro-pop robot? Lion Ceccah is hoping to represent Lithuania in Saturday’s grand final<\/p>\n

Tonight\u2019s semi-final is jam-packed, with some of this year’s
\nmost colourful and exciting contestants lined up to perform.<\/p>\n

We won’t be providing running commentary until Saturday’s
\nfinal<\/b> – but here are some highlights to look out for tonight. <\/b><\/p>\n

Opening the show we have Satoshi, representing Moldova<\/b>, <\/b>with
\nthe rabble-rousing anthem Viva, Moldova! It’s almost the perfect Eurovision
\nsong, with a dash of patriotism mixed with an embrace of other cultures –
\nincluding lyrics in Romanian, Italian, Latin, English, Spanish and French.<\/p>\n

Finland <\/b>is the bookies’ favourite, with the
\nbombastic and passionate Liekinheitin (“flamethrower”). It’s
\nperformed by concert violinist Linda Lampenius with singer Pete Parkkonen, who
\nhas all the clean-cut good looks of his near-namesake in Spider-Man.<\/p>\n

Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984, is Lithuania<\/b>‘s
\nLion Ceccah. His song, S\u00f3lo Quiero M\u00e1s, is all about breaking free of the
\nalgorithm and reclaiming our humanity. To illustrate the struggle, he’s painted
\nhead to toe in silver like the man
\nfrom Rank, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Greece<\/b> is also a strong contender, with
\n27-year-old Akylas showing off centuries of Greek culture in his innovatively
\nstaged song, Ferto.<\/p>\n

We’ll also hear from Israel<\/b>‘s Noam Bettan. His
\ncountry’s presence
\nat the contest has proved divisive<\/a> but his song, Michelle, is one of
\nthe year’s better ballads.<\/p>\n

And keep an eye out for LAVINA, the band representing Serbia<\/b>.
\nThey’ll round out tonight’s show with a guttural scream in their rock anthem,
\nKraj Mene.<\/p>\n

For
\nmore details on all this year’s entries, here’s a guide we published over the
\nweekend.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The almost perfect Eurovision song, the bookies’ favourite and a guttural scream… What to look out for tonightpublished…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,117,19,17,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-481466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116563618481050503","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}