World Song Contest

Semi finals were back in December 2006, with the 21st edition of the World Song Contest. A new format was chosen, and it led to the qualification of 26 countries which joined four direct qualified in the final. After the surprising choice of the previous edition, it was time to see if it was only a one shot or if players of the contest wanted to show they could be open-minded, and not only stuck to Eurovision Pop Song. This time, they had the opportunity to choose between so many different kind of music. And they voted for the only one without lyrics.

It's not the first time that we have an instrumental "song" in the contest. If they reached some good positions, they were not closed to win. So Finland tried something else, even if the song had some rock elements in it, which from Finland is so natural. But if there were no lyrics here, Belgium decided to be represented by 2 songs... Well in fact it was the same one, but in two different languages: English and French. The first time this happened in the contest.

Even if the record of participants wasn't broken, news countries joined the contest, or were back, and for the first time we had at least two songs from each continents. Even Oceania was represented by two countries, Australia was joined by Fiji while South Africa was back and represented Africa with Algeria, which made its first appearance in the contest. A really good first try as it became the first African country to reach the top 10, and even more to be the runner up.

The live coverage was really interesting once again. And Finland had to battle against Algeria and Turkey for victory. Finally, Apocalyptica's anthem, Farewell, gave its first victory to Finland with a total score of 137 points.

Follow this link to watch the live coverage of Semi Final A

Follow this link to watch the live coverage of Semi Final B

Apocalyptica is a Finnish band consisting of three, formerly four, classically trained cellists and, since 2003, a drummer. Their speciality is heavy metal music played on cellos, though they also play classical music. They are all former students of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Their first album, Plays Metallica by Four Cellos, consisted solely of Metallica covers. For their second album Inquisition Symphony, they added covers of Faith No More, Sepultura and Pantera, as well as three original songs. For their fourth album, Reflections, they developed their style of cello rock further; adding drums and developing a more electronic sound, instead of the previous acoustic style arrangement found on Inquisition Symphony and Cult . In 1999, Antero Manninen left the band, being replaced by Perttu Kivilaakso. Max Lilja left in 2002, leaving Apocalyptica with only three members. Dave Lombardo did the drumming for five tracks on Reflections and for one track on Apocalyptica. Lombardo was unable to tour with the group from the beginning so Mikko Sirén filled the position and is now officially the fourth member of Apocalyptica. During concerts Antero Manninen also supports the group as fourth cellist. So far they have sold over two million albums worldwide, played in more than 30 countries, toured with Rammstein, and supported Metallica twice.

Official website: http://www.apocalyptica.com/