The second part of the competition started strongly.
Revenge, color, speed and large (at least larger) audience!
After last week's technology frenzy, Oscar Zia started the program with self-distance and humor.
He addressed the problems during the first part of the competition by joking about everything that went wrong and referred the audience to viewer service for other questions.
Then the tempo and the party atmosphere were increased with samba and carnival when the evening's secret guest: Eva Rydberg marched in (an extravagant entrance, not because I expected anything else).
Thus, everything was forgotten and forgiven.
Most of the restrictions were lifted this week and it was noticed tonight.
Even though some stands were empty, a completely different feeling was created when the camera swept over the audience.
You could see people sitting close together and waving balloons.
Both the sound of cheers and the sight made the program more alive.
What still made Saturday night most interesting was the
genre mix among the contributions.
Club pop with electronic vibes, uptempo pop with elements of hip hop, emotional, deep ballads, Latin pop and hard rock.
But it became a clubbing song and a deep ballad that went home with the audience.
Liamoo's "Bluffin" went straight to the final.
Maybe not so surprising: the song is a nice club hit and he was favorite already in advance.
John Lundvik's emotional ballad "Änglavakt" (written by Anderz Wrethov who has winning songs like Million Voices and Too late for love on his CV) took the second final place, after the viewers' votes were reported and it rained 12s over him.
But tonight's two, absolutely best songs got semi-final places.
Latin pop is big for a reason
and when Alvaro Estrella performed "Suave" we (those who may have forgotten) were reminded of exactly why.
Apart from the fact that Alvaro is a multi-talent with both voice and movements, the song is an obvious hit.
The beat is fast, the melody settles directly (suaaveee suaveee) and yes, we love spanglish.
And the stage show with smoke, flames and the red lighting did not make it directly worse.
We must not forget the fantastic Tone Sekelius "My Way"!
A song with five years on its neck and which was previously denied a palace in Mello twice: tonight the song got its revenge and went on to the semifinals.
Tone has an incredible charisma and joy.
At the same time, it felt real and genuine, and when she sang that she is now "bigger, better, smarter", she really meant her words and it went straight through the box.
During the last week, there has been a lot of talk about the Melodifestival app
(which worked tonight) and we got to see how the new voting system actually works in practice.
The votes have been divided into age groups and each group's points are reported.
It is admittedly more transparent than before and the viewer finds out placements for all contributions during the live broadcast.
But it's so boring.
I mean, the first two minutes were exciting.
But when Oscar Zia once again informs the viewer that "it's not over yet", I zoned out.
Beyond that, we must not see any winning prize.
The entries that go to the final do not perform the songs again.
So more numbers, less shows.
Pretty boring on a Saturday, right?