Moldova only have two previous appearances at Eurovision, starting with an impressive debut in 2005 with novelty enrty 'Grandmamma Beats The Drum'.  To follow this up they chose Arsenium from O-Zone and sidekicks Natalie Gordienko and Connect-R but failed to make much of an impression, finishing 20th with just 22 points.

 

 

For their third attempt, Moldova will be sending Natalia Barbu with ‘Fight’.  I do think that this is one of the better entries this year, but it does lack something necessary to make a resonating impression on Europe.  It is a proper pop/rock stomper – better than last year’s Belarusian entry – and comes to a good climax – but I’m not sure it’s got that certain sparkle to propel it into the top ten in the semi.  Nonetheless, I’m sure it will be a good enjoyable performance, but I don’t have high hopes, sorry!

 

 

I think Natalia will give a strong performance, but an early draw and a song lacking in that extra something means I would be very doubtful for qualification.  It's good, but not good enough.

 

 

Another big surprise was Moldova's qualification, but Natalia gave a sound performance and must have appealed in the east and west.  Not a bad entry at all, standing a reasonable chance of making the top ten.  If the UK and Spain do as well as I think, I'd say Moldova are through to next year's Final.

 

 

Moldova for me were one of the shockers this year, and I can’t decide as to whether or not they were a prime example of political voting at it’s best or if it simply did strike a chord around Europe encouraging people to vote for it.  Natalia’s performance was good – well staged and sounded great vocally.  The song’s good, but did it really deserve a place in the Final over so many other countries that missed out?  The main question for this one is ‘did it slip into the top ten on merit or through political votes?’.  We’ll never know, and it doesn’t really matter now we know only Serbia and the Big Four qualify directly for the 2008 Final, but nonetheless, Natalia gave a sound, energetic and contemporary performance, and the message in the song is a strong one, so maybe that’s why this one pulled through… On another note though, Natalia didn’t benefit from a better draw in the Final, placing 10^th overall in both contests, so considering the draw usually does play a part in how entries fair, o maybe it was just the same countries voting blandly for their neighbours in both contests.  Nonetheless, she qualified in 10^th place and finished in 10^th place, which of course makes my prediction very wrong indeed!