Iceland are another one of Eurovision's less successful nations.  In their earlier days they failed to achieve well, and even recently their results have been rather touch and go.  1999 saw them at their highest, coming in second place with Selma's 'All Out Of Luck' - and she proved to be just that.  She missed out to the wonderful Charlotte Nilsson, another one of my fave songs, deserving of the victory it received.  2000, they had a great tune, but could only muster up 12th and in 2001 came last with what I thought was one of the best songs of the Contest that year.  Back in 2003 saw them secure 8th place with 'Open Your Heart' by Birgitta - a wonderful song which gave the show a strong opening.  2004's Jonsi was a male ballad amid lots of other boring male ballads and scored very poorly, so Iceland found themselves in the 2005 Semi-Final.  Everyone was delighted to hear Selma was back to try and secure Iceland's first victory, or at least try and get Iceland into the 2006 Final, but with the perfect performance and great song, Europe still didn't take to it and she failed to qualify. So Iceland founnd themselves in the 2006 Semi-Final and hopes were very high (and rightly so) with novelty entry Silvia Night, but her elaborate performance wasn't enough to make up for a dodgy vocal and angry Greek crowd, and she consequently failed to qualify.

 

 

For the third year in a row, Iceland have a wonderful song, and it’s great to see them sending something different from the year before.  Erikur has visited Eurovision before but is back with a very credible rock ballad to try and win over Europe.  The lyrics are wonderful, and the translation has worked really well – a sound live performance is necessary though, but someone with so much experience should have no problem pulling this off.  Despite really liking the song though, I think this lacks the sparkle it needs to make it through, and could be completely forgotten about amidst the competition – and so many rock songs. I do like it though, great singer and song, and I really do hope Iceland do well this year.

 

 

There's nothing would make me happier than to see Iceland qualify, but I fear it may be out of reach with such a poor draw, performing after two favourites, and being a rock song amidst so many others.  If you like it though, please vote for it, I'd love to see it in the Final.

 

 

After a passionate performance, Iceland failed to make the Final.

 

 

Every year in Eurovision there are a few very pleasant surprises, where songs that you aren’t expecting to come across all that well actually manage it in the end, and then to add to that do deservedly better than many expected.  In 2007, Iceland, for me, were one of these entries.  Erikur sang beautifully – he was a true rock legend, and Iceland pulled off one of the more genuine and passionate sounding rock entries in it this year.  To add to this, despite the fact that no rock entries made it through, Erikur came 2^nd out of all of them, missing out solely to the energetic entry from Andorra.  I feel this is a feat in its own right, and I was so happy to see this ‘pull through’ and do reasonably well despite having a lot of the odds against it.  It’s always been one of my favourites this year – I just love the lyrics and have mentioned this in my previous review.  As for my prediction, you can probably guess that I’m actually happy to say I got this one rather wrong indeed!