Well it’s time to bring it home for A Dal 2019. It’s “final time” with the winner going on to represent Hungary at the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv.
Scoring and selection is a little different to the heats and semis where after the 8 artists perform, our friendly jurors each award their top 4 performers scores of 4, 6, 8 or 10 with the top four scorers proceeding to a “Super Final”. The “Super Final” is where the public come in to choose the overall winner.
And it wouldn’t be A Dal without a little controversy, and as Ronny alluded to last week, Petruska was abruptly helped out of the contest due to some plagiarism concerns. So in came Gergő Oláh as replacement in the Top 8.
So, the first round was:
Gergő Szekér - "Madár, repülj!”
Acoustic Planet - "Nyári zápor”
Between Chris, Ronny and myself we’ve commented on these songs a few times now so just a general reaction after the first round:
Nice start to the show by Freddie and Dallos with a little reprise of Freddie’s 2016 Eurovision entry “Pioneer”, Middletonz added some dancing rose bushes, Gergő was a welcome addition to be honest, still love Bogi, Fatal Error fired up their keyboards (literally), Joci’s shoes are still missing, Gergő was a little flat, the lead for Acoustic Planet got a new outfit but lost some of her voice and poor Bence is still getting doors slammed in his face
And through to the Super Final after the jury votes were:
Joci Pápai (26 points)
Acoustic Planet (22 points)
Bence Vavra (20 points)
Bogi Nagy (16 points)
And the others scored: Gergő Szekér (12 points); The Middletonz (8 points); Fatal Error (8 points) and Gergő Oláh (0 points)
Tough results for The Middletonz and Gergő Oláh there. While Bence Vavra and Acoustic Planet were lucky in my opinion. And some of these jurors must forget that we know how they scored in the heats and semis. Anyhoo, that’s A Dal for you.
Then after a lovely acoustic start, AWS blasted our eardrums one more time with Viszlát nyár, their Eurovision entry from last year.
Finally, Freddie and Dallos ended the suspense and announced that Joci Pápai had won the public vote (surprise!)
Az én apám is definitely no Origo but Joci sung it well, sold us a story and now earns the opportunity to try an improve on his 8th place from 2017 in Tel Aviv. We’ll have to wait and see if his shoes turn up too.
Thanks again to Chris and Ronny, we made it, Team Hungary out!