Una voce per San Marino by Lee Rogers
The second edition was almost as crazy as last year's dessert filled festival of cringeworthy auditions. It was organized a bit differently, with established singers mixed into the auditions and semi-finals of the common folk, offering at least a few good songs and performances among the crowd of hopefuls with little to no hope of winning. In the end, an unexpected winner was chosen with a song title reminding us a bit of what we endured to get to the end of the grand final.
Una voce attracted over 1000 singers / bands from over 30 countries, and they auditioned over a period of several months, from the end of October to mid-February, whereby the jury chose more than 100 semi-finalists. The semi-finals were televised over four days from 20 February to 24 February, with a second chance semi-final on the 24th. With over 20 acts each night one would think it would be incredibly long but they were done on a tape delay basis, with no breaks or postcards between acts. There was no televote, only the jury decision, and consequently, these shows went very quickly.
Overall, they weeded out more (but not all) of the horrifyingly bad and painful acts this year, and with the established singers, watching the semi-finals was tolerable. Among the established acts were Eiffel 65, Ronela Hajati, Le Deva, Moreno, and some returning singers from last year including Camille Cabaltera, Kurt Cassar of Malta, Eurovision fan Christopher Schuhmacher of Germany, and Miss Tiramisù herself MeriCler. Like last year, it was an eclectic mix of musical genres and staging, a mix that left you wondering what could possibly be next.
The choices for qualifiers seemed curious at times, and I would wonder if that same small stage and secondary school sound system made the performances sound bad like last year while in-person *maybe* they sounded stronger. Alfie Alcuri, an Australian singer noted for his participation in The Voice there qualified with a promising song called Collide. Previous participants Deshedus also qualified with a gritty rock song called Non basterà, with a vibe that could only be described as "They are making us do this". Yet my fave Brandon Parasole and Affare did not even make it to the 2nd chance.
Eiffel 65 qualified to the final from the 2nd SF even though their performance left people wondering what happened to them. Their performance in the final was better, but they lacked the international superstar vibe that Blue would imply. My fave for that semi-final was La Bebae and Tocco il Fondo who was relegated to the 2nd chance round. How?? Tell me that song would not have rocked in Liverpool.
The third and fourth semi-finals brought us the eventual winner as well as some gems like Mayu and Qualcosa in me che non funziona, a dark and moody ballad with thick vocals. Ronela also gave her performance of her new song Salvaje which only sent her to the 2nd chance round. Her vocals improved that Friday, and she made it to the final. Unfortunately, she did not even make the top 10 even though Salvaje was one of the better songs to choose from.
The grand final took place on Saturday 25 February at San Marino's Teatro Nuovo with 22, uh 21, acts to perform. The two Sammarinese singers automatically qualified for the final, but one no showed. We were treated to Senhit as an emcee, and unlike the very speedy SF experience, the producers decided to turn this into Sanremo from Wish. It was a long drawn out night of performances and interval acts, including Senhit herself singing a medley of Beatles' hits.
In the end, the jury made the curious choice of an established Italian rock band called Piqued Jacks with their screamer of a rock song Like an Animal, beating out another established Italian trio Le Deva who finished 2nd with Fiori su Marte. The jury votes were not released for any of this, and we only know who qualified and who finished 1-10 in the final. I have not looked for all the live performances, but the ones I looked for are still on YouTube. If you did not watch any of the shows, then take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of the 2nd edition of Una voce per San Marino.