Finalists announced after first Eurovision 2022 semi final

By Trend

Eurovision 2022 kicked off tonight with the first semi-final which saw memorable costumes, dance moves and decor. The popular song contest is taking place in Turin, Italy, this year, Trend reports citing Wales Online.

In all, 17 countries competed at Pala Olimpico tonight to be one of the ten acts going through to the grand final - Eurovision's most popular show, which is taking place on Saturday night. To quickly recap what happened tonight, Albania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Norway, Portugal and Armenia performed their respective songs tonight.

Ukraine was the favourite to win Eurovision 2022. Each act was introduced by Italian presenter Alessandro Cattelan and singers Mika and Laura Pausini - and by Rylan Clark and Scott Mills for BBC Three viewers in the UK.

The highlights of the evening were certainly Latvia's crazy Eat Your Salad performance and Ukraine's lovely tribute to mothers across the country. Latvia's song, written and performed by Citi Z?ni, was a viewer favourite due to its eco-friendly - and rude - lyrics. The song even had to be censored by the European Broadcasting Union due to swearing or unacceptable language.

Another song which Eurovision fans loved tonight was Italian singer Diodato's Fai Rumore. Diodato is not a Eurovision participant this year. He actually represented Italy two years ago, but was not able to perform his song in front of the Eurovision audience because of the pandemic.

At the end of the show, the first ten finalists were revealed. They are - in no particular order: Switzerland, Armenia, Iceland, Lithuania, Portugal, Norway, Greece, Ukraine, Moldova and the Netherlands.

Five other countries are also already automatically qualified for Saturday's grand final. Known as the Big 5, they are the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Semi-final two will take place on Thursday night, from 8pm. It will be aired on BBC Three. The 18 participating countries are: Australia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Finland, Georgia, Israel, Malta, San Marino, Serbia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Sweden.