The Maltese Final was held on February 4th at the Malta Fairs & Convention Centre in Ta' Qali, hosted by Ronald Briffa & Elaine Saliba. Before the final there was a semi-final, where the cast of 24was reduced to a final of 16. The winner was chosen by an "expert" jury (6/8) and televoting (2/8). The eventual winner was Kurt Calleja and “This is the night” after a dingdong battle with seemingly perpertual runner up, Claudia Faniello.
Kurt is joined on stage by a static drummer, 2 guitarists (who also do some backing dancing and singing), a DJ/dancer and a female backing singer. The song, like last year, is an uptempo dance number. Kurt has a very strange voice, almost operatic in places and at times doesn't fit the song. That said his voice is nice and clear and seems to cope really well singing the song live. Kurt also does a very annoying stamping dance routine during the 'oh-oh-oh' bit at the end of the chorus, which is also copied by his guitarists. Is this really the best of Maltese choreogaphy? If so I'm on the next plane to Valetta to share my degree level skills! He commands the stage quite well but the whole act is a little stiff and needs some sprucing and freshening up before May.
The song has quite a striaghtforward structure and has its fair share of earworms. It sound like several different songs (Usher, JLS and Ed Sheeran are just three examples) I don't think it is a bad song, or a bad performance but it does seem a little dated and amateurish. They really need to push the earworms and get people to remember those parts and get them addicted. Otherwise it will be another DNQ.
SONG - This is the night
ARTIST – Kurt Calleja
COMPOSERS – Johan Jämtberg, Kurt Calleja and Mikael Gunnerås
LANGUAGE – English
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