Like previous years, ESC COVERS will again share a blog post from Morten Thomassen of OGAE NORWAY with his views on the positions reached by all 35 2026 entries. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.
When you are baptized Salvatore Michael Sorrentino, I understand that you take the stage name Sal Da Vinci and he came in third place in the San Remo Festival in 2009 before returning now in 2026 and taking home the victory and thus also the right to be asked first if he would represent his home country in the ESC.
Fortunately, according to many, he said yes and it was the song “Per Sempre Si” that was his contribution, in Norwegian it means “Yes, Forever” and that is exactly what I would like to say about this country’s participation in ESC.
They’ve hardly ever performed a bad song and we have to go all the way back to 2016 to find a song that didn’t end up in the top 10, so they obviously have something in their music that appeals to the entire ESC audience.
They were also well-liked in both voting groups, the people gave the song 13 points more than the juries did and with relatively good payment from both, they get fifth place as a thank you.
In retrospect, this is probably the song I liked best this year and sometimes it happens that even though you can put your finger on a lot, both in terms of the song and the performance, you end up with a song that simply puts you in a good mood and then you use your finger to dance along and not to point out mistakes and shortcomings.
Yes, he’s out to drive several times when it comes to vocals, but what good does it do when all he does is sing and be the engine for all the energy in the song that four dancers convey in an elegant way on stage, and since during a rehearsal we saw that the female dancer couldn’t quite get out of her flag skirt, that part of the song was a very tense moment.
That went without a hitch on stage and since this year they went for good old-fashioned disco from the 70s-80s, you can wonder what they’ll come up with next year, we can almost already promise that it will be a song with qualities even though it has been decided that next year the San Remo festival will have a separate evening to find the ESC artist so that that artist can be someone other than the one who wins this festival next year.
Featured image – ESC Cover