Denmark’s Melodi Grand Prix was a remarkably close-fought affair, with the three songs voted to the super final ending up on 37% to 32% to 31% in the final vote. All-women band Reddi were the 37%, so they’re joining the ranks of a larger number of bands in the line-up this year when compared to 2021.

More than any other track on its way to Turin thus far, “The Show” is a song of two distinct parts. The first section sees the lead singer at the piano, ballad-style, but even on my first listen I don’t think I believed it was going to stay that way. There wasn’t the laser-like focus on the vocals you’d expect for a track where they’re the main selling point; clearly she was used to singing louder and with a more free-wheeling technique. Sure enough, after about 80 second a guitar riff starts up, and suddenly we’re in a pop-punk song. There’s a guitar solo, plenty of drum rolls, and life-affirming lyrics about proving nay-sayers wrong. Nothing hugely original, but lively, fun, and possibly a good song with which to close a semi-final.

The current staging of this song in terms of costumes is clearly retro, but it doesn’t align with the pop-punk era of the late 1990s and early 2000s. I don’t know why this bothers me, but it feels like there’s a disconnect between what I’m hearing and seeing. This could just be me. The concert vibe Reddi give off in their performance should translate well to the Eurovision stage. They’ve been drawn in the second half of the first semi-final, at some distance to Bulgaria, which is the only other rock song in that semi at the moment. If they can make their show bigger and better there could be room for them to get through, but even at its best, this is one of those songs I can see either just falling over the qualification line or just falling short.