The rehearsals for Melodifestivalen 2025 have begun!
Phoenix have been given accreditation for this year’s Melodifestivalen by SVT – meaning we can bring you all the information you need about this year’s rehearsals!
Here are our thoughts on what we’ve seen from Heat 1 so far…
You can read all about the artists competing by clicking here – 🇸🇪 Sneak Peek: Melodifestivalen 2025 Heat 1
Albin Johnsén ft. Pa – ‘Upp i luften’
Kicking off Melodifestivalen 2025 with an upbeat, anthem-style song is Albin Johnsén & Pa with ‘Upp i luften’. Beginning on a tilted platform with a green LED strip light around the edge, Albin confidently delivers the opening vocals wearing a sparkly double denim outfit and white shirt, complimenting Pa’s glittering white jacket and trousers. The LED’s also are a neon-green colour, changing to orange both on screen and on the LED throughout Pa’s section in the first verse and the first chorus. Speaking of the first chorus, the duo are joined by 4 dancers, who then perform at the side with Pa during his second verse. Albin remains on the platform until the second chorus – joining Pa and the dancers to do some choreography. During the bridge, the dancers go into the audience to hype up the crowd as Albin & Pa return to the platform, which now shows a pink LED Strip as it rises into the air. This is high energy for the full 3 minutes, but the performance concept allows the pair to deliver the song with no vocal issues – they sounded even better for their second rehearsal, and seemed to enjoy their time on stage. You can see images of their rehearsal below!
Maja Ivarsson – ‘Kamikaze Life’
Maja Ivarsson gives us an 80s-style track with ‘Kamikaze Life’, but with a much brighter performance than you may expect from the first few seconds. She begins standing on a box lit in white with an all-black background, lit solely by a pink light as she swings the microphone around. During the song, the black wall on the LEDs is splattered with purple, blue, orange, pink and white paint. She stays on the box until the second chorus, lying back during the pre-chorus before springing up and making her way around the stage. For the bridge she heads into the audience, the lights flashing blue, pink and purple, with Maja surrounded by a lot of smoke before returning to the stage for the final section of the song. Maja delivers this with no issues, staying vocally on point throughout. Her second rehearsal remained relatively similar, with just a few improved camera cuts. You can see images of her rehearsal below!
John Lundvik – ‘Voice Of The Silent’
Back for the fourth time in Melodifestivalen is former winner John Lundvik. ‘Voice Of The Silent’ is a much more uptempo track than ‘Änglavakt’, but also sounds completely different to his winning song ‘Too Late For Love’. He starts crouching in front of a large metal ball and is surrounded by smoke. John rises for the pre-chorus as lights begin to shine off the metal structure behind him, with the LED screen pulsating out of the ball for the first chorus. He walks around this ball, followed by the camera ahead of the second chorus, which sees the LED screen and lights turn gold. During the final part, the smoke begins to increase – though unfortunately in the first rehearsals, happens to cause a slight moment akin to Nina Sublatti’s ‘Warrior’ performance in 2015 – completely engulfing the stage and making John difficult to see. Vocally, there are no problems – John remains just as strong live as he was in his first participation 7 years ago. The second rehearsal saw him change from his brown leather jacket into a full-red outfit, making him stand out much more from the dark background, and he isn’t completely surrounded by smoke at the end anymore. There’s use of the floor LEDs, and increased lighting during the chorus takes the entire performance up another gear. It’s early to say, but this may be a potential finalist. You can see images of his rehearsal below!
Meira Omar – ‘Hush Hush’
Dressed in a berry-coloured, glittery two-piece, Meira Omar delivers arguably the strongest package in this week’s Melodifestivalen with ‘Hush Hush’. Alongside 4 dancers, she does a lot of choreography – including an impressive section during the second chorus where they sit behind a platform, using a lot of arm-ography. She sings the second chorus on this platform before sitting down for the bridge, in which pink lights shine on her and her dancers. The final chorus sees a pyro shower at the front of the stage. Meira is very strong vocally despite the amount of movement required from the song and is certainly one to watch this Saturday. Her second rehearsal remained similar to her first, but she looked more relaxed on the stage. You can see images of her rehearsal below!
Adrian Macéus – ‘Vår första gång’
This week’s slowest song comes from Adrian Macéus with ‘Vår första gång’, who has a super slick performance on his debut. Starting, and remaining in, an LED circle, he begins sitting on the all-black stage – lit only by the white LED circle and a spotlight. As he gets to the chorus, the floor LEDs form waves, which increase throughout the performance, changing colours from red to white along with the circle. Red lighting flashes during the chorus. Also vocally very strong, you’d imagine the staging restricts his movement – but it doesn’t! In a way comparable to the way Oscar Enestad performed in his box-prop in 2019 for ‘I Love It’, Adrian makes up for what could’ve been a pretty still performance with a lot of upper-body movement – especially during the bridge. The camera work here is well done, adding to an already polished performance. With some tidier camera cuts in the second rehearsal, this song really works on stage – the question is whether it will connect with viewers at home. You can see images from his rehearsal below!
Linnea Henriksson – ‘Dan känslan’
This week’s final song is another Swedish language entry – ‘Den känslan’ by Linnea Henriksson. She comes down from the ceiling sitting within a big heart structure, initially as a silhouette before the beat kicks in – lighting the stage in cyan, showing two drummers on either side of a set of stairs. She exits the structure and makes her way down onto the stage as she’s joined by her dancers. Another two dancers enter the stage for the second verse – which also sees a costume change! Linnea’s black dress is transformed into a long, velvet red gown before her black gloves are removed, revealing red mesh ones underneath. Pyro bursts up from the back of the stage in the final part, and the heart structure sets on fire. In the first rehearsal, Linnea seemed to be understandably conserving a lot of her energy, holding back vocally and performance-wise. Her second rehearsal was more polished – she gave more to the performance and her expressions helped carry the song’s message. We’ll have to wait and see how this truly comes to life during the actual show on Saturday! You can see images from her rehearsal below!
Who’s your Melfest Heat 1 favourite? Leave a comment below to let us know!
Thank you to SVT, Melodifestivalen & Stina Stjernkvist for all of the images from this week’s rehearsals, and thank you to SVT for our accreditation for the show!
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