After all the little Moldovan oddities we've posted over the last few days, it was perhaps inevitable that the country's only internationally famous stadium act were the only ones who were going to take the golden ticket to Turin. Eurovision irregulars might recognise them as that band who brought their granny on stage back in 2005, and wore big pointy hats and had a trumpeting fairy on a unicycle in 2011. But they're back, and this time it's all a little more gentle - at the outset, at least.
Because this folksy little shuffle about a newly opened train ride between Moldova's capital Chișinău and Bucharest in Romania might seem unassuming at first, but boy does it quickly get under your skin. You'll start off thinking that it's not a patch on their two previous efforts, but before you know it you'll be singing along to the English language chorus of "Hey ho, let's go, folklore and rock 'n' roll" at the top of your lungs whilst doing a minimal jig.
It's a song that embraces both the traditions of local Moldovan music and the great history of American country songs about train, and this feel is helped massively by the addition of the Advahov brothers who give it an old timey lick, while the rest of the Z-s-Z boys leap about like the superannuated punky lads they truly are. It's a whole bag of simple fun, and it's almost unhateable because of it.
Having said that, we've seen people tipping this to come plumb last in its semi. Have they not been paying attention? A band who's done this contest twice before, who are famous for unhinged and eye-catching live shows, and who have got a whole slate of nations who are famous for liking this shizz in their semi? This is qualifying with a bullet, surely, or something's weird in Eurovisionia!
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