Watching the first rehearsal of the final

The whole thing starts off with what can only be described as a Eurovision version of the "Parade of Nations" in beauty pageants like Miss Universe and Miss World. The stage shows the flag of each country, one at a time, while a voice reads the name of the country in three languages as the entrant walks across the stage and waves to the audience. Sadly, they aren't wearing ginormous feather-embedded national costumes :/

They managed to mess it up by announcing Greece as Poland and Poland as Greece, so they stopped it and will presumably start over...

One more try, and this time everyone entered when they should. A rather nice start of the contest

Something has actually changed in Ukraine. The whistle bits seem to be properly back. I can't tell if they are being done live or if they've changed to another backing track. But would this be the furst time (excluding 1993 and 1996) that a song has actually changed musically between the semifinal and the final?

The next few countries are all performing very similar to the semifinal, so not much to say there

Germany finally. In the postcard they're baking sweets in the colours of the German flag. The performance is quite basic, just the three members if the band performing it in the same way that someone would probably have performed this in Eurovision 1996 or so. Except for the pink confetti strips falling down at the end, which totally covered the lead singer making her look a bit like a pink egyptian mummy.

Now another Record book segment. The highest note ever is apparantly the one by Maja Blagdan. Congratulations Croatia, you managed to get a mention even though you're not participating this year.

Technical issue before France. But eventually it starts. The singer shouts random stuff in the intro and the rest of the performance is rather messy. But it might just be the kind of thing that works better with audience reactions.

Next country not from the semi is Italy, with the postcard of course being mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and basil. Visually I think the performance works well, even if there are a few notes that aren't quite working. 

Slovenia and Finland did their thing. Now Spain. Ruth made the Spanish flag with yarn. The stage looks really awesome, in my opinion. And the fake rain almost looks real, especially as Ruth performs with WET HAIR! (a first?). The white light at the end isn't that great though... And the backing singers are nowhere to be seen unfortunately. But overall the performance is very effective

Eventually we get to Denmark. Vocally it's not great today, but the camerawork looks good. 

Then there's some technical difficulties... They're taking quite some time. So they decided to cut to a clip containing a medley of "some of the greatest hits in Eurovision". I suspect this might be a clip they've created especially to use in case of technical issues on the final night, ans that we won't get to see it if there are no problems. Oh well, it was just "Fairytale", "Congratulations" (no, not the Silvia Night one sadly) and "Satellite", so no big loss :)

Now eventually the UK. Molly in a goldem short dress with a feather-like collar. Almost like something from the videoclip further up above. Vocally she and the backing singers are alright, but the performance isn't as effective as I hoped it would be. Maybe it'll work better with a more interested audience though.