Day 4 Afternoon - Norway, Georgia, Albania, Belgium

BELGIUM

Rehearsal
Laura and four backing singer/dancers come on stage waving hankies - eacg is single colour however there are black, yellow, and red. The stage is made to look very disco-ey. Laura is having the time of her life. Before the last chorus, she walks the bridge to the satellite stage where she is later joined by her crew. Very warm applause by those gathered. Qualifyng - YES.

Second run - The presentation really want you to join in. Unconsciously everyone is tapping along. Laura has improved a lot with her choreography and is now just part of the group. I admit I was one of those who scoffed this entry when it won eurosong 2016 but I must eat my words now - a great ending to the second semi final.


ALBANIA

Rehearsal
And Albania have decided to go for the instrumental version it seems! Even though Eneda is there, there is no audio coming from her mic. We stop.

And starting again. Eneda does not move much on stage, seems to standing in one place. There are visible backing vocals which is not so common this year. The stage starts off in blue tones which later turn golden. Very simplistic staging which might come as refreshing after the Georgians before. Unfortunately for Albania however, Elhaida she is not. In fact, for the gathered europress she seems to just be fading in the background, like the music you hear while having dinner and chatting with friends. You wouldn't notice it was there unless someone pointed it out.

Third run - it started but stopped quite quickly due to a clearly flustered Eneda. Issues with the in-ear it seems. We must start again. And again, it came, it was sung, it was forgotten.


GEORGIA

Rehearsal
There is lots going on in the staging for Georgia. Not sure it fully works but I will admit, for something which I did not like at all, it grabs my attention. Not sure what I am watching exactly but I am drawn to it. There is a lot of mirror-image usage and lots of fast changing camera shots, which could all be there just to distract you from the song. Vocally it did sound quite similar to the studio version, which could just mean that they did not do much work on the studio.

Second run - It apparently was on :) Did not notice any difference.


NORWAY

Before the Rehearsal
The question we seem to be having is - will she actually show up? Agnete has been having a few mental health issues and it is therefore also probably in a fragile state. We have been told that there will not be any interviews and it could be possible that the meet and greet will also not happen.

Rehearsal
Wearing the same costume as in MGP, Agnete starts singing. The dancer is no longer in some random box but is instead on a slightly elevated platform on stage. Staging as you can imagine is in blue tones and lots of ice visuals. Agnete herself is standing on what appears to be a large ice crystal. Vocally she appears to be ok, she is not belting out anything major but there are no traces that she is feeling uncomfortable on stage either.

Second run - The dry ice is heere now - a bit too much of it. One of the shots which should have been a close up of Agnete did not work since she was enveloped in the smoke. The CO2 columns are also making an appearance for the chorus. Again, a good performance but not lighting anything in the room. A solitary clap by one enthousiastic member of the gathered europress is all it achieved.