France
It started off really nice and cool with Amir in the centre of the stage leaning forward through a sea of purple stars on the floor and the background. He looked really relaxed and smiled through the whole song. The rest of the staging was more or like the same, with random over-sized planets appearing in the background, forming a space travelling effect. Some shots were off, especially when he is looking up. In the first run the camera was just showing his front side, producing the famous pic posted on the MB. In the other two, the camera was actually above him, but far too high up, so nothing was really seen. I think they are going to make it so that the camera starts focused on him and zooms out quickly (or the other way), which should be impressive. The vocals are neither good nor bad. He suffers during some notes. The weird thing is that he failed to sing the same sentence all three times; the beginning of the last chorus. But then he was good at other difficult points and the backings sounded okay as well, covering him at times. The ending was a bit weird, the stage went dark and he is seen with his hand in the air, in a foggy cloud. Didn't really get that part.
Some more thoughts, always subjective. The staging is vastly different to the other (until recently co-)fav but then quite similar in some ways to other faves. Suppose we have France, Australia, Ukraine and perhaps Sweden as contenders apart from Russia. Well, only one of those 5 features more people on screen. Only one of those 5 has some serious dance moves. Someone is truly "the only one"!
Then again, I don't get why France was suddenly written off, or even why it's drifting at the bets. Or maybe, I know why the second thing happened. People were expecting far too much from him and the staging and this didn't happen. Now we're sure Amir won't win by a landslide, as people were hoping. Now we know that he is just one of the 5 main contenders, with Russia being the clear front-runner. I expect the odds to go up to between Ukraine/Australia at the very most. Which is what would truly represent the song's and Amir's abilities. Being a strong possibility to win, but not the strongest one
Spain
OK, this was first of all a smart trick that certainly grabs your attention and captivates you for the rest of the performance (I suppose everyone is already updated with the fact that Barei falls just before the second verse). There was not really much going on in the beginning, and the staging is too simple, just her in the middle and the backings close behind her. The floor showed an arrow, similar to Poli's earring before the first chorus. After the fall, it was so entertaining and energetic to watch! She stood back up, danced and walked around a bit during the verse and then proceeded to the catwalk. The camera turned a lot to the backings, but when it was back to her she was still only midway. She tried to make the non-existing audience sing along ("Sing it"). Then the last part came in which neither she nor the backings say "Hooray" at the first "say yay yay yay"s, but then they sing it for the last ones. I missed those "Hooray"s actually.
But more (or less) importantly, what do I think she's going to get with this? It certainly didn't hurt her, this rehearsal. She should be within the top-15, a distant outsider for being just inside the top-10 (although there's a lot of songs that are on the same level or a little better than her). Depends a lot on the draw and how surprising the fall comes across. It wasn't that good the second time, she made it look too artificial. This might be to protect her from injury, cause the first time it felt very real. I also suppose SVT won't pick the falling part to show during semi 1.
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