Day 4 - SMR-CRO-NOR-SUI

SWITZERLAND

Yesterday was blue+white day, today is yellow+purple day.  In this case the yellow is the singer's dress and mic stand.  She's on a giant plinth with steps which she descends. This could get precarious with the long flowing dress.

Vocally just about adequate. We're back to the hidden backing singers.

They don't seem to want us to see very much in the press room today. We've only seen half a run-through of this after only one or two of the first three. We've usually had three or four of each song.


NORWAY

And back to normality and more or less a carbon copy of the MGP performance.

Lots of purple light and not a lot going on in the middle section. There's a risk everyone will spend these three minutes talking about Croatia.

There is some live backing vocal here, but also the digitalised voice thingies to some extent.

It's competent. But maybe a tad dull.


CROATIA

Long time since there has been so much laughter in the press room.

Let's get the vocals out the way first - they are perfect.

Jacques does the duet by looking left, looking right depending on which voice (and getting it the wrong way round at one point). It looks quite silly. And then there are some very camp hand movements.

Backdrop is sunflowers and rainbows. Strangely, no unicorn.

Three backing singers help out, both vocally and visually (particularly the one in the middle). It ends with a bit of Molitva-esque touching.


SAN MARINO

Valentina is in da club, wearing a baseball cap and with her little shoulder bag she didn't want to leave in the cloakroom. Jimmie removes his jacket for the final chorus to show us his arms.

Bright colourful staging, nice overhead shot near the start which sets the mood. Three backing singers on stage, they don't do any choreo but help out with the hand-clapping.

So the baseball cap has gone, but the handbag stayed. Yellow and purple lighting, excellent vocals and good chemistry. Still it feels like a very long three minutes.


***
Good morning!

Day 4 already, and today we'll get the rest of semi 2, starting with the double whammy of San Marino and Croatia. Technically that might be a quadruple whammy, I suppose.