Pre-opinion: The kind of guilty pleasure Moldova does best, they can send it every year as far as I care. They'll need to do something than the cheap mirrors to progress though.
First run: They're channelling Kamferdrops!! Hurrah. A seemingly simple, but clever prop of white magician squares that can become windows and doors. A healthy dose of comedy going on there when the windows open and close, this made me very happy and the press centre loved it. And (spoiler) they have doubles!
Second run: Very similar, it's all been well-rehearsed. The doubles join them in the end for a bit of Balkan dancing and it's all very energetic.
The prop is almost identical to the IKEA Kallax. Sennek's vote guaranteed.
Russia
Pre-opinion: Well. This song would and should be written off if it were sent by most other countries, but it's not. I guess the main question here is how serious they are about doing well with this.
Set up: Julia is on the volcano (we haven't seen how she gets on top unfortunately). Backing singers standing behind it to the side. Zoom in shows that the volcano is made of boxes of foamy plastic sprayed green, I don't think Icelandic viewers will be convinced.
First runthrough: This sounds very different to everything we've heard so far, I think they changed the key? Lots of dancing going on below her, topless male (too dark to see if attractive) and female in dress. More close-ups on the dancers (conclusion: not attractive :-/ ), if you thought Ireland gave theirs too much focus then this is even more. Volcano doesn't do much, except a bit of Estonia-style projection, but we'll wait for the last run to see if there's pyro.
Second run: It gets dark when she sings "even in the darkness" (see what they did there?), during which the dancers run off - each on a different bridge, then when the lights are back they run towards each other. Romantic...? The whole thing treads between 'uncomfortable' and 'boring' for me.
Last run: No pyro. Worst volcano ever. (or, best volcano ever, because the nice ones stay quiet)
First runthrough: This sounds very different to everything we've heard so far, I think they changed the key? Lots of dancing going on below her, topless male (too dark to see if attractive) and female in dress. More close-ups on the dancers (conclusion: not attractive :-/ ), if you thought Ireland gave theirs too much focus then this is even more. Volcano doesn't do much, except a bit of Estonia-style projection, but we'll wait for the last run to see if there's pyro.
Second run: It gets dark when she sings "even in the darkness" (see what they did there?), during which the dancers run off - each on a different bridge, then when the lights are back they run towards each other. Romantic...? The whole thing treads between 'uncomfortable' and 'boring' for me.
Last run: No pyro. Worst volcano ever. (or, best volcano ever, because the nice ones stay quiet)
Denmark
Pre-opinion: I wasn't too impressed by the DMGP show, but other performances of him suggest that the sound mix may have been at fault, he's a pretty strong singer and sells it really well, even if the song is bit on the basic side.
First (visible) runthrough: We only see half of it, but it looks identical to what we know. So much that I'm not even sure they're just replaying the DMGP performance.
Really, I'm struggling to spot anything that's new here. Today's theme must be "keep to the NF stagings". At least San Marino bred its robots since theirs.
Second run: Ah, here's something different. The Loreen/Ryan snow effect. The rest is still the same, except that the live backing vocals make it sound more lively, the stage is a bit darker, and the wind machine stronger.
A positive rehearsal, I'd say, and I rarely say positive things about Denmark.
KAMFERDROPS
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