🇬🇧 United Kingdom

Sam has just done his first runthrough and is giving it all already. Vocally this is outstanding! Even though he doesn't really stick to the melody/song that we're used to, doing quite a couple of ad libs. Which ... is generally not the best idea, if people are not familiar to your song. But if you sound like this, well, who cares?!

As seen on the pictures there are some props on stage which don't seem to serve much of a purpose, but also they don't really distract. The camera work is totally focused on Sam and his voice and charisma do the work mainly.

At some point there were some stage hands in clear sight, tearing down the prop mid song. This looked a bit awkward (and unnecessary?). Let's see if it looks better in the second run.

Sam's outfit may be a thing. I haven't got much of a clue about fashion, so it may be alright. But it also gives me a bit of Thomas Forstner 1991 vibes ...

The awkward moment with the stage hands is still there ... halfway the song they change the position of the prop, and hand him a guitar which he pretends to play for the last chorus while ad libbing. The camera at that point shows the stage from the back of the hall, but it's still all pretty visible. Not that it will kill his chances, but it's ... odd.

In the third and last run they changed the light a bit for the prop change moment so it doesn't look that awkward any more, only just a bit. They'll probably fix this. 

If you look really really closely you'll se that Sam is actually not alone on stage. He's joined by a guitar player for no obvious reasons, who's hiding beyond the prop, which by the way is a metal frame which lights up during parts of the song, especially near the end when it turns yellow. The main reason for the guitar player to be there is probably to hand Sam the guitar for the last chorus.

Besides: forgot to say that for the third run the backing tape stopped working halfway the first verse. And Sam took this totally professionally, improvising vocally before the restart.

Summary: yeah, the staging is a bit unnecessarily messy, but it definitely makes a Wow impression. Definitely a major contender!