Semi Final 2 - Jury Rehearsal

Welcome to the live blog of the jury rehearsal of the second semi final. This is the moment of truth for another bunch of participants hoping to make it to the final. Tonight, they can make a first step and I’ll be here to praise and bitch about anything I see. Buckle up - and let’s get started!

Shocker, EBU intro is still the same.

Opening

We see one of the hosts backstage pretending everything is organized and we’re all set to go. Why don’t you fix the sun if everything’s so well-organized, eh? Opening on stage consists of various lush Italian men in suits dancing.Very cheeky. People in green cat suits joining now and I’m not sure why because there seem to be no special effects. 

Hosts (minus one) walking in and welcoming everyone (and the four excited fans in the audience). Laura Pausini looks better than during the first semi. The other hosts now notice the one host who made sure everything is well-organized is now back from his well-organizing.

The other hosts have now been impressed by Mika’s French and we’re off to go. And so ESC has begun.. again?

Finland

Lead singer still has a huge forehead and going for that Chucky look. Singing is solid. Not too keen on the stage that has been filled with huge balloons. Overall the basic “look at us being rocky” vibe. Should probably qualify.

Israel

Yas, gurl. Opening has a runway show vibe. Graphics on the floor and the use of props is rather slick. Dancing is on point. This brings much needed fun to the stage, especially after Finland. If Israel was in last night’s semi, this would’ve made it. I suspect it might struggle tomorrow night.

Serbia

Brilliant or bizarre? I’d say brilliant, but I was wondering how they’d translate the brilliance on screen. The answer: the lyrics are subtitled. Despite that, will the audience get the meaning in between grabbing snacks (nom nom) and drinks (a dry white wine please) though? If not, I’m afraid people will tend to get bored easily.

Azerbaijan

I see Azerbaijan has copied Farid’s stage choreo, removed the transparent cage and purchased stairs. There’s nothing wrong with the staging, but there’s also really not that much that makes it stand out. It’s all a bit impactless. Vocals are solid and should receive a fair share of points from the juries tonight.

Georgia

On par with the awfulness they brought to Rotterdam, but at least Tornike was easy on the eyes. Oh right, eyes.. eyes, mouths and possibly other body parts are part of the graphics projected on the LEDS. But of course you knew that already because this is the gazillionth rehearsal. To me this is as hopeless as Bulgaria was yesterday.

Malta

First impression: gorgeous staging, Emma looks stunning. But at the same time: oy, shaky vocals. It’s a pity because I think the song has potential to do better than it’ll probably do. Shaky went to terrible real bad in the meanwhile. It sounds like they’re only making use of the on track backings, while she probably could’ve used the help of some singers om stage as well. I’m afraid this is a non-qualifier. Unless they paid the juries a little extra of course.

Small break

Did I say Laura looks good? Haha, silly me. We’re getting some information about the San Remo Festival now and some cringe lines from the hosts.

San Marino

This is so pretentious and ridiculous it becomes amazing. Achille brings the Måneskin appeal without the song or talent. The staging is everything every average Eurovision viewer expects from Eurovision; glitter, glammer and pyro. This will do really well in televoting, I imagine. Crazy thought, could this go Top 10 on Saturday? He sounded solid too.

Short break again, before we move on to Australia

I was expecting quite a lot going by the fact this is pretty high up in the odds, but I find it a tad.. irritating? I’m not buying the fashionable look, the song is mediocre at best and his endless whaling makes you forget the nice features there are to this performance real bad and remember. Juries will probably save this, but I doubt many people will pick up their phone for this. Marija Serifovic ain’t winning again this year.

Cyprus

Dodgy vocals and she seems to be off from the track a little in the beginning. Ouch. Nice prop, but really doesn’t add anything to the performance. A complete waste of a great song. She completely blands into her prop which makes her stand out even less. There’s as much charisma on stage as there are visitors in the audience. Emma’s vocals sound fine now.

Ireland

A nice surprise after the Irish screw-up of last year. Is it unique and total awesomeness? No. It *is* a very welcome breath of fresh air after the line-up we’ve seen so far. Vocally solid’ish. She could really use some help from backings. I’d say this has a good chance to make it into the televoting Top 10. I’m afraid all in all the juries will keep this out of the final though.

North Macedonia

Anyone who’s followed the news around her can’t help but feel sorry. I’m a little confused here.. she sounds bad? Is she purposely not making a proper effort? I thought she was a better singer. I’m a little baffled. She better asks for political asylum in her last sentence.

Estonia

Stefan is looking very lush and sounding very stable. The staging is sufficient, nothing too special, but it’ll do the trick. Pretty safe qualifier, I’d say. He’s actually the first one who manages to hype up the audience. 

And yet another break, Mika is going on about alarm clocks for some unapparent reason.

Romania

Romania brings some much needed fun to the line-up, although it’s surprisingly tame. Vocals aren’t great and therefore I’m afraid the juries will bury this. As a Eurovision fan though, I’m really digging this and hoping the televoters will pick it up.  

Poland

I can see why this allegedly received so many applause from within the press centre. The staging is well done, although it has some really rough parts of incredibly cheap on-screen graphics and effects. My problem with this isn’t so much the staging or the song, but rather him. He has the charisma of a sandwich and hardly ever makes a connection with the camera. I suppose this will qualify, but no freaking way this is coming anywhere near winning.

Montenegro

First impression: gorgeous staging and Vladana looks beautiful as well. If she sounded anything like on the studio this was a sure qualifier. Now, with these vocals, it’ll be tough, but not as unlikely as the current odds might suggest.

Belgium

From the very first few notes Jérémie shows he’s vocally very capable. Capable is how I’d describe the staging as well. I can’t really find anything wrong with this apart from the fact it’s all a bit repetitive and therefore boring. A few notes off towards the end as well in his eagerness to vocally impress. I’m fearing for Belgium’s qualification.

Sweden

Whatever you saw at Melodifestivalen. Flawless. The first real contender for victory on Saturday. Head and shoulders above anything else.

Czech Republic

I was afraid this would be this semi’s Austria, but the staging is slick, her vocals are much more stable and the song definitely belongs in the Top 10 here as well. Qualifier.

Going through to the final:

🇫🇮 🇷🇸 🇸🇲 🇦🇺 🇪🇪 🇵🇱 🇲🇪 🇧🇪 🇸🇪 🇨🇿 

Semifinal 2 - first dress rehearsal live blog

Good afternoon, ESC Nation and other readers. Today I'll be live blogging from the first full rehearsal of the second semifinal.

The show starts with some backstage "funny" segments with Alessandro Cattelan. I'm not quite sure what's going on. Then he enters the stage and the stream starts buffering a lot, bu we catch a glimpse of him dancing to the TikTok hit "My Name Is" by the band D Billions (If you don't know this song yet, good for you). 

Then we get Laura and Mika on stage instead. Just talking. Thank god. It's clearly a rehearsal, because Laura is sometimes literally just going "bla bla bla bla bla bla" to fill out spaces where the script possibly isn't ready yet.

Alessandro is wearing a black suit with glittery silver details, Laura is in a dark red dress, and Mika is in white trousers, a white t-shirt and a baseball cap. I assume his outfit made sense with something in the intro that we couldn't quite see, but it does make him look like he's their 6 year old son. 

🇫🇮 Finland with even more silly hair than we're used to seeing. Vocally it sounds... fine? Definitely comes across better than in some previous performances. It's adequate for the type of song that it is. If it'll qualify or not will probably not have anything to do with the vocals, if he can sing it like this during the evening shows as well. I'm still not sure who thought that the yellow wellies were a good idea, though.

🇮🇱 Israel starts of with a vocally perfect performance. As with Finland, if this doesn't qualify it probably won't have anything to do with underwhelming vocals. Then... unfortunately the stream dies. Did the EBU deliberately cut it to hide something?

🇷🇸 Serbia next. Konstrakta performs it confidently without any issues. I'm still not sure what the viewers will make of the subtitles that come and go. But I do like that they look like regular subtitles rather than just some artsy words smacked on top of the picture. 

🇦🇿 Azerbaijan up now. Another vocally good performance. It's all dark and gloomy, and comes across as perhaps slightly boring. But there's some serious power vocals in this, especially near the end. I can not imagine that this would not do well with the juries?

🇬🇪 Georgia has a slightly better sound mix than before. We can actually hear the high falsetto vocals in the verse a bit better. But the staging feels like it's darker than before. They band members are quite badly lit, even when the rest of the stage is bright. Not sure if it's a mistake or intentional. But even if it's intentional, it's clearly a mistake. 

🇲🇹 Malta is the last one to perform before the ad break. Emma struggles a bit with the low notes in the first verse, but once she gets to the chorus she gets a lot better. Overall I think the vocals are far better now than in some of the earlier rehearsals. Not amazing, but perfectly adequate. 

And here's Laura again, introducing a segment about the history of the Sanremo festival. We get to see some footage from past editions. The speaker also points out that it was the FIRST song contest to be broadcast on television and was the inspiration for Eurovision. 

🇸🇲 San Marino is on, quite fittingly, right after the Sanremo mini documentary. With ALL THE PROPS. And ALL THE PYRO. The vocals are sometimes slightly off, but again, probably perfectly fine for the type of song that this is. Even when he's being thrown around by the mechanical bull he manages to sing this quite ok. But visually, this really is a lot. 

🇦🇺 Australia next up, but first a quick greenroom visit with Mika. Probably to get some extra time for the stage people to get all the props on and off the stage. And now the song starts. Somewhere behind all the feathers and rhinestones and frills there's a Sheldon who does his best to outloud the backing track. Vocally there are no issues at all here. 

🇨🇾 Cyprus also has another huge prop, so we get one more quick break before the song begins. Shorter than the one before Australia at least. Andromache looks stunning in her oyster-prop, but also slightly sulky. The vocals are not quite spot on. Not bad enough to be bad, but also not good enough to be good. 

🇮🇪 Ireland up next. Brooke stars off on the floor in the centre of attention a big heart. Another vocally fine performance. But most importantly, all of Brooke's charm and likability shines through quite well. The spoken part still comes across as a bit forced, but overall it works fine both visually and vocally. I've no idea if it will manage to qualify or not, but I think Brooke's giving it quite optimal chances with this performance at least. 

🇲🇰 North Macedonia up now to change the mood. Andrea sings it well, and the LED-floor has some really nice moments. But everything also looks quite dark and sad. And there isn't much to disguise the fact that it's essentially just a person alone on an empty stage. Though after all the crazy props and dancing we've had before this, maybe it will be a good thing?

🇪🇪 Estonia is another song that very much is just a single person on an empty stage. But we do get a lot of walking. Stefan does handle the empty stage better than Andrea. And he sings well. But there is not much done to hide the fact that most of the chorus is just basically a bunch of pre-recorded vocals where he doesn't even pretend to sing. 

And here's a break. Mika is talking about birds and Måneskin and whatnots. And then we get footage of... babies.. and rain... and coffee...?? I have no idea what's going on. I think it's supposed to be some sort of ASRM-themed bit, but it's not very relaxing. 

🇷🇴 Romania up next. During the opening party he revealed that he does have on live backing singer. And it very much sounds as if both he and the backing singer are singing everything together. I think there might still be some adjustments to the mixing that should be done to make it sound right. But it's a confident performance. Could be enough to get Romania back into the final.

🇵🇱 Poland now. Can't tell what's the stream buffering and what's deliberate effects. Ochman sings it perfectly and the high notes are very impressive, but if he has a personality the cameras are unfortunately not quite catching it in this rehearsal. 

🇲🇪 Montenegro's Vladana in another dark staging now. She's wearing a blue dress with a giant umbrella attached to the back, with lots of tiny lights on it. Vocally some notes are a little bit off, but nothing major. At the end she switches to Italian, and then back to English for the final climax. 

🇧🇪 Belgium has stage lights quite similar to the previous two entries that were just performed. Dark stage, blue and white lights. The producer-made draw feels weirdly odd here. There might also be something wrong with the lights, or they've made some odd choice, because Jeremie spends a lot of the song being just lit from the sides, leaving the front of his face in darkness. Vocally this is excellent, though! If there are a lot of singers, vocal coaches and Idol/The Voice/X Factor judges in the national juries, this will surely get a lot of points. 

🇸🇪 Sweden, and we have our first obvious technical issue. Cornelia sings the first line, then the song stops, she suddenly goes "YEEEAAAAAA!!!" and interrupts the performance. Alessandro comes on to explain that things are not quite ready yet and gives us some filler-talk. Then Sweden gets to restart.  Cornelia seems to hold back slightly (probably wise) and her hair goes a bit rogue and fluffy at times. But overall a convincing performance that I think does manage to stand out in spite of being the last of 4 ballads in a row. 

🇨🇿 Czech Republic are up last, but the stage is once again not ready. So Alessandro has to come up with even more things to say while we wait. Finally We Are Domi get to start their performance. Vocally there's some slightly shaky bits. The high notes are definitely not 100 % in the correct pitch.  Just like with Austria, the off-stage backing singers are quite prominent in the mix. This is sounding better than that, at least. But after a lot of strong vocal performances in this semifinal, this does stand out as vocally quite weak. Let's hope they can improve for tonight. 

And... after about half an hour of fixing some technical issues, the rehearsal continues. Romania are about to rehearse again. We don't know why. But the stream buffered a bit during their first performance, so perhaps something went wrong that I couldn't see. This second rehearsal feels like it sounds and looks the same as the first one they did earlier this afternoon. 

And now... Poland are on again? Are they going to re-do all the six last songs? This might be a very long rehearsal. He's now taken off his suit jacket and is in just a white shirt. Is it deliberate or is it just because he had already got out of his outfit and was ready to leave the venue when he got called back? His dancers might have left, because they're now missing. (Which, to be fair, makes the whole performance look a lot better)

And of course... here's Montenegro. She's at least wearing her umbrella-dress this time as well. Vocally, she's better this time. Maybe there were issues with the in-ear sound for all the last 6 entries before?

Belgium on again now. Looks and sounds the same as before. Same outfit, same dancers, same lights. 

And here's Swe... no, here's Czech Republic again. For some reason we don't seem to get another performance from Cornelia, so We Are Domi are the next in line. Vocally, it's about the same as before. 

Back to the hosts. And it's time for a recap. 

And now some interval acts. Mika and Laura are singing something. And then some various pre-filmed bits. 

Now, Chanel on stage to be interviewed by Laura. Who asks Chanel "When was the last time Spain 🇪🇸 won?". The shade! Followed by about a minute of the footage from Chanel's earlier rehearsal. 

Then United Kingdom 🇬🇧, with Sam wearing a more covered-up version of Chanel's black and silvery outfit. And we get to see a minute of Space Man. It looks and sounds good. 

And last, Malik and Germany 🇩🇪. He talks about his grandfather. For the clip they're showing they're starting off with the spoken part, which is... a choice. 

And now... I kid you not... we get a postcard from Serbia. But... it's not Serbia rehearsing again, instead it's Spain 🇪🇸. So we get to see her full performance. The main thing I'm learning from this is that they've re-arranged the song to include a brand new intro. It sounds a bit like the trumpet intro from I Wanna. The trumpets also appear quickly before the dance break. Overall they've made it more latin. For the final chorus she takes her jacket off and we're getting a very big pyro curtain. Muy pretty!

And here's the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 and their full performance. Sam is singing very well but comes across as maybe slightly over-excited and ad libs a bit much even in the 2nd verse. The props look nice, and he pulls out a guitar in the end. Otherwise it's a pretty straightforward performance that highlights the song quite well.

Finally, Germany 🇩🇪. After a looong break to get the stage ready. Did he not bother to get changed into his outfit and ended up in his lazy-sunday-at-home-clothes? Nope, that's just his actual stage clothes. Vocally it's fine, but the spoken bit still sounds a bit awkward. He walks around between all the various instruments placed all over the stage. The stage is another dark stage with blue lights. 

It's now been 3 and a half hours since the rehearsal started. And we're still waiting for the fake results announcement. I feel like I'm being held hostage. 

And... here's another UK rehearsals. ffs. By request, I'm now paying extra attention to whether you can see the stagehands open the props. And no, I can't see them do it. The camera films it from very far off. 

And finally, nearly 4 hours after the rehearsal began, we're soon about to get the "results". Alessandro is the only host still left in the arena, so he just said that he'll have to try to do the scripts of all three of them by himself. 

But... No! Now we suddenly get Il Volo performing. 

That's it! I've had enough. I'm giving up. This rehearsal has officially broken me. I'm off to try to recover, and you'll have to find out about what happens during the remaining 2 hours of it from somebody else. 

Semi 1 - Team Prediction

 I've twisted the arms of the entire escnation team (at least the ones who have watched the dress rehearsals) to call their 10. This is what we came up with:

The worst predictor gets to wash the dishes tonight. Which one do you think it will be?

Semifinal 1 - Fishy Prediction

Watching the dress rehearsal yesterday didn't really hint at any shock qualifiers or non-qualifiers (yes, Ukraine will make it), but it did potentially clarify some of the borderliners a bit. And then unclarified (fogged? calima-ed?) some others...

We all nearly got a heart attack from a plane flying literally a few metres above us just now, but I think I've decided what I think will happen tonight - unless more heart attacks happen.

1 Greece | I'm still not sold on the song, but can't deny that it's good, and they're doing everything right with it. Likely jury winner, and shouldn't be too far behind in the televote either.
2 Ukraine | It was always a solid entry, and all the surroundings gives it an extra dimension.
3 Norway | Televote winner? Assume juries will be less keen, but no reason they should completely burn it.
4 Armenia | I was a bit underwhelmed for parts of it yesterday, despite loving it (the best song tonight, except the Italian ones later in the show), but when she rips a giant hole in the set it all comes together. Now just get the keychange back and we're all set!
5 Portugal | It doesn't give me a lot, but it's quite flawless still. And she's surely the prettiest person to be in Eurovision since Greek Dancer With A Hat II or so?
6 Netherlands | It disappeared a bit for me in the line-up yesterday, but then it always did anyway, unlike for many others, so there's clearly something there that I'm missing.
7 Austria | My first bold choice - I think this stands out a lot and is performed well enough for what it is to get the audience in the hall and at home on board. It doesn't necessarily need perfect notes as much as it needs joy, and it sure has the latter!
8 Albania | An incoherent, shouty mess, but it's quite a glorious incoherent, shouty mess.
9 Lithuania | I've assumed this to be safe for months, but not that sure anymore. It's not doing anything wrong (quite the contrary, it literally sparkles!), and I think it'll get solid jury support, but apart from the usual televoting suspects (who are mainly in the other semi, except Norway and Latvia), I doubt your average televoter will remember it when it's time to pick up the phone.
10 Iceland | I'm not at all sure about this, but it's got a lucky draw and feels like a nice breath of fresh air.

11 Denmark | :-(
12 Moldova | They ruined it for themselves by rocking it up and folksing it down, trying to be more serious just makes it boring. Also, it's horrendous, of course.
13 Switzerland | It's a shame, as I really like it, and I think the juries will too, but I think it'll be completely forgotten by the televoters when it's on that early.
14 Croatia | Is it even there?
15 Slovenia | I have no idea who is going to vote for it or why or why not, it's all very befuddling.
16 Bulgaria | It's just too obviously coming last to manage to come last, isn't it?
17 Latvia | Is it just wishful thinking? Or is Alex going to ruin it all, unless I drown his phone?

Semi-Final 1 - Second dress rehearsal (jury show)

In a couple of minutes the jury show for semi-final one is scheduled to start. I'm pleased to keep you updated about what's happening!

INTRO - Due to technical issues I missed the first minute of the opening, but we see an inventor inventing a drone that flies over Turin and in a ESC 1970 way it flies into the arena, where we see a glimpse of a FIAT before we enter the stage to the sounds of 'Nessun dorma' (which you may recognize as the Danish postcard song in 1991). But quickly a rock guitar kicks in, followed by someone on stilts singing 'Sound of Beauty' surrounded by dancers that were already excellently described by Sild and alex earlier today. We finish it off with a very high note.

A much lower voice goes "Ciao Torino, let me hear your voice! You are the sound of beauty!" and it introduces the hosts. They make a reference to ESC's 1965 and 1991 and a thank you goes to Rotterdam. I was expecting Laura's English to be better. Mika and Alessandro are fine in that respect, but I agree that Mika is a bit annoying. At least in this opening. He's doing the obligatory French part. 

The onscreen graphics are very much in the style we already saw for the semi allocation show, it's all very red/cherry colour.

Finally the words "Let the Eurovision Song Contest begin" are spoken. Followed by a probably unintended but hearable 'Bomba' by Laura Pausini during the Albanian postcard.

ALBANIA - OK this makes much more sense as an opener than I expected. Ronela immediately tries to involve the audience. And they seem to love it. The hall doesn't seem very full for this rehearsal though. So yes, I suppose it makes some sort of impression to viewers and it's a crazy mess that will get noticed. But also still a very incoherent song. But it's better than I expected to be fair.

LATVIA - Another very in your face one to follow them. Okay, this comes across as big fun. Slick and very colourful performance. When the (epic?) sax player has his moment the stage lights up all in white to get back to all colourful right after. This is an excellent performance. Can't see this not qualify now actually. But of course, there's still quite a few goodies to follow. 

LITHUANIA - Oh, the stage looks beautiful for this one. For the chorus there is a short Sertab '96/mirror effect. Monika draws you in but perhaps it remains too much on the dull side to make a long lasting impact. Oh I really love the lighting for this one. But I fear for its chances.

At the end of the song we see a random shot from the green room where stand-ins are cheering for Monika.

SWITZERLAND - After having seen the rehearsal pictures I had expected the worst for this, but for me this staging really works. It's fragilely sung, he's looking fragile. He totally convinced me and connected very well with the camera. It got a big applause as well. This looks like a pretty certain qualifier to me, and may actually be a bit of a surprise in the final.

SLOVENIA - Must say the sound on this stream seems to be very good (as it should be in 2022 of course). LPS sound totally fine. The staging concept makes me a bit dizzy with all the circling around the disco ball. This needed to be excellent to be in with a chance but it is not. It is decent and that's very likely not going to enough I'm afraid.

Must say that I don't think anyone will notice the stage isn't functioning as intended. It's been looking just fine for all entries so far.

UKRAINE - Already a historic performance in the making. Flute man apparently has been taking singing lessons now too. I don't think they could do anything wrong here and they aren't doing anything wrong. Got a very long and loud applause.

BREAK - Laura reminds us that we cannot vote yet. And she asks "How's going on" (sic). And then there's an semi-awkward kiss-your-neighbour moment. We get to see a short city promotional for Turin. But also the stage building in progress. Including a rotated sun. It ends up with a 'Veni vidi Eurovici'. We're back to the hosts with some random information from the indeed very green room.

BULGARIA - Solid performance here as well. Stage is all black and white for the first part, and with the second chorus the red kicks in. And there's pyro's with the guitar solo. This wasn't a bad performance really, it was quite enjoyable.

NETHERLANDS - A very minimalist staging though perhaps a bit less minimalist than Switzerland. S10 is standing on some sort of kite-shaped platform for the first verse. She sounds vocally fine, but to be fair, and I may be a bit subjective here .... I was expecting to be drawn into it more. It's fine but a bit ... underwhelming? 

MOLDOVA - This just comes across as trying too hard to be funny in an aggressive way but sort of not really achieving to entertain. It's very noisy and whereas I had this as a certain qualifier I can now actually seeing this close to a last place. The audience seems to enjoy it somewhat though.

PORTUGAL - No car crashes so far, and this one is no exception obviously. That makes it a bit hard to tell you something you haven't been able to read in earlier reports perhaps. I see six singers, so I suppose the quarantined girl is out of quarantine or she got replaced. Interestingly a very disappointing audience reaction to this one. I think we've been overestimating its chances a bit. I'd say it's one of the borderliners based on this decent, but also a bit 'passing by' performance. I also think it's very dark and the standing in a circle makes it look messy.

Small break with Alessandro and Laura.

CROATIA - A very confusing choreography with people walking randomly around each other and not so much actual dancing. Mia switches to Croatian for the last minute or so of the song. Which unfortunately makes it even a bit more messy to me. Also a bit lame applause here. Vocals seem to be fine here as well though, it's getting a bit boring almost.

DENMARK - What's this with Denmark having people starting at a piano and leaving it halfway whenever the contest is hosted by Italy? I think the slow part of this is a bit too long. It's also the first one where the eclipse on stage really looks a bit odd. For the rest this is obviously much the same as we know it. Perhaps the weakest vocals of the night, even though still not really bad. Yeah, I think it's a nice try, but I couldn't ever see it qualifying and I still can't.

Back to Mika in the green room with some talking about 'diversity' and 'no barriers for anyone'. And 'Fat is what Eurovision means to me' but I think I misheard that. We get to see some snippets from the turquoise carpet and someone random (or is it Nadir? or well, why not both) singing a snippet from 'Con te partirò'.

AUSTRIA - Thankfully finally some vocals that don't sound totally decent. It probably doesn't matter much for this song, but yeah, we've heard better. Pia Maria also looks like she's in pain at moments. The halo on stage is a bit of a strange idea as both Lumix and Pia Maria are stuck within it, creating an artificial distance with the audience, where some direct engagement may have suited the song much better. We get lot of audience shots though and they're enjoying it. Also the vocals get better near the end of the song. Big applause. I really can't tell but I'm tempted to give it the benefit of the doubt, especially if juries forgive those ... not so good first notes.

ICELAND - First impressions really play an important part in people listening to your song and that's why I'm paying particular attention to the start of each song / performance. This is one where the start is fine. The sisters look classy and sound fine obviously. At the end of the song one of them makes a reference to Ukraine "We stand with you". Which is nice, but also comes across as a bit tacky to me. But as a performance I'd say this wins it from its most direct competitor Portugal quite convincingly.

GREECE - Birthe Kjær must agree with the message to 'dye together'. But this time we're not painting it red but blue. Very blue. Amanda sounds excellent from the first second. The camera work for the climax of this song is excellent. Thankfully they've not overdone the staging. It suits it just fine. This is definitely sailing through and one to watch as a jury favourite in the final. And I don't think it will leave televoters cold either. Best of the night I dare say.

NORWAY - Totally what we've already seen and/pr what you'd expect it to be like. The singing in the first verse sounded a bit strange, as if they weren't in sync with the backings on tape. Also I thought the audience reaction wasn't as massive as expected tonight. But it comes across on television I'm sure. Nothing to worry here about when it comes to qualifying obviously. Not sure if it's the obvious televote winner though.

Mika and Alessandro throw coins into a 'fountain' to wish the artists luck and apparently for the first time Mika hits it right this time, or so he says.

ARMENIA - As you could have already read and see Rosa Linn walks around a lot in her paper room, revealing texts on the wall, which do not all seem to make much sense. Not very unlike their not so dear neighbour in 2017. In the end she breaks through the paper wall which looks like this actually might be the first time in the song she's facing the audience. Unless I missed a rotation of the paper room. Obviously she sounded fine, but the choreography is unnecessarily distracting imho. Still a certain qualifier in my book, but this is probably not going to break their record.

The presenters then introduce the recap. I think the presenters are doing a decent job. They're not overly there and we had no awkward hiccups so far. It's all going quite smoothly actually. And this goes for the full show so far actually.

To sum it up I think the biggest surprise was Switzerland (possibly because I wasn't expecting much, but I actually thought it really was very good). The runner up (to Ukraine, because yeah, they still look like the one to beat here at least in this semi-final) should be Greece or Norway, but Greece looks m,ore likely to me. Bulgaria was very decent though but yeah, they were never in the Safety Zone anyway, so I don't think it's enough. And Netherlands and Portugal I think didn't really live up to my expectations. Latvia should be a qualifier, I think it looks not so good for Lithuania. And if there's any justice we'll get rid of Moldova tomorrow. Of course this is all pretty subjective, so I'm totally curious what other bloggers around the internet have made of all this! The ESC Nation team members will give their individual qualifier predictions tomorrow, so I'm not doing that yet.

Meanwhile the show of course continues and remember that we also will have a full performance from Italy and France later on tonight. 

Okay minor hiccup with the sound at the end of the recap, but it's nothing dramatical really.

I missed who exactly are in this interval act, but it's something with electronic music and it's actually quite enjoyable (but visually not extremely interesting). Ah at one point there's suddenly a piano on stage and we here a part of 'Children', a big hit of Robert Miles in 1996. And a classical-ish version of 'Blue (da ba dee)' from Eiffel 65 (from 1998). And 'Push me and then just hurt me so I can get my satisfaction'. I should know what this is but it doesn't come to mind right now :p A red-haired singer finishes it off with a song I don't recognize. Ah, they're (or well some of them are) Benny Bennassi and Sophie and The Giant, the presenters say. And indeed there's a small tribute to Raffaella Carrà with 'Fiesta'. 

Ah this time the artists are actually in the hall so we see them in the recap. Again the end of the recap sounds a bit like it's not intended to sound like that. Still one minute left to vote after this recap, so the presenters soon get to the traditional countdown which for some reason is done half in Italian. And again we hear Laura talking though the bumper. 

Then it's time for Diodato singing 'Fai rumore'. But a very toned-down version, which sounds beautiful. Okay, the toned-down part is just the first part. After that he leaves the piano and we see he's joined by a lot of dancers on stage. He then belts out the second chorus. Oh and it seems like the sun is in a different position now. This is beautiful!

This is followed by a 'trip down memory lane' with angels and demons, robots, space men, yodeling Romanians, naked Belarussians and many others.

After this it's time for Armenian JESC winner Maléna, who probably will look different tomorrow? Alessandro says that next year's JESC will be hosted in Yerevan. We also get a promo for JESC 2022, which apparently is also held in Yerevan. A nice dance remix of the winning JESC song plays in the background.

We quickly get to the auto-finalists and France are first. They are interviewed by Mika. And Alvan doesn't really know what to say. We first get to see snippets, as we will tomorrow. But later they, as well as Italy will perform the full song, just today. As you well know recordings of these performances will be made available online tomorrow night.
 
After a similar interview and snippet with Mahmood and Blanco we get a small promo for Thursday's show. After that something seems to go not totally as intended. Ah, they stopped the recording, to let the two big 5-ers perform. Alessandro shouts 'fuck' at some point .... not sure why. 

It takes a lot of time apparently to set up the stage for France. Perhaps this is an indication that they will indeed open the show on Saturday?

FRANCE - It's all very green ... and a big mess. But also fun. And it has Alvan. Would indeed make a great opener. Haven't got much else to say about it to be fair. Nothing unexpected here.

ITALY - The snippet we saw earlier indeed didn't sound all that good, but by tomorrow it will be replaced by a snippet from today's performance which is about to start now. There's a lot of Italians in the hall it seems, and Blanco fans. We get to hear some sounds from the audience we haven't heard since the voting of ESC 1968. And we've started. Opening shot already looks wonderful with the waterfall lighted up in blue. For the 'tu verse' Blanco stand on the piano. Vocals are totally okay now. Lighting sceme creates a nice intimate atmosphere. I don't really like the LED screen lighting up all in white during certain parts of the song, but that's not a show stopper. For the last chorus some structure comes down from the ceiling and it looks great. It's not much different from what we expected I think, and obviously doing well, but not sure if this was a winning performance. But then, no-one is voting on this one.

We are back to the actual show rehearsal with another promo for Thursday. But I suppose we will see it only once tomorrow. The presenters are standing at their desk and according to Martin Österdahl everyone is good to go. So here they go, bye! 

Okay, not really. Qualifier time. And the first fake qualifier is Latvia. The artists are not longer in the hall so we get to see empty seats. And Portugal is qualifier two. Like last year the countries still to qualify are shown with flags and odd abbreviations in alphabetical order. Lithuania and Norway are qualifying as well and so is Denmark! Laura has a lot of trouble saying 'the fifth qualifier' and shouts 'porca vacca' resulting in the audience laughing and she apologizing. Meanwhile Greece and Armenia also qualified. So still three to go .... Switzerland goes through! The tempo is acceptable tonight, not too quickly but also not too much drawing it out. Laura shouts 'Austria' which means there's only one spot left. And yay, it's the Netherlands! That means that Ukraine is out! But of course only in this rehearsal.

All in all this all went pretty smoothly, actually a bit disappointingly! We see a small recap of the qualifiers and that was it for tonight. Let's hope (or not?) for such a smooth running tomorrow and it's going to be totally alright!

Mika and Alessandro are going to eat a pizza and it's bed time for Eurovision, according to Laura. Joined by the artists on stage we see the end credits followed by Te Deum. 

That's it from me tonight. Probably there won't be coverage for the third rehearsal tomorrow but as announced earlier we'll all (or most of us I hope will) share our prediction for this semi-final! Everybody, enjoy tomorrow!