Day 5 - France, Spain

Spain

Before the rehearsal

I don't think it should be difficult to do this vocally. We know she has a group of backing singers (which I hope we get to see). The big problem with this song is the really long 2nd verse. I hope they've found a way to make that look interesting visually so that people don't get bored during that part of the song.

Rehearsal

Where to start! I'll start with the most important part: Remember how in the preview video there's a weird pause where the music stops just before the second verse?
Something similar is happening here. While Barei is doing her sneaker-dance in the first chorus, she suddenly falls over and lands on the floor. The music stops and we all thought she had fallen and hurt herself and that's why the music stops. But then she just starts singing the second verse all of a sudden and the music kicks in.
The press centre were all quite startled by this, and then reacted with a bit cheer when realising that it was part of the act.

So, regarding the rest. Barei is in a short silver dress, and her backing singers are standing behind her in black and silver outfits. The stage is bright and with flashing colours. It all comes across as very happy and joyful. Vocally Barei was maybe holding back a bit, but fine. The backing singers are mostly fine. However, there's one of them (let's just pretend it's Brequette) who is absolutely SHOUTING the "Say yay yay yay" bit as if she's a peacock that just reached puberty. It's quite reminiscent of Israel 85. So let's hope they turn her down in the mix. A lot.

Mostly Barei and her backing singers are basically dancing on the main stage. Then towards the end Barei walks the catwalk to the satellite stage and finishes there.

I got a very good feeling from this. They have so much fun on stage, and Barei looks very charming and likeable. As long as they can sort out the vocal problems, this performance should be able to lift the song quite well. Hard to say whether the fake-fall gimmick will work well or not, but it will at least wake up the viewers and grab their attention.

France

Before the rehearsal

This is a very difficult song to sing. It's got a lot of falsetto parts in the chorus and not a lot of moments to breath. And throughout the whole song there's backing vocals singing along with Amir. So the singing and the mix of the backing vocals will be the big key to being able to recreate this live.


Rehearsal

They're definitely going for the "less is more" approach here. Amir is completely alone on stage. The backing singers are hidden somewhere, and so far they're not very loud in the mix.
He's wearing a plain grey suit over a white t-shirt. And white sneakers with no socks.
The stage is quite well-lit and the graphics have a space theme. There's a lot of stars, and towrds the end of the song the moon (or some other planet) appears on the floor underneath Amit.
He's up-beat and energetic, but there's not really any choreography going on. He's basically simply standing there singing the song. And loving it.

Vocally the first run wasn't perfect. He sings the you-oh-oh-oh-oh bits but they were a bit off-tune. And there were some other parts that weren't great either. But we have to keep in mind that it's a rehearsal.

Basically, this is the POLAR OPPOSITE to Russia.  While Russia has thrown in just about everything they possible can, France has a very simple and plain performance. It could be risky, but it makes me think of Lena's performance in 2010. It isn't similar, but it's the same kind of "I'll just stand here and sing the song, because the song is good enough on it's own" attitude.


Second run-through. Vocally it's a bit better, and the backing vocals are louder in the mix. But there's still some parts that sound really terrible. In the last chorus he tries to do some ad libs that are way too high for him and just turn into a strangled-cat moment. Hopefully he'll notice this in the viewingroom and ditch it.  Because he sings this just fine whenever he sticks to the basic melody, but whenever he strays from it, it goes terribly wrong.

Thoughts on France, Spain

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.

Day 5 - Iceland, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Malta

Malta

Now, this has changed! She's in a totally different dress. And it's a pretty one. Gold sparkly top and a dark skirt. No projections or silly bulky fabric this time. They've clearly given up on that idea. (Thank god).
The dress is rather tight, and it very visibly confirms that she the rumours about her being pregnant clearly being true. Ira's dancer is wearing a grey flowy outfit with glitter details matching her dress.

The song starts with the same projection of her face as before, but this time it's projected on the floor instead of on the cloak of her dancer. The stage graphics seem mostly to be the same. And the choreography is mainly Ira waling around the stage interacting with her male dancer. She seems a lot more comfortable on stage and seems to enjoy herself a lot.

Basically, they did the right thing to change this. And among all the rehearsals, this is by far the one that imrpoved the most from the first rehearsals to the second ones. It's nice that they were able to see that the previous staging didn't work (and that a lot of other countries were doing projection-based performance) and decided to scrap it.

Second run-through and I noticed that the stage graphics are quite different too. Instead of the blue swirl the floor looks more like actual water. And there's a lot of smoke on stage too. The colours and images keep switching between gold/fire and water/sky.

Thir run-through, and Ira still feels very secure. The performance is basically mostly all about her, and she has the personality to pull that off.


Bosnia-Herzegovina

 Same performance as before, but with different outfits. The thermal blankets are still there. But Deen is wearing a long leather trench coat, and Dalal is in a tight red and gold dress with a mermaid skirt. It's not a great dress, but compared to a lot of the costumes we've seen earlier today, it comes across as fairly normal and stylish.


Iceland

Not much change here. It's the same interactive performance. But they've managed to get the lights more right this time. She's less in the dark, so her connection with the cameras is a lot better.

We couldn't really hear much of the first half of it, as there was a video-message playing for Samra from a bunch of random Azeri people who sent her get-well wishes. As in, "we wish you'll recover from whatever disease you have" not "we wish you'd suddenly start singing well".

Day 5 - Estonia, Azerbaijan, Montenegro

Montenegro

Montenegro are now in their actual outfits. The random woman is on the satellite stage and is not wearing any trousers whatsoever. Which the camera captures really well by filming her from below right up between her legs. Thank god her panties aren't as sheer as Samra's outfits though.

The guys are dressed mostly in black. A lot of faux leather and lose-fitting stuff involved. But it's hard to get a good look at their outfits or even the faces of any of the people on stage, because the lights keep flashing really quickly (the UK broadcast will clearly need to tell viewers with epilepsy to turn he TV off) and the camera shots never really seem to focus on their faces long enough for them to make any eye contact with the viewers.


Azerbaijan

Samra is on her costume now. It's basically a white swimsuit with short sleeves. Reminds me a lot of the outfit Magdalena Tul was wearing for Poland in 2011. Except this one is about 50 % see-through. Or at least gives the illusion of being see-through. It even has a see-through bit right in the crotch. But we can't see anything there, so it's probably skin-coloured fabric covering it. It basically looks like she's wearing a slutty diaper.

The backing singers/dancers are in shades of white and gold. And Samra's vocals are all shades of off-key.
The may claim that she's still sick. But right now it's more or less on the Lisa Andreas end of the scale of bad singing.

Second run-through. And now she changed her outfit. It's a full-coverage skin-coloured catsuit with lots of glittery stripes. It basically looks as if she's naked with random lines of silver paint on her body. And it's looking a bit unfinished in the crotch-area, as if they attached a camel-toe on the outside of the costume.  Maybe lumpy fabric labia is a fashion trend in Azerbaijan, but I think it looks quite terrible.

The battle for the Barbara Dex Award victory is gonna be really tough this year.

Estonia

Jüri is in his blue suit and the stage shows images inspired by cards (like, hearts and clubs and things). Again, he's all alone, the backing singers can be heard but not seen. It doesn't look bad, but it just makes it look very similar to a lot of other performances that also just has a solo singer alone on stage.

The magic card trick passes by quite quickly. If you blink, you'll miss it. Which I managed to do both times so far.

Vocally he sings it without any problems. The suit isn't very flattering, but he looks handsome and comes across as rather charming. But the performance just neither enhances or ruins the song. It's just there. So I suspect it's qualification chances will have to depend on the song itself.

The not-press opinion - FIN, GRE, MLD, HUN, CRO, NED, ARM, SMA, RUS, CZE, CYP, AUT, EST, AZE

OK, this was it for me. Nothing to do with Samra and my ears. If you want my opinion and some (badly written) info on the rest of Semi 1, refer to my previous blog post. If you prefer well-written posts, then try the other bloggers of this website. Will be back for the other semi and the songs I missed from them.

Azerbaijan

First live performance, like in the actual stadium, ever for me was Samra Rahimli performing amazing Miracle. Certainly not the wisest choise I've made. But since I really love the song... And then again, she improved each time, also having very weak moments though. Loved the pyro show in any case.

Estonia

I expected something darker from them, but instead they went city-lights and Casino Royale. The camera closes in on him and then there's some prop with a card appearing and disappearing a couple of times, before he throws it to our direction. The end shot is a close-up on his face, but he obviously doesn't know what to do with it. He tries to be still, then smiles, then does a half-wink (like something is irritating his eye). I need to see this once more to be more descriptive.

Initial shots are well thought of, he appears to the right side of the screen before walking towards us, while the camers pans from above. Some far shots are closing in on him from the side. He has some issue timing the hand moves, they are looking a bit weird. Far shot closing ing again for the second verse. Camera then rolls around him slowly. Then he does the card thing. The card is thrown better this time. A nice red spade/heart shape on the floor. Nicer ending shot.

Austria

Long break followed Cyprus, I think we won't see this many times actually. Camera zooms to her smiling face. Then approaches her again from afar as she's walking towards us. Another close-up during the first en chante. She's a bit breathy. Many close-ups again, usually zooming out and showing the wonderful flowery backdrop. It comes across very optimistic, but then she misses some notes and the feeling is gone. Camera switching from far to close shots regularly. Then some more mid-distance ones. For the last sentence, it zooms out quickly. From some point on she looks really straining with keeping up with the notes. Not very sure about this.

Last run and nothing much changed. A cute thing is her interaction with the backdrop during the second verse, where moving her hands creates red roses in the back. Vocals again a bit strained (but then this is her third run, so she is tired). For the bridge, the camera rolls around her and she makes good contact with it. The last part was really shouty and strained unfortunately. Must improve to qualify, I see it just missing out as it is now.