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.
No comments:
Post a Comment