Second rehearsal - Ukraine

Time for me to take over the torch and do some blogging! 

Currently watching the Slovenian press conference (attended by about 7 people) but soon it's time to see what Ukraine will give us on stage.

And we're live!

The postcard has a cute robot drone flying over some city where images of Kalush Orchestra are superimposed over lawns and walls and whatnots, accompanied by cutesy music. 

The performance starts off with the sun actually looking like a sun, as the camera zooms in on the stage where all six guys are lined up in a row.  That first shot looks really pretty. Then as the beat kicks they all start moving and jumping around and it goes a bit messy. Overall quite similar to what we've seen in the NF performance. Though the outfits seem oddly uncoordinated. Two of the guys are wearing what looks like the result of Cousin Itt and a German flag having a baby. 

Vocals: The rapping is fine. The singing is a bit rough. But not in a way that I think will bother viewers too much. 

Colours: Orange. Lots of orange light. 

What's new: The intro from the NF version is cut, so the song starts with the chorus just like the Spotify version. 

Is it live: Well, yes and no. The singer and the rapper are obviously live, but the chorus uses pre-recorded backing vocals quite extensively. Not enough to hide a couple of missed notes. But then again, in a song like this it surely doesn't matter a whole lot. 

Will it qualify: Surely. Will it win? Who knows. It doesn't come across as something that'd win a regular year, but rather potentially be mid top 10. And in a year like this, maybe that will be enough. 

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The not-press opinion - FRA, ESP, GER, ITA, UK

Overview

France gave what I expected them to give. They are still a contender for challenging Russia and they certainly win against the similarly simply staged Sweden imo. Italy's staging is not to my liking, it really destroyed the feeling for me. However, it seems that people who were not into it find it very appealing. I'd be happy if a song I liked gets a good result, although I won't like the live performance video in the end. Germany gave me goosebumps, but I do realise that this is not going to happen to the average viewer. Hopefully, the juries will help her placing rise, but then will the outfit ruin her? The UK delivered, they made me like the song more than I ever had. Although it's instant, its appeal will depend a lot on the draw and what precedes/follows them. They would benefit from a clinical performance, like Czech Rep. for example. Finally, Spain's incompetence is beyond words. My first reaction two days ago was positive, but no improvement on the vocals has been made since then and the fall is captured and implemented in a very fake way.

United Kingdom

First shot the one not holding a guitar (I suspect that's Jack?). The shot widens as the background is filled with purple/blue dots. Two blocks with the drummer and the guitarist. Random faces appear during the second chorus on the floor. And the background as well. Stage turns black with white lights for the bridge and then some strong purple ones for the last part. Vocals are not bad, but not very strong. It ends in a mid shot with them hugging (in a friendly way). Personally, I like the far shots of this more, but for the vast majority it's the close-ups that will matter. It wins the battle against what I've seen from Denmark, but not much else.

Faces during the first chorus as well. Oh, it's actually two sets of drummers on the podiums. Not very noticeable anyway. For the second chorus, camera starts with them facing each other as they sing the first "You're not alone" and then pans away for the "We're in this together". This is effective camerawork. Some awkward jumps in the last part, somehow too co-ordinated, like they're standing on a mini trampoline. The vocals have improved.

Third run. Their vulnerable look in the beginning is much more preferable to the other opponents in this category, DEN, IRL, LTU. Or arrog-Frans. But I'm still not convinced they will avoid something like 18th. Good pyros by the way, timed with the I,I,I and sky,sky,sky parts (three each).

Italy

People loved this yesterday, but the stills didn't convince me. First time for this too, then. The stand has blue and purple shades around it. The flower arrrangements right and left of her are a nice touch, but it's too linear. Balloons all around and yellow spheres on stage. She's convincing when faceing the cameras. The tree on the back is just there, which is good (I wouldn't like any more movements and distractions on this). Some effects of white something on screen, like bubbles. The language change is here and I love that moment in studio, but here nothing special happens. The white thingies are like fireworks and bubbles, and little hearts. Ok, a bit silly. She gives us a potato? So many things happening, I didn't notice the song that much, which is certainly not needed. I'm cautious.

The white sparkles/clouds/hearts are already present in the opening shot. The close-up shots where not much is going on are the best moments imo. It happens during most of the 1st chorus. She gets the right angles every time, but then something appears at a random point in the screen and you watch that instead. Vocally perfect. I don't particularly like these ideas, but maybe others will? It could be because I also had a totally different staging in mind.

Warming to it in the third run as I focused more on what I was listening and her instead of everything else. It needs for the viewer to not be too distracted by all the staging and realise that they are actually listening to a decent song. In the end, it might prove to be a wise choice, but it's certainly risky.

Germany

First time watching this. Stage is purple while we first get to see a close-up of Jamie-Lee after 30 seconds or so (might be for the best). Camera are too shaky. Purple naked trees with green laser beams towards above (as leaves?). She is spot on in her vocals. Cameras are finally steady and she hits the shots. A weird shot of the backings in the dark before the second chorus, during which she walks the catwalk and arrives to the end of it just in time for the Ahhh scream. Ends with a far shot with her in the middle and the huge moon behind her.

We will need the next run to properly judge this, as the camera crew had a collective stroke or something.

Steady shots this time and identical performance. The weird dark shot of the backings is still there, though. It's so dark, this still counts as "hidden backings". She arrived a bit earlier to the end of the catwalk, which is less effective than before. She looks happy. Being a big fan of the song, I can't help but sing along. Although I love it, I do realise there might not be enough amount of connection developed during the night. Not much to say about the third run either, she's perfected it already.

Spain

The opening minute is vocally and visually problematic, unfortunately. The backings are clapping at the first "Say yay yay yay" very not to the rhythm. The fall was too fake again and did not happen during the close-up shot at her dancing feet. Much less convincing than her first rehearsal. She lifts it with the catwalk and this time she does one accidental Hooray (which exists in the studio version, but she's not supposed to do it live, from what we've seen so far in Stockholm. Let's wait for the other two runs, but I'm doubting her chances for a decent result after this.

More parts I find awkward. Why does the screen go black after the fall? It doesn't seem realistic, they should have stayed with the initial thing, where we get to look at her on the ground for more seconds. They've unfortunately managed to make what was a refreshing and contemporary performance into something over-rehearsed and obviously fake. The silly choreography of the backings doesn't help.

Good luck to her, because she's the best that happened to this entry.

France

Again, like with its first rehearsal, I am satisfied while mostly everyone around me is not. I think the performance is very sincere. My favourite part is during the bridge when the moon approaches him on the floor projections and he stands on it and then makes a glowing effect. There is one thing that's missing; audience. I am still optimistic about this, although I agree it is not a front-runner, like Russia clearly is.

Day 6 - Albania, Belgium

Belgium

This is a total standout in this semi final.
I didn't really like the song originally, but on stage it all just suddenly "makes sense". Laura is cute, bubbly and is ha ing a lot of fun. The backing singers/dancers as well, and it's nice how they made them part of the act. It's retrp bit still fresh. Thr only problem is that Laura's shorts are still very ill-fitting.
But basically, it's a great end to the show, and I am sure it's gonna do a lot better than most people expected back when it was selected.

Albania

Peach/beige tight dress that works nice with her ginger hair. The floor graphics match the dress nicely. And the backing singers are visible.

Visually it's very nice. And she sings it ok. It comes across as rather boring though. Nothing really happens during the performance. The stage is pretty static and so is Elhaida. I can't really think of any reason why somebody would find this exciting enough to vote for it.

Day 6 - Denmark, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ten years ago Ukraine sent "Show me your love" by Tina Karol to Eurovision. I thought it was a really dull song. Until I saw the live performance. Then I loved it!
I think Ukraine has managed to have the same effect on me this year too. I originally though 1944 was a bland melody-less song. But just having seen Jamala sing it, it won me over!

She sings it perfectly. And the vocal arrangement with the backing singers (who are on stage \o/) is really nice. I have a feeling that this will do a lot better than I originally thought.

Denmark

The boys are looking a bit tired. No surprise, as they were at Euroclub until quite late last night. Vocally they are a lot stronger today though. They don't seem to struggle much at all. The performance is the same and not very interesting, but it's very different from everything else and might just really benefit from being quite simplistic.

Day 6 - Australia, Slovenia, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

The song starts with a very very close close up of Poli's face. Almost like Trijntje last year. Her lips are dark blue. Has she been sucking on Rykka's hair?

There are no chipmunk vocals in the song now, it's all been replaced by the flute. And vocally they are all singing quite well. But the chorus doesn't quite sounds as "big" vocally as in the studio version.

I like this performance though. She pulls off owning the stage all by herself, and it's effective when the backing singers join her at the end. They really look like they're having a lot of fun.

Slovenia

It's visually quite pleasing. The stage has nice colours and ManuElla looks good. Not sure why she puts her hands together as if she's praying during the Aliyev-parts though.
Vocallt it's fine. The male pole dancer is there but is quite disconnected to ManuElla.
I suspect this performance won't be enough to make this stand out. Its innthe middle of a segment of three entries with female solo singers. And a segment of four songs in a row with singers who are (mostly) alone on stage as their backing singers are mostly hidden. And between those songs, Slovenia's staging probably is the least memorable, even if it's pleasant enough.

Australia

The staging is even better today. It's a lot brighter and the holograms work better.

Last time I watched thia rehearsal I couldn't hear the sound very well. But today I'm seated at a better location. Which made me notice that she's actually a bit out of tune here and there. And her facial expression doesn't really change at all during the song, so ahe doesn't look like she's enjoying herself. Hopefully both of that will change once she's performing for real.

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.

Day 5 . Russia, Czech Republic, Cyprus and Austria

Yesterday I spent the day at the Euro Fan Café / Euroclub (it really is just the same thing this year, just different names depending on the hour of the day) and watched some meet & greets. More about that later. Now back in the press centre to watch some rehearsals.


Austria

Another singer who is completely alone on stage although we can very clearly hear her backing vocals. The staging backingdrop is interesting though and she carries it off alone pretty well. But there's also no reason whatsoever why the backing singers couldn't just as well have been somewhere on stage. It would have worked nicely with this staging. And would have made it stand out a lot more among all the solo singers being completely alone on stage.

Zoe's pink strapless princess dress suits her well. It would have been awkward in any other performance, but in this fairytale backdrop world it looks nice. The performance is visually memorable, but the question is whether it's really exciting enough to give the song that extra boost.

Cyprus

The song starts with a close-up of Francois. So close that we can even see him spitting while singing. But he's handsome and he's got nice arms, so all is forgiven.
He's wearing a very lose flowy knee-lenght black sleeveless cardigan, over a tank top and black trousers. It looks very modern and fashionable, yet suits the rock feel of the song. The other members are mainly in black as well, but they're in the dark most of the time so we don't see them a lot.

Vocally it sounds fine, but it's hard to hear in the press centre as the volume is low and there's a lot of noise coming from San Marino's press conference.

Second run-through, and we can hear things a bit better. Basically, he's not the best singer in the world, but it's perfectly adequate for the song. Of all the rock-inspired entries this year, I think this will be the most approachable to the general viewers. As it has a very distinct and memorable melody. And the staging isn't too weird or gimmicky, so it might stand out among all the technically advanced entries.

There's a lot of armpit flashing going on. And (unlike Moldova) he's kept just the right amount of hair there. It's trimmed, but not clean-shaven. And no stubble. 


Czechia

The colours of the stage really look great. Blue and pink. She has an interesting necklace that looks like a robe with some sort of big rock crystals attached to it. The dress is a plain white top with a peplum around the hips. And a white flowy bottom, which catches the colours of the lights.

She sings it more or less perfectly, even if holding back a little bit. Everything is simply both very pleasing both for the eyes and the ears. I dare to say that of all the pop ballads this year, this one works the best on stage.

As so many others, this one hides the backing singers. But unlike most of the others that like to pretend that their singer can produce 6 different voices at the same time, I think it kind of works for this one. Due to the darkness of the song and due to how the stage is lit, it doesn't come across that weird that she's alone on it.

Russia

It's pretty much the same as before, with the difference that Sergey is a lot more sweaty today. I still think the performacne is way too much. Especially as the projection screen doesn't always work perfectly. The "steps" that are supposed to be invisible, are very much visible. And the projections are a little bit off-sync sometimes. Still time to fix that though.

If this performance had been in any other year, it would REALLY have stood out. But since about half of the entries this year are using some kind of 3D projections or holograms, this staging may not come across as impressive as they had hoped. But Sergey does really manage to sing it well enough in spite of all the climbing he has to do. Something not everyone using similar staging effects manage to do. And I'm pretty sure it's by far competent enough to get the votes of everyone who already love Sergey and the song. In the countries where he's already popular I can't see him getting much lower scores than a 12. The problem is though, so far I haven't really heard anyone who isn't a Eurovision fan or a Sergey fan say that they like the song... And will this performance convince them?

The not-press opinion - BUL, DEN, UKR, NOR, GEO, ALB, BEL

Quick overview
Two great rehearsals from Ukraine (already shows in the betting odds) and Belgium (biggest improvement). Bulgaria and Norway delivered with neither positive or negative surprises. I'm reading negative comments on Poli's outfit but in the actual performance it's quite okay. Georgia made a good impression and their camera effects allow them to keep their hope intact. Albania was mediocre and static and Denmark was overly boring and with vocal issues.

Belgium

Aha. Much dance. She appears with 4 dancers, 2 males 2 females and they walk towards us as the stage is filled with yellow circles and many colours, but not blue! The circles are more like small suns (red in the centre). There is a lot of things happening; the dancers stand on two pairs of stairs as Laura really rocks it! She is dancing either alone or together with the dancers in a pyramid shape. Vocally she manages to keep it going, with some few weak notes, because of being out of breath. The stage is yellow-orange the whole 3 minutes. She is great during the bridge ("Come on, Stockholm!"). The dancers recede to the left side of the screen and join her for a quick little dance move as it ends. Good reaction from the centre. She was really good. It was hard writing about this, there's really a lot going on, but it's not too much somehow.

Had to watch this closer to the screen carefully and update you after I organise my thoughts. The best parts are when she's singing and the backing singers&dancers are around her. It comes across very natural and fresh. This time she added another line to the bridge as she was walking down the catwalk to get her final position ("I want to see all of those hands!"). The camerawork is also well thought out, with all the important moves being captured and shown nicely. Vocally... she strains quite a lot of notes, she was worse than the first time. Maybe this won't play much role during the performance. I couldn't tell if they have another backing singer hidden somewhere.

Same again. Very up-lifting. The choreography is very complicated and she is doing around three quarters of what the dancers do. The little ending dance is really cool and should look great with the audience.

Summary: Great performance, making the small vocal problems secondary. Also, she doesn't really miss any notes or have any bad moments, the only issue is that she sounds very strained sometimes (and also looks that way in a few cases). It's a pity this comes after the similarly coloured Albania, because otherwise it would be even more obvious how much it stands out from the other very similar backgrounds. In conclusion, they 've really lifted this two classes above what it was and they are totally qualifying. One of the brightest rehearsals of the week, for sure.

Albania

Her mic is muted and the music stops after 10 seconds. She is wearing a white jacket, with a floral blouse underneath and black pants. Could that be the real outfit? She holds the mic in her right hand, standing in the centre of the stage interacting (well) with the camera. She's totally static. The floor has some yellow dots (stars?). The vocals seem to be an issue during the high notes in the first chorus. A quick shot of the backings (the stage position of which I can't really spot). Better but not flawless vocals in the second chorus, while the backings are doing some "ooh-ohh"s (or are they "moo-moo"s?). And then it ends. Meh.

I've come to like the outfit. Some (maybe too many) hand moves in the first verse. This time I spotted the backings on her right side. Again problems with the high notes in the chorus. She's all alone in those. Literally, she is standing in the same position at the centre of the stage for 3 minutes. The stage is also quite static, with just some minor parts regularly changing from the usual yellow/gold colour to purple/blue. Not much else to write about this.

Watched it closer this time. I don't understand why such a static performance was not matched with a microphone stand.

Summary: Similar staging to last year, a bit worse song, a bit better singer. She has her good camera interaction to go for her. But then, everything else about it is really toned-down. As vastly different from preceding Georgia as it may be, I doubt it will make an impact to the average viewer/jury member.

Georgia

There's something. They are using camera effects that deform the picture (imagine deforming mirrors in an amusement park). It is certainly interesting to say the least. Apart from that, black and white turning to pink and blue, a typical staging with three guitar players, one being the singer and a drummer. He throws the hat and nothing much happens during the faster part, except a total epilepsy alert with yellow, light blue and green beams of light all over the stage. More camera effects and then it suddenly ends in pink and light blue lights.

The deforming effect is better implemented this time. Serious epilepsy alert during the fast part. Then, for the instrumental, the camera turns to a pan from above, showing pink patterns (square and diamond shapes). The ending is extremely abrupt. I'm not sure it will look good with the audience, as the fast part gives in to a very slow and motionless ending.

Nothing different. A bit painful for the eyes to watch 3 times in a row.

Summary: They have come up with something interesting and that's progress. I don't think anything like this has ever happened on the ESC stage at least, so it is quite original. All the visual noise distracts from the audial noise, but I'm not sure that's enough for someone to vote for them. It's good that they are trying and they managed to at least not get ruled out after this rehearsal.

Norway

Here for her second run. I expected this to be the same as in the NF, but it's not. She starts in a white dress, slightly glowing in the bottom. A dancer is to her right, about 5 metres away. They are standing on square platforms. Agnete leaves her own at the end of the verse and sings the chorus in generally close shots, while the dancer is visible to her right in the background. Perfectly finds the camera every time. The stage is blue with white light beams filling it during the chorus. The bridge is really good, as the camera slowly approaches her before leaving her during the high note. More white light beams and a star pattern on the floor. Really good vocals. The end is simple, with just her in the middle of the stage. Missed when/if the dancer left the stage.

The squared platforms have small white lights on them. A small Georgia 2015 Final problem, as the dry ice drowns both Agnete and the dancer. I do believe that the act might be relevant to her condition, as the dancer acts weirdly, in response to Agnete's moves. More dry ice during the ending. She was a bit tired vocally this time, however she looks comfortable and it's very pleasant seeing her happily smiling after it's over.

Summary: I've liked it from the start and I'm positive to the change in the staging. Even though it's not as impressive from the first moment now, it is much classier and fits the song better. Also, no way this will come across as cheap, like an actual prop might have been. She's good with the camera and there doesn't seem to be any problem of different nature with her. I hope she does well, she both needs it and deserves it.

Ukraine

Wait, is this Zlata? Similar hair and pose for the beginning. After the first few lines in total black, some colour finally on-stage! She is standing on a flower-shaped graphic with yellow, green and other colours. For the second verse it turns red and the backdrop is black-blue with medium-large red shapes (supposedly blood drops). The camera moves really slowly. The wow moment comes for her shout. The red shape slowly goes colourful again and during the high note it quickly becomes white and rises, creating a tree/fountain effect in the backdrop. Very very impressive! The end shot is just her, as the backdrop has turned dark again. Vocals perfect, I have a feeling she held back for the high note though.

Second run and some more effects for the first few lines. It appears there is a watery effect behind her in a light shade of blue (almost turqoise). Not entirely fitting, but attractive to the eye from the first second. The way she slowly moves her body and the way the camera follows that move is magical. The high-note effect is clearly a tree (yellow branches with blue flowers at the very ends). End shot of her almost smiling and looking beautiful.

More of the same. The watery beginning is more like a square water box that she's walking out from. The flower pattern is yellow in the centre, blue-green points in the circumference and red endings (representing Ukraine bleeding, I may guess?). Not holding back vocally at all this time. The backings are good as well. The tree is visibly collapsing in the background towards the end, before the final shot.

Summary: This has reached the peak of what was expected from them. Graphics were stunning and she connected with them and the camera in an excellent way. Predictions are tough this year, but I can't see this missing top-5. Could be winning the semi as well.

Denmark

Everyone here is delighted, as the song first doesn't start and then gets cut exactly when the chorus kicked in! Well, it finally starts again and they are there with the white neon microphone stands. Vocally some problems in the chorus (at the high parts). Oh, the stage is as blue as it has ever been, by the way. Seems it is an identical performance to their NF, with roughly the same camera angles as well. For the last chorus they are using the catwalk, but totally not to the rhythm. Very weird dancing while on the final square of the catwalk which shows expanding squares. Very unimpressive and very similar to Ireland, bar the microphone stands and x3.

Second run and trying to find something more positive to right. Well, the vocals are getting better and the ending makes a bit more sense, though still very sudden. They smiled somewhat more as well.

Final chance for them to improve. Vocals keept getting better but they are still not convincing. At times they are covered by their backings. They are good at making all the camera angles. But then again they've been doing this since February. Some more jumping during the last part after the catwalk.

Summary: Really boring, identical to the NF performance and average vocals. This is pretty much everything about it. A huge downpoint after Bulgaria. They need to fix their dancing after the catwalk part, it's very out of rhythm and they are not synchronised at all. Lots of issues and lack of energy.

Bulgaria

Close up shot of her and she is wearing huge ear jewellery in her left ear that reminds me of the "accelerate" signs in racing games. She's dressed in black and her hair drops to her right side only. The shot widens and the backdrop is mainly blue/black but filled with little starry dots (think the 2010 logo) so it is lighter. Poli is all alone on stage, accompanied only by figures dancing on the backdrop during the chorus. She does a weird move with her legs every time the chorus starts (there must be a name for it, but the only thing I can compare it to is the Las Ketchup last move during the chorus of Asereje). Some close-up shots seem to work well on-screen, although she doesn't hit most of them. For the last chorus, the backings appear from the right side of the stage and join her as they sing together. What initially looked as knee protectors turns out to be white neon lights that are turned on for the last part. It ends a bit abruptly, but people here react very well.

The dancing is not "diva-esque" at all, rather comes across as simple and contemporary. Better camera-work and manages to hit all the shots. Vocals are really good as well, a bit breathy at parts, but that's reasonable. They are trying for the backings to be a bit lower in the mix (both in volume and in tone). Not sure this works that well, although it gives an interesting result. The end pose is left fist in the air for Poli and the five backings placed in a straight line.

The close-up shot a bit different this time, with her having closed eyes and not openin them until the shot changes. Don't like this change, cause it takes too much time for her to have the first eye-contact with the camera. Oops, a backing came in one sec too early. Some green lights this time, before and during the second verse (not sure if they were there before). It's impressive that the dress is that long and complicated and yet doesn't bother her dancing, actually helping her do some moves. The backings are again low in the mix in the last part, which is short but again I'm not really sure if it's correct, it steals some of its power.

Summary: Great first rehearsal, it appears they've managed all they wanted to achieve. Everything about it is very thought through and yet avoids coming across as too calculated. It lacks the 'wow' factor though. The lighting knee/shoulder/thigh-protectors thing is not so noticeable, certainly not after having seen it once already.

(A much more crowded fan zone at the press centre today. Sitting a bit farther away from the screen compared to other days, so expect me to miss even more!)

Day 3 - Last set - FYR Macedonia, Lithuania and Australia

AUSTRALIA

Before the rehearsal

The song has certain similarities with "Undo" and is the kind of powerballad that is normally quite easy to stage. The challenge is probably to stage it in a way that doesn't come across as something that's too similar to what has already been done before. Dami is a strong singer and I don't expect her to have any problems. I'm curious to see what they've chosen to do regarding backing singers.

Just had some secret information that Dami's backing singers are no other than Anna Sahlene and Dea Norberg. Dea being a very frequent backing singer in Eurovision, and Anna Sahlene simply being Sahlene :D Let's hope we get to see them.

Rehearsal

Dami is on the floor in a VERY sparkly silvery/white dress.
No, actually, it turns out she's not on the floor, but sitting on a large blocky pedestal. Which is also extremely glittery.
And. She has holograms projections (surprise surprise!) They're sort of random shapes that she moves around with her hands. For the last chorus she's helped down from the podium and walks around the stage a bit. Her dress is very princessy but pretty as it catches the wind machine. It has a very large shoulder piece on one side, and it makes her look a bit hunched sometimes. She may need to work on elongating her neck.

Vocally it's mostly fine. Towards the end there were some strained notes, but possibly just the result of Dami holding back for the rehearsal. The backing singers are pretty loud in the mix, but nowhere to be seen.

Second time around. The podium is is lit up and shiny front the start this time. And there's more lights on Dami too. It also shows off the dress better. But instead the hologram stuff are less visible. She hits all the notes even better this time. Unlike the studio version, there's a LOT of wailing going on in the last chorus. Dami is wailing, and the backing singers sing the lead melody. Which works really well.

My conclusion is that they've definitely managed to come up with a staging that's a lot more exciting than what power ballads of this genre have had in Eurovision before. The holograms are a bit unnecessary, but otherwise it's all looking really good. And sounding really good.



LITHUANIA

Donny starts off alone on a dark stage with a spotlight focusing on him. He sings the first verse rather shakily, while doing some spins and things. As the chorus kicks in the stage lights change a little bit. And he does a little bit of dancing. There's some starry-sky-looking backdrop effects. He remains completely alone on stage. The backing vocals can be heard very prominently, but not seen.
There's also a small trampoline that he briefly uses.

Vocally the first run-through was quite bad. There were a lot of off-key notes. Maybe he'll improve. But vocally it was probably the worst rehearsal so far today.
The performance itself came across as rather minimalistic. This is a prime example of when hiding the backing singers makes no sense at all. He could really have needed more people on stage to make this performance come to life. Right now it's just Donny running across an empty stage all by himself, and mostly it just looks as if they didn't make much of an effort with this.

Second time, and his vocals are a bit better. The stage graphics do look quite good, but there's just nothing very exciting about it. Except maybe for that one tiny jump on the trampoline.

One more run-through, and he changes his clothes. He's wearing a white oversized neoprene jacket that looks like something one goes jogging in. Not sure if he just got cold, or if it's part of what he's planning on wearing next week.


FYR MACEDONIA

Missed the first one, because we were out getting sushi and etceteras. But got back in time for the second run-through.

The stage is looking pretty nice but simple. There's some circular podium-looking graphics on the floor underneath Kaliopi that looks a bit like a digital donut (did someone misunderstand the title?). Or maybe it's supposed to be a Q?

Unlike many other singers, Kaliopi has decided to acknowledge that she has backing singer and has been polite enough to have them on stage with her. Four female backings are on the left side of the stage, and a drummer is on the right side. Kaliopi is in the middle and stays in position for most of the performance. She's wearing a black baggy top and black trousers. It's all rather shapeless and not doing any favours for her figure. So it better not be the real outfit.

The stage is first grey-ish, and then switches to gold, yellow and orange tones with flames on the screens at the back. For the second verse it then switches back to blue and grey. During the instrumental section the cameras pan over the audience and switches to different parts of what's now just empty chairs. But will probably look a lot more exciting once there's a crowd in Globen.

Vocally Kaliopi is mostly fine. In the second run she had problems with her earpiece and had to do the Zaleilah-point to get it fixed. It meant that she was very off-sync in the first chorus, but quickly managed to get back on track. She's a pro, after all. At the end she tries to do a high-pitched falsetto scream (similar to what she did in Crno i belo) but it seems as if she can't quite pull it off this time. But it might just be the rehearsal-effect. The backing singers sing well and also lift the song quite a lot.

Overall, the performance itself is visually nothing special. Not much happens, and just like the song, the staging and choreography could just as well have been in Eurovision 1992. But that's also what suits the song, and it's not trying to be something that it isn't. The focus is on the song and on Kaliopi, and that's probably what's best for this kind of entry. But just like with Ireland, it may still struggle with being memorable enough to make people pick up the phone and vote for it.

The not-press opinion - SRB, IRL, MKD, LTU, AUS

Australia

Blue city lights. She's wearing a silver dress and lies mermaid-style on a glittering blue box. The dress glitters as well. It sounds *perfect*. She lifts the key during the second verse. And then a high note before the second chorus. She's only just sitting there but it looks mystical. She's down from the box helped by two guys during the bridge. Perfect vocals and the high notes sound awesome. She's moving a bit forward. She has given it all, which is kind of risky, I think she will not strain herself as much in the other two. This is pleasing to the eye and the ear.

Looks like no-one else agrees with me. Not sure how biased I am about it, but let's keep going.

The 3D effects are just there, don't really see the point of their existence. That's the only "negative" thing I can say about it. It's really, really pleasing (apparently even more if it's one of your favourites anyway!).

A bit more expressive in the last run and held back vocally. She's also satisfied, a big smile.

Summary: What I wanted it to be like, could have had just a tad more movement from her (it takes too long to leave the box). And the projections stuff does not really give anything to the song and happens too fast to understand. Apart from all this, it is really convincing and certainly a challenger for gold. See the odds shortening the next few hours.

Lithuania

Donny Montell is around 5 years younger than in 2009. He's alone on stage and dancing awkwardly in the beginning. Everything's blue and some dots, supposedly stars, appear. After the second chorus, it suddenly becomes more colourful. A prop appears, but he doesn't use it (?). He hasn't been very good vocally so far, then he goes melisma on the last part and somehow sounds okay. I guess he is not good at holding a tune, but he is good at "inventing" tunes? Nothing much, really. It was basically a blue Ireland.

Shaky start again, and his moves are of a poor man's Måns :) He even has his legs a bit wider apart than normal. The performance is very energetic, but the energy is inefficiently used. No point in carrying a prop (a tiny trampoline) if you are going to use it for 1 jump. It was a bad idea to have him alone on stage, the backing vocals could have appeared towards the end, when he does his solo.

The vocals have improved, or in more honesty, he skips the notes he knows won't happen. The moves keep looking a bit out of place. And then the prop is finally used. He does a backflip and smoke comes off from both sides of the trampoline as he is landing. More smoke and then it ends.

Summary: A bad decision to be alone on stage, but if he qualifies again, all credit goes to him. Coming after Macedonia is a plus for them, but then there's Australia after them, of which a classier staging is expected. The vocals are not perfect, however they've managed to make it less noticeable. And the melismatic part was flawless all three times.

Macedonia

Blue background and black clothes for her, her 4 backings and her drummer. Very strong voice and it's well performed. She knows how to make a live performance; she isn't trying to imitate the studio version, but finds ways to give some more life to it. Unfortunately, these ways include a very bad wail at the end. It plans on making the song more impressive but it comes across a bit forced. Literally zero movement on stage, except for some hand moves, on which I'll focus in the next run.

Turns out that this was the last run (McDonalds is far more time-consuming than expected).

Summary: Can't properly judge it, but it looked flat and unexciting. They haven't done anything to try and improve its chances. It's a much worse song than her other effort, so I don't think they are qualifying, based on what I've seen.

Ireland

Nicky appears in a red beam of light behind him on stage, wearing a brown-red jacket and black pants. He's a bit shaky at first but by the chorus the backings do their job quite well. Some problems along the next verse again. Nothing's really going on on-stage, with a drummer, a guitar and a keyboard player standing around him. No sight of the very audible female vocalists. The stage is too red, almost Dum Tek Tek red. It comes across as a filler, unfortunately and his voice doesn't do them any favours.

During the second verse the backdrop turns blue (innovation alert) and then back to red. Vocals much better this time round. He walks on the catwalk towards the end, with the last shot being him standing with the fist in the air. Improvement overall.

The place where he stands in the catwalk for the last few seconds has a very flamy sun on. No more improvement this time.

Summary: It is a very ordinary performance and it will probably be lost in this semi. There's not much going for him, although the catwalk was an effort to make him seem somehow charismatic and audience-friendly; this doesn't work. He needs to relax, smile a bit more and manage to hit some camera shots.

Serbia

Arrived just in time for her second (?) rehearsal. Sanja's dress is gorgeous, is there an opposite of the Barbara Dex award? I hope she actually wears this. Her strange moves have been reduced and the performance is much less weird; or I'm getting too much used to it already. A blue flower/star shape appears on the floor during the chorus. The staging reminds of Molitva's a lot, as expected. There is also a male dancer who acts like he wanted to be a female backing singer. Sanja misses one high note but rocks the ending.

Last run. The concept seems to be that she tries to escape the guy. She makes good eye-contact with the camera, as long as her eyes don't make the weird things. The dancer's moves are a bit too "aerobic" for the atmosphere at some parts. She fails the high note before the last chorus once again and makes the final note once again. The backings are staged identically to Molitva towards the end.

Summary: Well, it is much more polished and much less busy than I expected. She appears to be cool on stage and they are doing something that they've tried before and won. It should be safe, however the twice missed note is a bit concerning. Hopefully she will make it on the night (or they can skip it otherwise, because there is nothing else really wrong with this).

Day 3 - Taking a look at Belarus, Serbia and Ireland

IRELAND


Before the rehearsal

The song is quite different from everything else this year, so it has the possibility of grabbing some votes just based on that. I expect the performance will also just be a rather simple one, which suits the genre. Nicky isn't bad looking, so they don't need a lot of distraction. We've seen him being a bit shaky vocally in the past though, so that's probably their main challenge to overcome.

Rehearsal

Barbara Dex Award alert again!
Black jeans, brown boots (when was that ever a good match?) and a leather jacket with some black bits, some bits of brown suede, and some red parts. It's not silly or ridiculous. It's just a very very ugly combo.

The stage is switching between red/pink colours and dark/blue. He is joined by a drummer, a guitarist and a keyboard player on podiums. They also seem to sing. But we can hear female voices as well, so there's probably more people behind the stage.

Vocally quite ok, actually. Although I couldn't quite tell because Hovi Star and about 9 members of the Wiwibloggs team are in an interview room next to where we're sitting at the moment. But it seemed a lot better than some previous performances that he's done. I would say the main problem with this performance is rather that it comes across as rather boring. It doesn't exactly scream "Remember Me!", and there's no really anything happening at all. Which could of course be a good thing, especially in a year where most of the other entries have so much happening on stage. Will have to watch this again to get a better impression of it.

Nicky sings it again, and this time I was able to focus less on the jacket, and more on the singing. And yes, it's really not that strong, but the backing vocals do back him up a lot. It's almost a bit like with Jedward, when we basically heard Leanne Moore's voice more than the actual lead singers. And the harmonies do work quite nicely.

It still comes across as quite boring visually though. The stage is mostly very very red. He mostly walks around the stage and eventually walks out to the end of the catwalk. That's about it.

No applause in the press centre.



SERBIA

Before the rehearsal

I was preoccupied and forgot to write something here before I saw the rehearsal. Sorry :-)


Rehearsal

Sanja is at the centre of the stage, which is lit with tones of red and blue. And the edge of the stage has the Undo-styled light pillars. Simple but effective. Sanja is dressed in a rather interesting dress with a printed landscape on it, but it doesn't look like it would be her performance costume.

Behind Sanja there's 4 female backing singers who start off standing in a half circle behind her, doing synchronised arm choreography with Sanja. Later they move to one side of the stage and do a more complicated choreography which involves a lot of grabbing of shoulders and other body parts. And towards the end the backing singers move back and stand right behind Sanja. It's rather reminiscent of the choreography of Molitva.

With one major difference. There's also a male dancer. He appears after the first chorus, and tries to grab Sanja. She over and over again pushes him away. He then moves on to try the same thing with the backing singers, and they also reject him. Basically, as the song seems to be about getting out of a bad relationship with domestic abuse, he's clearly playing the part of the violent ex, and she's now strong enough to push him away. It might sound messy, but I think it worked quite well. They could easily have overdone it, but they didn't.

Vocally Sanja was perfect, and the backing singers were very strong too.She doesn't quite hit all the camera angles yet, but hopefully she will later. Both the first and the second run-through was met with an applause from the press centre.






BELARUS

Before the rehearsal

I think the only question in people's minds right now is whether there will be wolves of any kind. and whether Ivan will be naked. I assume he will not. But a bit (or lot) of skin would surely not hurt to make this song memorable. The song itself shouldn't be difficult to perform live, as long as he's given the right amount of backing singers and doesn't try to do anything too complicated vocally.
Whenever Belarus send rock-inspired entries they tend to make pretty lame stagings that don't really do much to help the song stand out. Let's see if they've come up with something that is a bit more interesting than Hasta La Vista or Eyes That Never Lie


Rehearsal

Projections are really THE most over-used prop this year. The song starts off with a video projection of a naked Ivan and a wolf. They both then turn into dust (or stars) just like Greta's silhouettes do, and instead the real Ivan is seen. He's in a beige linen blazer over a beige shirt. His extremely long legs are dressed in beige trousers of some material that might almot be some kind of leather. The only non-beige thing in his outfit are dark high military boots. And he has the white face-paint stripes that we've seen before.


The screens behind him show images of wolves as well as very badly animated people walking around looking a bit like Neanderthals. There's also additional sheer hologram screen which he at one point steps behind, which means he can interact with one of the holograms.
The floor also has projections and at one points it gives the effect of Ivan standing on blocks of ice. Very similar to some of the Russian projections.

And at the very end of the song, the screen behind him shows an image of a huge baby. Stumbling towards the camera. In a diaper. It's rather cute but totally awkward.
Needless to say, this got mostly laughter from the press centre rather than an applause.

Second run-through. Some things I didn't notice before. The hologram screen also at one point shows a drummer, and then a guitarist. Which are actually Ivan himself, dressed in different clothes and with his hair done differently. Basically instead of having a  real band on stage, he's got holograms instead.
He does have backing singers though, but not on stage.

Vocally, Ivan is mostly fine but there's a few notes that aren't 100 %. But probably not bad enough for the average viewer to notice.

It's really hard to tell how this performance will be received. Just like the Russian projectiongavanza, it's doing SO many things all at once. But there's certainly a lot of cool parts. Especially the part where it looks like Ivan is standing on a solid block of ice floating in the air over a river of moving sheets of ice. (Or whatever they are). Unlike Sergey who had to climb a screen to reach his block of ice, Ivan just has to stand on the floor, and the 3D effects are doing the rest of the work.

Day 3 - Poland, Switzerland and Israel

Tom is doing the main blogging at the moment, so I'll just post some brief comments on the rehearsals I'm seeing.



Israel

Hovi is on stage in a black suit with glittery black gloves and shoes, glittery black shirt and a glittery black microphone stand. He's joined on stage by two acrobats spinning around in a large hoola hoop. Yes, one hoola hoop. They're both inside it. Though at one point the stop spinning and look like they began arguing instead, which is probably not part of the performance.

The stage, of course, has star-themed graphics. There's a big star on the floor surrounding Hovi, and there's stars behind him. The stage is mostly black except for the stars which are in shades of blue. It's a little bit like a darker and prettier version of Chiara's starry sky from 2009.

Vocally he's doing what he should. And the backing vocals are loud and sing well too. We can't actually see them though, as they aren't on the stage. But since there's three people on stage already, I assume it means that he has three backing singers.


Second run. The acrobats once again stop their spinning and look like they're arguing. So it's probably part of the act after all.

Also, Hovi is wearing a lot of make-up. Which is no surprise. But you'd think that someone who wears make-up more or less all the time, would actually make sure to wear good make-up?
On the big screens here we can see every piece of powder and foundation on his face very visibly, and it's all looking quite cakey. Something which hasn't been an issue with any of the previous singers, so it's not just the strong lights. Let's hope they fix that for next tuesday.

Last run-through. Now with pyro. The EXACT SAME PYRO as for Switzerland (i.e. the Running Scared Golden Shower). 

Switzerland

Rykka comes on stage and reveals that today's hair colour is blue. Due to the lights the blue hair most of the time looks dark grey though. They may need to do something about that. Unless they want "Last Of Our Kind" to come across as if it's a song about pensions and euthanasia.

She's completely alone on stage. It would probably have been a good idea to have the backing singers visible somewhere instead, because the stage looks very big and she's looking very small. Although maybe that's the idea, because it sort of almost fits the theme of the song. She also has smoke coming out from the back of her dress. Basically as if she has cigarettes in her bra straps. 

Vocally I would say that she's surprisingly ok though! Even in the last chorus which has a lot of difficult notes.

Last run-through, and she now has pyro as well. The "Running Scared"-kind. It's all looking very nice, and once again she manages to hit all the notes. If they can only dye her hair in a less grey shade of blue, this will all be quite perfect visually.  I would dare to say that this rehearsal really lifted the song quite a lot. It even got an applause in the press centre. Of course, whether it will be enough for a qualification or not is a totally different matter. But at least it seems that it will be presented in a nice way.


Poland

Got to the press centre in time to see the last two run-throughs of Poland.  Michal was in black trousers and a black tank top that revealed that he has quite muscular arms. That could possible be a good idea for the actual performance outfit as well. If you've got arms like that, then why not wear them?

Day 2 - Bosnia-Herzegovina, Malta & Sweden

 Sweden

Before the rehearsal

I don't really expect Sweden to change at all from the staging in the Melodifestivalen final. Every year the Swedish team report that they've made changes and adjustments, and every year we don't really see them. I expect that it will just be some minor camera angle that's changed, or possibly he's wearing different trousers or so. But if we're lucky they'll be giving us a surprise. Maybe even visible backing vocalists?
However, the old staging was clearly effective, and there's no real need to fix something that isn't broken.


Rehearsal

Yes, it's basically the same as in Melodifestivalen. He's got the screen with the lights behind him, creating various shapes and words. And he's walking around the stage in the same way, "missing" the same cameras as before. It works, of course.

I couldn't spot any of the backing singers in the first run-through, so they're presumably placed behind the stage or behind the screen. 

One main difference is that for the last chorus he walks out onto the catwalk and sings the rest of the song from the end of it.

There's not really much else to say about this. If you wanna see a video of the rehearsal you can basically watch the Melodifestivalen one. He is wearing different clothes now, but they're probably not what he'll wear in the final.



Malta


Before the rehearsal

The Maltese song, as many others this year, relies heavily on lots and lots of backing vocals. We already know that Molly P-H will be one of them, and that she (due to her own request) and the other backing singers will most likely be hidden behind the stage. Four backing singers isn't really enough to re-create the big gospel sound of the studio version, but it should be close enough. What might be a bigger challenge is to make sure Ira doesn't feel lost on stage and that it doesn't come across too much like a karaoke performance when she's all alone singing together with a choir that the viewers can't see. Some props or somethning else to fill up the stage and distract from the fact that only one out of five vocalists can be seen, might be a good idea.

Rehearsal

First run-through. Ira has HUGE images of her own face on the backdrop screens in the beginning. And then as she starts singing we see her face... projected on the cloak of a dancer who stands in front of her. Then halfway through the verse we get to see the real her, dressed in a very baggy light brown dress that is either hiding lots of clothes underneath, or a pregnant belly. Makes her chest look very ill-shaped somehow. The cress also has some sort of LED or light effects going on.
And yes, towards the end the bulky dress comes off and  she's in a black mini dress instead.
Ita's choreography is mainly to walk around the stage a bit. She's sometimes standing inside an image of a blue swirly thing on the floor, which is probably meant to represent the water she's walking on. 

Vocally, Ira sings it fine. No problems at all on that part. The backing vocals are rather low in the mix, and I wish we'd hear them better.
The oh-oh-oh-oh-oh wail before the last chorus is clearly done by somebody who isn't Ira. Might be Molly.

But most importantly, the chipmunk vocal sample effect from the studio version is STILL THERE. Either they found some way to do it live (but it doesn't sound like it) or the backing track features a pre-recorded backing vocal. Someone will probably have some explaining to do here...


Second run-through now. The potato-peel-coloured projection dress really is one of the most hideous dresses I've seen. It's so bulky that it makes it look like she doesn't have boobs, but rather just a chicken breast on the front of her torso. Nina Kraljic suddenly got some serious competition for the Barbara Dex Award.

But vocally it's really good, and as long as they get the mixing levels right it should sound basically the way it's supposed to sound. The choreography itself is working quite decently too. The male dancer is spastically dancing around Ira in what looks a little bit like what Loreen's dancer did, but he doesn't distract too much from the song. I would say that the dress is the only problem now. Hopefully they'll realise that themselves once they go to the viewing room.


Bosnia-Herzegovina


Before the rehearsal

The song is very much like the kind of thing that used to do really well 10 years ago. Montenegro has had mediocre success with similar songs recently, but the question is if Bosnia can manage to stage this in a more interesting and original way than the Montenegrins did with their recent balkan ballads.
If they want to recreate it to sound like in the studio version they'll also be depending on good backing vocals, as there's quite a lot of them in the recording. And visually there might be a challenge to make all four members of the group really seem like they're part of the performance and not four random people doing their own thing.

Rehearsal

The Bosnians just took the stage. Some of them are dressed in golden tinfoil cloaks. Or maybe it's thermal blankets? I m not sure what the symbolism might be. But it seems the general theme is gold. Deen is wearing golden high-top sneakers, and most of the things that seem to be items that they're meant to wear in the actual performance are sort of gold. So is the cello.

The barbed wire fence is there, and kind of just like Chanee and Nevergreen were positioned on each side of their screen, so are Deen and Dalal. And they sing towards each other through the fence, sometimes reaching through with their arms trying to reach each other. Clearly lots of symbolism here.

Vocally I thought they were fine. Deen and Dalal's harmonies work well together, and the backing vocals, situated further back, are doing what they should.

Second run-through. Vocally steady again.  During the instrumental break after the first chorus, Ana stands up and drops her cloak. Once Jala enters the stage, wearing sunglasses, the camera mostly focuses on him interacting with Ana while Deen and Dalal stand stind at the back of the stage. And then in the final chorus all four of them are together at the front.

Overall I would say that they've staged it quite well. It's not trying to be a different song than it is, but yet not trying to just do a typical Lane Moje/Lejla-staging. It feels like they're doing something that is new, but without over-staging it or distracting from the song. The only thing that does't make any sense to me yet is the choice of costumes.


Ana Rucner's outfit. More or less.

Last rehearsals of the day. San Marino and Russia

 We had a quick break to pop over to McDonalds to get something unhealthy to eat. On the way we made sure to ask the security people about what we've all been wondering. And yes, this year it *is* allowed to bring food into the press centre. That should be very handy, considering the food available here isn't very exciting.

Let's see what the last two rehearsals bring us...



Russia

Before the rehearsal

Vocally I'm sure this will be fine. All they have to do is a professional performance and not make it too messy, and it should be all right. Let's see what they've come up with

Rehearsal

So. The performance is basically all based on a project screen behind him. It's a mix of Iceland this year. Sweden last year. And Ukraine 2012. And Ukraine 2008. And Belarus 2007. Imagine all of those mixed together.

Sergey first is on the floor and the screen gives him wings and does a lot of stuff behind him. Then he starts climbing the screen, as there's things sticking out of it. At one moment he got quick high up on it and was lying down on something... but then he fell down, and they cut the live feed. Not sure if he injured himself, but hopefully the fall wasn't too bad.

Let's see how the next run-through go, if they do another one

Here we go again. He seems to be fine. He's wearing pretty plain black clothes.

The screen is white and has black shadows creating wings, and then in the first chorus there's thunder and lighting on the screen. Halfway through the first chorus 4 male dancers appear as well.

The screen ha some sort of invisuble steps that he's climbing around, which gives the illusion that he's walking on blocks and pieces of icebergs and whatnot. And eventually he ends up at the very top, as the screen turns into a sun.
It's really a LOT going on, and it's very hard to describe it all.

And at the very end, his one female backing singer walks out from behind the screen and grabs the sun in her hands.

Yes. I realise this is quite vague. You just have to see it for yourselves eventually.

So, is the staging going to help it win? Well it's certainly a staging that gets noticed. It's impressive, and it's expensive. This performance could either go "Heroes" or it could go "Be My Guest". I really can't tell what it might be. The people who already love Sergey will presumably love this performance as well and think it's the best thing ever, and those who don't like him will think the opposite.





San Marino


Before the rehearsal

This song will obviously depend heavily on the backing vocals. They have long solo parts and are quite prominent in the rest of the song as well, so it'll be important that they are good. Hopefully they are able to sing and dance at the same time. And hopefully they've found a way to stage this to make Serhat actually seem like he belongs on that stage.

Rehearsal

There are five "real" backing singers/dancers. All female, and they carry their part quite well.

The song starts off with the five of them moving seductively on a podium in the back, with Serhat in the front slowly swaying his hips while trying to be seductive as well. Not too successfully.

Serhat is wearing white trousers and a blue jumper. Which is too short so when he lifts his arms we see his belly. Neither his clothes or the outfits of the girls are likely to be the real outfits. The girls are wearing silvery high heels though, which might give an indivation of the colour theme.

They're using a sort of hologram effect here too, to make it seem as if there's a lot of more dancers than there are. But unlike Armenia, it's just images on the LED screen.

The song ends with Serhat throwing his hat (The Serhathat?) into the audience.

Somebody will get rich on ebay.

Afternoon rehearsal. Croatia, Netherlands, Armenia

 Armenia

Before the rehearsal

The song is quite a difficult to sing live even for the most talented singer. So that will be a challenge. Good backing vocals will also be very crucial. Another challenge will clearly be how to stage the parts where she doesn't sing. But I'm very interested to see how they've chosen to do this.

Rehearsal

 Now. This staging REALLY impressed me. She's all alone on stage. But she has actual holograms of herself appearing in the instrumental bit. It didn't work perfectly, but compared to all previous attempts at doing holograms on stage in Eurovision this one really did it well.
She's wearing net-stockhings, a swimsuit-shaped outfit and a long flowy coat on top. Basically being sexy and tall without being too pornographic about it. And the stage is mainly dark and blue and very glittery. The floor looks like someone dropped a big bucket of glitter snow on it and couldn't find a broom.

The backing singers are clearly somewhere where they aren't seen. But unlike most performances that hide their backing singers, I think it worked quite well in this one. She CAN really fill up the stage all by herself. And with her holograms.
The vocals were also very good. Overall I would say that it was a very good rehearsal for Iveta.

Second run-through now. Will try to describe the performance a bit more in detail.
It starts off by a blurry shot of Iveta and then a close up of her chin (!), The first verse has a lot of various shows alterning between showing all of her or just various body parts. In the big swoopy part before the first chorus the lights around her go red while she does some stretching exercises , and then ... well, then in the first chorus she managed to tangle up the earpiece in her hair and had to ask for them to stop the music.

Here we go again... So, the first chorus and the first verse keeps the dark blue/grey colour theme. She leaves the mic stand halfway through and walks around a little bit. And at the end of the song she does a pose that looks a bit as if she's just been crucified.

Overall, I think this works really well visually. The staging is a little bit similar to Croatia in terms of colours, but Armenia does it a lot better.




The Netherlands


Before the rehearsal
The song is pretty straight-forward and I have no doubts that Douwe can handle the singing. I think that they will have to find a way to make the staging stand out and highlight the song well without making it too gimmicky. The Dutch have a history of not staging things too well... Except that one time when they got it really right, in 2014. If they can manage to do an equally good staging without copying it, this song can really grab the attention of the viewers. But if they go 3JS with it, it could quite easily be overlooked as well.



Rehearsal

First run-through.

The Mrs Einstein-ripoff intro has an accompanying clock on the floor that ticks along with the song. Douwe is in a blue suit and his band are in similar suits. The only tattoo that he shows off is his neck tattoo. There's a pianist, a guitarist, a bass player and a guy playing the drums. Pretty straight-forward band line up.

The stage keeps the clock on the floor for the rest of the song, and the rest of it is dark and gold.
During the guitar solo Douwe walks down the catwalk and sings the rest of the song from the end of it. 

Between the guitar solo and the last chorus there was a long piece of silence, which I first assumed was some mistake. But people are saying that it was actually planned, and that rumours have it that the silent part is an intentional addition where the idea is that Douwe will make the audience sing and clap along to the chorus, without any music. If this is true, it could probably either work great or fail terribly. Let's see if they give us any more clues in the next run-through.

Second time around... there's a lot of yellow Sanna-lights as well. And the drums are very glittery. Douwe manages to be charming in a very somber way. And his legs look extremely long in the slim suit, especially as there's a lot of camera shots from below.

They did the silent break before the last chorus again. This time it definitely did look intentional. It goes on for what's probably a full round of the chorus, so would make sense if they're indeed supposed to have the audience sing along there. But right now during the rehearsal Douwe is doing nothing at all, just standing waiting for the music to start again. So it's really hard to tell if this gimmick will work.


Croatia

Before the rehearsal

People have been worrying a lot about this. Will she sing it well? What will she wear? Will her hair stay in place?
What I hope is that they will not make something too ridiculous, and that she will sing it well. But to stand out they clearly also have to do something memorable, so it's a thin line.

Rehearsal

Nina just walked on stage and began her first rehearsals. She starts off wearing a HUGE sort of kimono dress. It's silvery and glittery and stiff and BIG. Like a hybrid between a Times Square Christmas tree ornament and an inflatable geisha pool toy. But in true Linda Wagenmarkers fashion it's ripped off a bit into the song and reveals normal clothes underneath. As in, clothes that probably aren't what she will be wearing.

Now a long break before the next run-through. This rehearsal created quite a buzz in the press centre, and people aren't really quite sure what to make of this. I guess the huge over-dress might possibly make more sense once she's wearing something proper underneath after the reveal. But that's probably just wishful thinking, because the clothes underneath will probably be just as ridiculous.

 Second run-trough. Can hear her voice a bit better now when there's less of a OMG ROFLMAO-noise from the press centre. She's not perfect but kind of "good enough for Eurovision" and definitely decent enough for a rehearsal.

The four backing singers are moving around the stage and doing some choreography, very much part of the act but still mostly in the dark.

Nina is mostly standing still in the centre front of the stage, doing some arm movements but with her silvery heels nailed to the floor.The stage itself is dark with tones of blue. The backdrop is quite discrete. Basically, this is probably visually supposed to be all about the clothes.

Some more about the dress... it's mainly made up of a glittery see-through meshy kind of fabric, with ornaments in the shapes of tree branches on it. It looks a bit like sea-weed and as if she's caught in a glameor fishnet. And the dress comes off as two parts, so there's probably a lot of velcro involved.

And not a single Ingeborg hair! I'm very disappointed.

Day 1 Rehearsals - Finland, Greece, Moldova, Hungary

 We're here at the press centre, ready to blog!

Hungary

Before the rehearsal

The song is quite a powerful ballad and Freddie has an interesting voice. I don't think it will have to rely too much on a spectacular performance to stand out. As long as the performance is competent and he sings it well, not more should be needed, in my opinion. And I'm hoping it won't be doing a Moldova and hide the backing singers... Because frankly, it's rather silly to do when the backing singers play such a prominent part in the song.

There's no feed at the moment. Not sure if it's because they have a break of because we just neither have sound or picture at the moment.

Rehearsal

The rehearsal started, and we had both picture and sound. For about a minute! Then it all died again.
The stage is basically very red. The floor looks a bit like dark red molten lava with black cracks in it. (That's the best description I can give). And Freddie had backing singers surrounding him on stage. That's about all I can tell from the brief part we got to see.

The stream is back! Freddie is wearing a light brown leather jacket over a light overlong t-shirt. Light-wash jeans with lots of rips and holes, and brown boots. He's got three male backing singers on the left side of the stage, and on the right side there's a guy beating on a huge drum which they probably stole from Suzy.

Vocally it's not 100 % but good enough. Basically, I would say that the performance is totally adequate for the song, and they could probably not have done much else with it to make it better without risking to distract from the song and from Freddie.

Suddenly there's one more run-through. The camera shots start off with a close up of Freddie (good idea) and then a close up of the drummer.  And then a close up of the backing singers as they do the whistle bits. There's actually a LOT of shots of the backing singers. Which would probably work better if they had actually rehearsed their choreography (which mostly just consists of swaying a bit back and forth and clapping along) a bit better. But in general it's all quite effective on camera and the performance comes across as effective without really doing much. 


Moldova

Before the rehearsal

Again, vocals could potentially be an issue, so what Lidia need to do is to nail them. And do a staging that doesn't feel too much like a Melodifestivalen entry from 2006. Hopefully they have also brought a bunch of competent backing singers to back her up, and to make sure she doesn't look lonely on stage.

Rehearsal

The first run-through just finished. Still no sound. But, Lidia has brought an astronaut with her! The guy (currently only wearing the helmet part of the costume) suddenly appears behind her without warning. It almost came across a bit frightening.

Lidia is wearing a potato-sack-coloured jersey dress, silvery jewellery and white jogging sneakers. I assume it's not her final performance outfit.
There's also a LOT of armpit-flashing here. And she did shave them. But about three days ago.

Apart from the astronaut, Lidia seems to be all alone on stage. Without the sound there's no way to tell if she's got backing singers hidden somewhere, but it seems quite likely.

Overall, the performance reminds me a lot of Montenegro 2009. A single woman with lots of hair alone on stage with a random dancer.

And... We've got SOUND!

As suspected, it's vocally a bit shaky. But she does have a stack of backing singers hidden somewhere, which help a lot. However, the fact that one can hear a lot of voices but only see one person (and a flailing astronaut) just makes her seem even more lonely on stage. She doesn't really have the energy or the big personality to pull off owning the stage all by herself.


Greece

Before the rehearsal

This song's biggest challenge will probably be the singing and the staging. In the studio version the girls are quite off, and songs like these tend to be difficult to stage. To present this well I think thy first of all have to nail th singing, but also stage it in a way that puts emphasis on the strong ethnic elements without feeling too much like it's 2005. Let's see how they do...


Rehearsal

First run-through... we get to hear the first few seconds. Which are voclly actually quite fine. Then the sound goes silent on the press centre stream (happens every year, nobody is even surprised anymore)

They are all dressed in white. But some of them in sweatpants, so unless they plan to really go chav with this, I assume it's not all their actual performance outfits.

There's a lot of "WE ARE GREEK"-styled choreography going on. Dancing in a line while holding hands and waving their feet like they're drunk drag queens who just broke a heel. Combined with lots of jumping (kind of like Serbia-Montenegro 2005) and stomping. And there's big drums (the kind that only really exists in Eurovision performances) and what I assume is a pontian lyra. Basically, nobody will miss the fact that this is Greece.

Second run-through and we still have no sound.
The stage is black and yellow/orange, with the backdrop and the floor displaying a moving animation of what looks a lot like that sun (or is it star?) of the original FYR Macedonian flag that the Greeks made them replace.

Personally, I quite like it visually though. I do hope they go for white outfits in their actual performance too. This is all very Eurovision, and it's not trying to be anything else. It could borderline coming across as a parody of a Greek Eurovision entry, but I find it hard not to enjoy it.

Still haven't actually heard the sound though, as there's still only a visual link. So this is all based on what can be seen. No clue if they're actually singing it well or not.


Finland

Before the rehearsal
The Finnish song "Sing it away" has always been more effective on stage than in the studio version. It's downfall may be that it tends to not stand out as much among all the songs. What I hope to see from the rehearsals is that they really give it all they have during the performance so it will really come through the camera and be an opener to remember rather than just another opener that people find nice enough but won't remember at the end of the show

Rehearsal
Sandhja just took the stage and did her first run-through. On time. She's wearing a baby-blue jumpsuit of what looks like some kind of faux suede-ish material, with bare shoulders and some open parts in the sides and the back. On top of it a silvery kind of necklace/harness. And sparkly flats.
Enough about her fashion sense.
Sandhja and her backing singers did what seems to be the full routine of the performance. Bascailly the performance opens up with Sandhja alone on stage, with a bunch of white microphone stands. Then as the first chorus kicks in the backing vocals appear from the door at the back of the stage and do a syncronated strut across the stage into the camera, joining Sandhja. Then there's a bunch of pretty simple but effectiviely joyful choreography. And a good use of the catwalk in the bridge.

Vocally Sandhja is steady but holding back a little bit. The five backing vocals are competent but for obvious reasons it doesn't sound as big as the studio version as that one has a million voices to create the gospely choir-sound.

Second run-through, after a looong break. Vocally good again. The stage is kind of dark and red-ish, colours which I don't think necessarily work with the actual performance and the outfits. Let's see if they change anything for the next one .

Third runthrough, and the colours are more blue this time. Which works a lot better.
And Sandhja has got herself several Ingeborg hairs by now. I assume that's intentional.