Semi-final 1 - Monday evening dress rehearsal

Tonight I'm having the pleasure of watching and blogging about what we used to call  the jury rehearsal for semi-final one.

Of course this year the importance of this rehearsal is slightly less dramatic. But backup juries will still be watching and voting. Who knows, tomorrow the televote will fail dramatically all over Europe and what happens tonight will turn out to be very important!

Jonas already blogged about the afternoon rehearsal. In case you missed it, go read it, and also be aware that BBC and EBU already announced they're not sticking to the alternative way of announcing the qualifiers, with all of them on stage. So, if they're going to rehearse that part tonight, it will be different from this afternoon and more like what we're used to.

Also don't forget that Germany, France and Italy will perform tonight as well. We're kicking off at 21:00 ESC Nation time, which is 8.00 p.m. in Liverpool (and 19:00 Reykjavík time, just saying).

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And we're off, right in time. BBC already posted the opening video on their channel so if you want a preview it's here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fm3z8r

The sound on this feed is extremely bad I must say, so it will be hard to judge how the artists are really sounding. The volume goes constantly up and down and the view is also very pixelated at times.

Julia, who doesn't know her, one of our hosts, is now singing in Ukrainian.

Not sure if it's the bad sound, but our hosts know how to shout. After saying the obligatory good night and good morning and some words in Ukrainian they explain why we're here and not in Ukraine.

Instead of the static list of countries with numbers we see pictures of all artists with flags. But it's all gone pretty quickly.

Oh, we still get to see the old-fashioned list with numbers later anyway. Hannah makes a joke about speaking French I didn't quite catch. Maybe tomorrow.


1. 🇳🇴 Norway
Alessandra sounds terrible! But so does everything so far. So it's probably not her fault and hopefully totally fixed tomorrow on tv. Having said that the high note's sound bad note can possibly not be blaimed on the stream. That was a bit off. Anyway nothing really surprising here visually. We've all seen this before I guess. Dark staging, lots of blue and gold towards the end.

2. 🇲🇹 Malta
First props of the night are cardboard Destiny, Fabrizio and Ira Losco. And there's a red car. They move from scene to scene through cardboard walls. Very Friend of A Friend in a way. Crowth loves it. It all looks a tiny bit messy, but also quite energetic. They're making the best of this I guess. There's also some text/animations on screen but they're not overdoing it.

3. 🇷🇸 Serbia
Starting off lying on the bed thing. The light is pretty bright and you can hardly see Luke. But it's fixed after the 'Hello?' part. I keep on pressing the volume up and down buttons because the stream changes volume every ten seconds, very annoying :-( Visually this is all not too different from the Serbian final. Halfway we're getting on screen gameplay animations. 

At the end of the Serbian entry we see the Latvian guys on screen standing by to enter the stage. 

4. 🇱🇻 Latvia
This starts off looking like a video with the big stage lights and quick shots. When the chorus kicks in it's more like a concert staging. Lots of cheers here as well from the audience. I may be biased as I'm a big fan of this song, but, apart from the bad sound, it looks pretty slick and it got a huge applause, best so far if the volume button is not deceiving me. Stage colours are mostly black and gold.

Small break after Latvia, indeed involving a rap part with references to Valentina Monetta and Måneskin and the rest passed me by a little. After the rap part a fake Cheryl Baker (let's call her Cheryl Faker) makes an appearance next to a typical British phone booth. It's not a very long break though.

yay, seems like they sort of fixed the sound a bit, fingers crossed

5. 🇵🇹 Portugal
I think Mimicat did a little Bettina Soriat after her first chorus. It's all very red. Halfway the song, during the slow break, Mimi walks down the catwalk which lights up in red, what else. They finish it altogether on the satellite stage. Again not too different from what we've seen before.

Again we see the next contestants waiting, but it seems to be a bit random when we get to see those.

There's a sudden eurovision.tv promotion after the Irish postcards which looks unplanned. Did they break a camera again? Alesha handles it professionally though, as if it were planned. 

Oh, we're now getting a ESC history video. So still no Wild Youth. Instead we see Jedward,  La Foureira, Salvador Sobral, Scooch and others. Oh, there's Chanel at last!

6. 🇮🇪 Ireland
No postcard, since we already had it, so Alesha just shouts 'make some noise for Ireland' and they start. 
They're clearly having earpiece issues and the singer (sorry forgot his name) looks very nervous and scared. Tajci style he visits all band members while singing. Before heading to the satellite stage where there's some (attempts at) engagement with the audience. For the last chorus there's lot of pyro's. To be fair, it looks better than I (we all?) expected. Sound is terrible but that may not be a real issue, just the stream.

7. 🇭🇷 Croatia
It's a mess, but that's nothing new. The problem with this song I think is that it takes way too long to get to the strong part. I'm getting most of all Leto Svet vibes from this performance I'm afraid, whereas I always thought it was a surefire televote qualifier. Hardly any audience reaction either.

8. 🇨🇭 Switzerland
Nice classy staging with blue and white lights featuring prominently. Remo sells this not so spectacular song the best he can. Later we also get lots of red lights and white smoke. And some pyros falling on the ground, not sure if that was planned? I don't understand the Sertabereneresque ribbons, but they don't hurt the performance too much.

9. 🇮🇱 Israel
Despite the bad sound quality of the stream, I think there's nothing wrong with Noa's vocals. Oh, judged too soon, in the second chorus there are some serious glitches. But all in all this staging looks very well thought out. Visually spectacular. The dance part though looks a bit as if belonging to a different song. Then we suddenly get to learn we need corn and it's suddenly suddenly suddenly finished. But yeah, good performance I think.

10. 🇲🇩 Moldova
No eyeballs for Switzerland but there's a scary eye in the backdrop for Pasha. At least in the beginning. Flute player is alone on the satellite stage but later joined by Pasha and the two female dancers. At one moment the backdrop looks like we're back on the Turin stage with a broken sun. Hard to summarize this performance, more happening on stage than in the song.

We get another break by Julia and shouty Hannah. And we still don't know what kind of video we will get. So it's a blue screen here.

After that Alesha enthousiastically announces Sweden and we get to see Loreen waiting to get on stage before her postcard starts.

11. 🇸🇪 Sweden
Just like in MF / Baku it's all filmed like a (widescreen/lowscreen) music video. No shots of the surrounding of Loreen's grill at all. There was a camera error halway, but really a split second. Hard to judge her vocals but I think it's totally fine. And no glitches like with Noa. At one point Loreen gets oxymated a bit in the smoke. But maybe that's intended. At least no slowflakes in sight this time. Great applause obviously.

We then get a billboard trailer for what's to come next. Alesha then quickly announces Azerbaijan, so yes, there is a bit of extra time to get the grill back backstage but it goes rather quickly.

12. 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan
Starting off in black and white, with split screens until the song itself starts. Like you've seen they are standing on a tiny broken-heart stage. Stage colours are bright yellow and purple and other bright colours, making a nice change from what we've seen before which was all pretty dark (except Malta). We get more split screen moments but with some of them containing just half a Turan or Tural, so that probably needs to be fixed still. Vocally I'm not totally sure about this. Audience seem to love it though!

13. 🇨🇿 Czechia
A performance that grabs your attention from the first note, well done for that. The six girls as you've seen are all in pink on a mainly white coloured stage. At one point they walk in line holding their tails walking towards to satellite stage. The song may not be for everyone, but yes, this looks impressive. Again, not sure about the sound, because the stream got worse at this point. Another huge cheer from the audience.

14. 🇳🇱 Netherlands
In the postcard the country seems to be called The Netherlands for a moment but in the graphics they thankfully dropped the 'The'. Dion starts of in what sounds like a low key so the switch to the higher pitch sounded a bit weird. It looks like two people completely doing their own thing at some points, and then suddenly they seem to notice they're both on the same stage. The 'Goodbye Old Life' change is very effective on screen though. I have an impression this got an even bigger cheer from the audience than Czechia! But it may be the ever changing volume. 

The cheers Käärijä gets before even cha chaing a note are even louder though.

15. 🇫🇮 Finland
Like expected there's a lot happening on stage. But the stream went terrible soundwise so it all sounded very underwhelming, but that may not be representative at all for how it sounds tomorrow. There's a nice shot where Käärijä's pink dancers seem to fly through the hall. That looked odd but cool. For the rest, you'll see for yourselves tomorrow. The stage turns green at one point for the schlager part and later we get all rainbowy. Not a huge applause I could hear surprisingly, but again I blame it on the abominable sound of this stream.

Recap time, as usual with shots from the artists in the green room. They all seem to be here still for real, with flags and all.

First impression on who grew and who shrunk in my estimation:
growers: Latvia, Ireland, Switzerland, Azerbaijan, Malta
shrinkers: Norway,  Serbia, Croatia (and a bit Finland)
just confused: Netherlands, Moldova

Tomorrow the ESC Nation team including myself will post their qualifier prediction but I'd say Norway may be unexpectedly in danger a bit there. And I can't see myself putting Croatia among those ten either.

But let's continue, there's some more performances to follow, some competing, but first an interval by Rebecca Fergusson and Alyosha. They sing 'Ordinary World' (I think that's the title?) from Duran Duran and it sounds a bit off at times (but again, almost everything does tonight). Generally a nice and impressive performance with a lot of flags and in the end of course the stage turning blue and yellow.

After that we get another recap without green room shots.

Then it's time for a Rita Ora medley of her best love songs including a new song. I'm not familiar with her so I can't tell you which one is the new one. Okay in hindsight I guess it wasn't 'Praise You'.

Followed by, as already covered by Jonas, the lookback to 2003 and UK/raine ESC history in general. After that it's time to close to televote. In a very shouty way.

The music you hear whenever there is a break reminds me of the music used in 2005 which was obviously inspired by Wild Dances.

We then get an interview with Timur including footage from him commentating in 2022 from a bunker in Ukraine. And then there's a fake Dustin the Turkey and the Q or NQ game. As Jonas described earlier today. Of course there's Måns because well, it's Eurovision and BBC, but also Filomena Cautela, quite randomly, though I don't complain. And there's a second reminder tonight that Anna Bergendahl never made it to an ESC final.

The artists are still in the green room and Noa and Käärijä try to be finnomenal. Oh and there's also The Busker.

At that point clearly we start to deviate from what we're going to see tomorrow as crew members get on stage announcing the three auto-finalists of tonight starting with France. La Zarra is lifted and cheered on while that happens. Again no postcard.

🇫🇷 France
Looks very effective for what it tries to do but I feel like that on itself is a bit too many times done before. I'm not a fan, maybe I'm biased. Vocally it wasn't bad but also not excellent. But of course it doesn't really matter tonight. During the 'Grande France' part the stage lights up in the French colours. Which, as a reminder, are the same as in the flag emoji.

🇩🇪 Germany
We don't get to see a postcard, but nevertheless it takes quite some time to set this up it seems. Stream sound is all over the place now. So it sounds awful, but maybe it's not just the stream. All in all, it doesn't really seem to connect at all or engange the crowth. It feels a bit like Blind Channel from Wish. No, this is not going to do much better for Germany than what we're used to by now I'm afraid.

🇮🇹 Italy
A very static opening focusing on Marco's face. In the background we see guys jumping a trampoline, but only occasionally and very small in the background. The hall is full of white lights.  Effective enough staging but I think the trampoline guys don't add much. Flawless I think but again probably not giving it all.

Acts are now told to get back to the green room, so we're probably going to get back to the actual rehearsal of tomorrow's show. We see Martin Österdahl. We haven't seen interviews with La Zarra, LOTL and Marco though, which usually would be part of the show, but maybe not this year?

Ah, we're getting pre-recorded 'interviews' with tonight's Big Three, or more like, them randomly answering questions from fans it seems. I still feel it is a bit strange they get this extra attention the other artists don't get. After this, pretty boring, pre-recorded video they also get a personal (but thankfully very short) interview with Alesha followed by the usual one-minute preview. The artists are replaced by stand-ins though so tomorrow the interviews may be a bit longer.

We also get a small look forward to semi 2 mentioning all the intervals and the other Big Three by name. Totally ignoring the sixteen contestants that it's actually about ...

But yes, it's qualifier time. Only Julia and Hannah are on stage, thankfully. And they're good to go now. To be fair the green room only has stand-in artists too.

And tonight's fake qualifiers are: Azerbaijan, Ireland, Switzerland, Czechia, Malta, (no interview break here apparently), Israel, Netherlands, Croatia, Portugal and ....... Norway!

So sorry guys, Finland and Sweden both out :-(

lol @ camera's still showing the excited Irish delegation (well, their flag) that already qualified. Also the split-screen idea seems to be dropped. It all looks totally like all the years before.

After that we get the usual recap of the ten qualifiers, and that's it for tonight!

Semi-final 1 - The first dress rehearsal (live blog)

Hello! 

During the up-coming weeks our ESC Nation team will be watching and guiding you through the first dress rehearsals and the jury shows. I've been given the honour of starting off the week by following the very fist full-length show, which is scheduled to begin at 14:30 CEST. 

Today is the first time that members of the press will be able to see the full performances of the entries in this semi-final. I will do my best to describe them, especially if there are any changes to the shorter clips that we ave already seen. And I hope to also hopefully be able to shed some light regarding how they plan to announce the qualifiers. Rumours have been circulating that they might plan on having all 15 artists come up on the main stage before announcing which 10 of them that have made it through to the final, which has sparked some controversy. Hopefully they will be rehearsing this part of the show today (with stand-ins instead of the artists) and we will soon find out the truth.

Intro: The show starts off with an acted scene where a young Bitish boy is watching TV in his home and sees last year's Ukrainian winner and then the announcement that Eurovision is coming to his home-town Liverpool, then proceeds to run out and tell his neighbours. We continue seeing people around Liverpool celebrating this, as well as some Ukrainian refugees finding their place in the Liverpool society. 

Next we go to the main stage where the same boy (I think) is standing in front of a doorway were a (I think) Ukrainian girl is standing on the other side. They dance a bit and mimic each others' moves, until they take each other by the hand and walk to the other part of the stage were lots of dancers in pink, yellow and blue and standing. This transforms into a performance by Julia in Ukrainian. It might actually be all of The Hardkiss. It's a bit hard to see what's going on.

Next a very British voice (basically sounds exactly like Lynda Woodruff) introduces the three female hosts, who then greets the viewers in English and also a bit of Ukrainian. Hannah eventually also speaks some French. She very much sounds as if she does not actually know how to speak French.

1. 🇳🇴 Norway: Postcard shows Alessandra among some big buildings. Then she goes to the library and picks up a book, followed by going on a ride on an electric scooter. That's about it.

She starts the performance with singing the Italian parts. Then goes back to English. The performance seems pretty much the same as in the national final. Unfortunately the sund quality of the stream is terrible so I cannot tell if her vocals are good or not. Or if the sound mixing is good. Both the picture and sound quality of this stream is a bit as if somebody filmed it on a cell phone in 2005.

2. 🇲🇹 Malta: In the postcard they're on a vintage bus in Malta. Then go to the beach and play with a frisbee.

The performance starts with a close-up of the cardboard cutout of Destiny. Then as it continues it's pretty much a very amped-up versin of the NF performance. More props, more LED backdrops, more graphics. Towards the end they all change to more glittery outfits. 

3. 🇷🇸 Serbia: Luke is on a lawn in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade. Then he gets into fencing gear for a bit. 

Also, yes, there are no flags on screen. 

He's got his big bed-like prop on stage, with the four dancers connected to it by tubes on the sides. Again, the sound of this stream is not great, but it does sound as if the vocals are a bit off here. Especially in the intro. The stage starts off very black and monochrome, but towards the end it all goes red. Very red.

4. 🇱🇻 Latvia: In the postcard te band are running around on a snowy beach. They eventually take most of their clothes off and go into the water. It looks very cold.

The performance starts off with shots of the band dimly lit in front of the Black Smoke-lamps. Not much really changes. The stage is black with lots of gold/copper-coloured lights. It looks pretty, but sometimes it almost looks as if they're performing in 1983. 

The first commercial break is up now. Alesha is in the greenroom, talking a bit abut the Rest of the World-vote for it, among other things. Also a brief interview with a fake The Busker. Alesha is then trying to do some rapping about the contest being back in te UK, but she keeps having problems with not hearing the beat in her in-ear piece, so they're redoing it several times but still seem to struggle to get it right.

They finally get things right and she can complete the rap. Something about "25 years since Imaani to Mae", there are also mentions of pink bucket hats and Valentina representing San Marino four times. 

Next up is Hannah by a red phone booth next to the greenroom, with a girl who is standing in for Cheryl Baker.

05. 🇵🇹 Portugal: Postcard is at the National Pantheon in Portugal. Mimicat also walks through some shopping street.

In the performance she's in her red dress and her hair is braided back in a short pony-tail. There is no sofa, but she and her dances manage to make the most of the choreography anyway. The stage is also very red. Everything is very red. In the bridge she walks out on the catwalk, which lights up in red like a red carpet. They all end out on the circle stage at the other end of the catwalk. 

06. 🇮🇪 Ireland: The postcard shows them somewhere in the Irish nature. I didn't quite see where it was. The postcards do seem to include brief shots from places in the UK and Ukraine too, because I saw the text "Isle of Wight" flash by quickly. But these parts are very quick and it's not very noticeable that the postcard isn't all in the same location. Especially since the artists are only in the parts filmed in their home countries, which seems to make up the majority of the postcard.

Now the performance. The stage is again black and gold, like Latvia, but a lot brighter. Vocally they unfortunately seem to struggle a bit with the higher parts today (I specifically say "they", as there are quite a lot of parts where the other band members are singing but the lead singer isn't). 

07.  🇭🇷 Croatia: They are fishing in the postcard. The performance as then all jumping and spinning and crawling and conga-lining all over the stage. The backdrop shows giant versions of them. I wonder if there might be some issue with the in-ear monitor, because at times it sounds as if he is a bit out of sync with the beat. Towards the end the lead singer opens his coat and reveals that he's wearing a diaper. 

08. 🇨🇭 Switzerland: The postcard has a nice nod to the 1998 Swiss Postcard, as it starts off in Loch Ness, then moves to Lake Zurich where Remo is doing some kind of surfing. No Swiss flag eyeball, though :-(

Vocally he seems to sing this well. The staging is very dark and monochrome. He's in the centre surrounded by fur dancers pulling at ribbons attached to him. Everyone's dress in black. Remo's jacket has very wide and big shoulder pads, making his head look very tiny. Eventually the stage goes very red. Is the stage even able to show any other colours than black, gold and red this year?

09. 🇮🇱 Israel: In the postcard Noa is in the desert by Masada. Wearing a denim jacket. It looks warm. 

She starts off inside her tunnel-prop with the flashing light rods. The stage is actually sometimes a bit purple! In the second verse she moves further ut and is joined by her five dancers. Vocally this is unfortunately far from perfect, though. She might be saving her voice. The dancing is spot on, though.

10. 🇲🇩 Moldova: The postcard is first a forest near Lviv, then the Sherwood forest, and eventually near a forest in Moldova where Pasha is planting a tree.

Pasha has his hair out rather than in a bun today, dressed in his long shawly robe and no shoes. Surrounded by the short flutist, two female backing singers with hair shaped like bird talons, and two drummers on each side of the stage. The stage is red. Very red. 

There is a break here. There will seemingly be some video clip shown which isn't ready, so we just get a blue screen with the text "VT TO COME". Maybe it's something so secret that they don't want to reveal it yet?

11. 🇸🇪 Sweden: First shows a place called "Anti-Circe Island" (Be my Valent-isle?) in Ukraine, then St Catherine's Island in the UK and finally Enholmen Island in Gotland, Sweden. Where Loreen is loreening.

The performance starts off exactly like in Melodifestivalen. But without smoke (might just be because it's a rehearsal). Once the camera pans out more, it becomes obvious that the prop is a lot smaller. But otherwise it's pretty much the same. Vocally? She's not 100 %, though a lot better than what we heard in the previous 30 second clip. But again, it's only a rehearsal. 

12. 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: The twins are in Baku Boulevard. It looks very warm and springtimey. They're playing a giant game of chess. After the postcard the stage isn't quite ready after Loreen, so Alesha has to talk a bit. 

The performance starts off in black and white with a 4-way split-screen (quite 1996) while one of them does the talking intro. As they start singing the screen goes back to normal and to colour. Occasionally we get different versions of split-screen effects again. In the chorus the blending of the harmonies sounds a bit off. Possibly inspired by Sahlene '02, the higher harmony seems to be a lot more dominant than intended. 

13. 🇨🇿 Czechia: The postcard features them mostly in a bush maze. The performance begins with one of them playing drums at the back while the others are in front as the stage floor shows the lyrics of the song as they sing them. Quickly all six of them begin to dance together, though. And walk out to the catwalk stage holding their long braids. The stage is very white and black, while they are all wearing pink. One thing that does look a bit odd is that it's vey obvious that only three of them are singing, while the others have no microphones and seem to mostly be there as dancers. And it's quite obvious that they use a lot of pre-recorded vocals.

14. 🇳🇱 Netherlands: Dion and Mia are rolleskating by some canals (shocking choice of scenery, I know!)

The performance starts with a close-up of Dion (but not in a scary Trijntje way). Then Mia appears for the first chorus. Visually it all looks nice with the revolving platform and the muted lights. The LED walls are not doing much at all, which works well for this. Vocally it's obvious that this version of the song works a lot better for them. Dion was maybe a little bit shaky in the first chorus where he's singing everything in a soft falsetto, but they both become more steady as the song progresses. 

15. 🇫🇮 Finland: In the postcard Käärijä is in a sauna in a massive ferris wheel in Helsinki. He starts off in the big box, breaking out of it by breaking more and more of the boards until he climbs up to the top. Already in the second verse the dancers appears out of the box and start dancing around the floor, while Käärijä runds around the box. Vocally it's quite decent, although it's also obvious that big parts of the song are not sung live. He struggles a bit more with finding the right notes in the choruses near the end, but I assume it will be mostly drowned out in the mix once we get to hear this with proper sound. 

This actually got quite a cheer from the few people in the arena after it was over. I don't remember hearing any cheering after any of the other songs. 

Alesha, Julia and Hannah are back on screen, and we immediately open up the voting and move on to a recap. It all feels very quickly after the last song was over. 

The recap shows Ireland with a LOT of pyro. Portugal have chosen to feature the big notes at the end. Israel has only a part of the dancing (with no live vocals whatsoever). Azerbaijan's clip does not feature the chorus at all. Each recap bit is 15 seconds long. 

Some people have asked about the sound issues. This stream we are getting has very low quality audio, and the quality also keeps coming and going. Sometimes it's worse than at other times, sometimes it disappears completely. And the vocals all sound very exposed. So it really is hard to say much about the singing, so please do take everything I've said with a grain of salt as I'm only basing it on less than ideal sound.

Now, we're getting an interval performance by Rebecca Ferguson (the singer, not the actress) and Alyosha. The theme seems to be refugees. I think it's some kind of medley of various songs, one being "Ordinary World" by Duran Duran. (Another subtle Eurovision 1998 reference, as it was in the French postcard)

Now another recap. Shorter clips of each song this time. Followed by an interval performance by Rita Ora singing a medley of her greatest its as well as her latest single. 

Going to some clip about the year 2003. First talking about general things happening back then (such as UGG boots being popular?) and then focusing on Eurovision. But sadly this is not about Jemini, but the fact that it was the first year Ukraine debuted. Then we move on to a brief history of the UK in Eurovision, how they won many times but around 2003 became very bad, while Ukraine became very successful instead. Eventually getting to Sam Ryder getting the UK's best result in a long time, only to be beaten by Ukraine. 

The voting closes, and we get some various interviews with the Ukrainian commentator, Dustin the Turkey (yes, really, it seems like he's going to be in the greenroom!) and some game where Måns Zelmerlöw and Filomena Cautela get shown clips of past Eurovision songs and have to guess if the qualified for the final or not. (It's Switzerland 2007, San Marino 2022 and Sweden 2010). 

Then some interviews with the artists from Israel, Finland and Malta, each of them being able to show how to dance the dance from their performance. (Though currently it's all just stand-ins, who make up their own dances). This is followed by Julia tying to teach Hannah how "to rock". 

All of a sudden the've wheeled La Zarra onto the stage on her giant podium, so it seems like we might get some big 5 performances now. At the moment we mostly just see her standing there with crew people running around the stage around er. 

🇫🇷 France: And yes, we do get a performance. (But no postcard). The massive dress is definitely attention-grabbing. I think the lowered the podium during the first chorus before taking off the big dress, and then raised the podium again during the second verse. So she wasn't 5 metres up the whole time. The stage is again quite black and gold, very 1983-ish at times. And a pyro curtain at the end! 

🇩🇪 Germany up next! This is very obviously a rehearsal, because the singer is in just a black turtle neck shirt, black comfy trousers and glasses and no make-up. (Unlike La Zarra who was in full hair, make-up and costume). Vocally it's good. And very red.

🇮🇹 Italy now. Though they let him stand on the stage for probably 5 minutes before starting off the actual performance rehearsal. He's wearing the leather trousers and another silvery top now, more in the shape of a regular tank top and with a regular glittery fabric rather than full of beads. Basically a more subtle version of what we've seen before.  He's very clearly not struggling with the vocals, but also not giving it his all. 

Eventually Alesha is having a tea-party with these three big 5 artists in the greenroom. La Zarra talks about fangirling over Mr Bean. Chris of LotL talks about his love for all things Disney. Marco is asked how competing in 2023 compares to competing 10 years ago. This is also where we're getting the actual pre-recorded clips of their performances. France has the last part of the song. Germany is somewhere in the middle. Italy is from just before the bridge until the end. 

Now, it's time for the results. And yes, they do have all acts on the main stage, lined up waiting to find out if they qualify or not. They're all alone up there, no other delegation members with them. As their country ges called, they get shown briefly, then it cuts to the greenroom (where the rest of the delegation are presumably sitting) and the artist walks off stage.

After the first five countries have been announced, Alesha are interviewing them somewhere off the stage. 

Before the 10th and final act to qualify, they show a split screen thing with the remaining 6 artists. After the final qualifier is announced, we don't get to see the non-qualifiers again. They're probably taken off the stage while the camera is filming something else.

Finally we get to see clips of the 10 qualifiers again. Then the show is over.

While waiting for more Eurovision reports, check out this twitter thread of Eurovision 2023 singers and their Pokémon doubles. (Click it to see more)

🇫🇮Finland🇫🇮
Käärijä // Zarude pic.twitter.com/MSsrn22vZ1

— ESC Nation (@ESCNation) May 7, 2023

ESC week | Friday | Final | Jury Show

So you already know the proceedings if you've read Sild's earlier post (and if you haven't, you should), so I'll try to focus on how they played for the juries and my general 'feel'. I've even stopped a dishwasher half way (sacrilege!) to be able to hear vocal performances.

Televote reveal is done fairly professionally, although Chantal does a 2018-style mistake and reveals points before she needs to. That's what rehearsals are for, right? Norway also wins the televote and therefore will host the jury final next year. The woman who's supposed to be TIX is obviously fake because the winning speech is less than 10 minutes. Thank you for reading!

Jury voting and obviously some of the spokespersons aren't the ones who will be on tomorrow (pretty sure the Israeli "Lucy" is a guy, but not going to assume anyone's gender). The singers are no longer there. The Slovenian spokesperson taught Chantal how to say dober večer properly and she recited it, let's all hope she gets it right tomorrow. Also, note to spokespersons:

STOP SAYING GOOD MORNING AUSTRALIA THEY'RE NOT EVEN IN THE FINAL THIS YEAR AND WILL WATCH THE RETUN IF AT ALL

Barbara is still fabulous. Schöneberger that is. Daði at the hotel room is quite fun when he gets fake 12s. And Norway is the fake jury favourite.

Countdown wait, the votes are still open?? Ok but it's made of people and is the best countdown ever (at least since Nana Muskhuri got hit by an hourglass). Very very cool.

Pre-infection Duncan has a nice new song, unlike Sild I think it would have finished about 17th if it competed tonight.

More interval act and Måns (oh, you again) is on some roof. As are some other winners that we haven't seen in every Eurovision event ever since they won. This is quite well done. And Lordi have new masks.

More interval act and Nikkie's tips video is quite fun, although it's already starting to feel like a very long night. Also, Ruslana is hilarious.

Interval act is pretty effective DJ stuff aimed at the general population watching ESC. The producers know their audience well, like they did yesterday for a the semi viewers...

Snabbis and clips that draw my attention from the computer are Eden's whistle, Malta, Switzerland, Natalia's YeEeEeaghgh, Lithuania, Ukraine, France, Netherlands, Italy and San Marino. Make of it what you will.

San Marino that was an obvious qualifer feels a bit weak after so many strong entries. FloRida must have mistaken himself with FloRea because he tried to eat Senhit's cheek in the end.

Sweden's Tusse is still a nice kid and still pronounces very long Ns. Mostly good but missed a note in the keychange. Tix liked it (or, liked to show himself given the chance)

Italy and it's hard to type because it's just so engaging. This is the energy the night needed. They added a "put your hands up Rotterdam" which I don't think is necessary. Massive reaction.

Netherlands I missed the postcard (forgive me), but Jeangu looks ecstatic to perform and is once again vocally perfect and oozing charisma. Audience somehow managed to get some flags blocking our view. I didn't miss that.

Norway is hard to make sense of - feels a bit out of place in this grand final, and yet feels like something every Eurovision final needs to have. He sang fine and took off his shades again. Audience wasn't impressed, but Hurricane waved their flags to it.

Azerbaijan after 3 vocally perfect entries is a reminder that not everyone is. I'm having fun and so is the arena, but pretty sure jurors without dishwashers will be more critical about this.

France could just as well be live-on-tape with this intimate staging. Fans of this song will be happy to know that Barbara was perfect vocally. I still think it's too repetitive and over-the-top, but there's an applause in the end, including by Jendrik & co.

Ukraine stands out a mile from everything we've seen. Their jury result is difficult to predict but televote-wise this is very, very dangerous. Roar in Ahoy, standing ovation by Manizha.

Lithuanians are competent as ever, but feels kind of tired and weak surrounded by giants. Hard to tell if it's because it's the same as it's been since January or is it because that's what it is. Still, big audience reaction. Blind Channel weren't very impressed.

Bulgaria is still very brown and very sugary. Not perfect vocally and she still says "growing hup". But this will have its audience. Eden liked it.

Break and Edsilia is up in the commentator boxes. Sadly not in the Belgian one to inspect the broken plexiglass.

Finland is a contrast to Germany in every aspect possible. Sounding the same as it always did, big in the hall. Not sure if in the end it was a thank-you or a cough.

Germany's postcard has a lot of sand. Jendrik is singing better than most of the earlier rehearsals I've seen (or did Natalia lower my standards?). The song still exhausts me after 10 seconds. Near mute audience. In the end, Jendrik adds "Thank you! Thank you for slkadlaklshfdkajdfhkhasf"

Moldova qualifying probably means that some jurors still had their dishwasher on. We're getting some Chantal after the postcard. Natalia is still nowhere near a tune, but visually does the job.

Spain's postcard has puppies in Blas's arms and that's surely worth 50 televote points alone? Spot-on and emotional performance, although with some camera angles the moon looked like it's about to hit him.

Iceland gets a very loud supportive audience reaction. The rest, you know.

Switzerland's Tears still looks like everyone's aunt and is singing brilliantly. This is really standing out in this draw after so several ordinaries.

Greece still has the best colour scheme. Stefania swallawed a few words at the start but otherwise good enough. Huge audience reaction as expected.

United Kingdom's James is once again in black leather and vertical stripes. Not fully in tune and quite breathy at times, but this does have good energy. Destiny sees herself on the screen and then decides to show an applause.

Break has short clips of fans lipsyncing to some clasic ESC songs as well as El Diablo, which already feels like it was on forever ago.

Serbia may be separated by Portugal from Malta, but is still a bit too close for comfort. Will one of these suffer? This is still competently performed glorious trash with all the hair.

Portugal still sounds like it does and and makes a perfect contrast to Malta musically and visually. Polite applause by Hooverphonic.

Malta is on and any rumours that they don't need to put an effort tonight because their jury score was guaranteed months ago are not true, or they are and nobody told Destiny, because she's fantastic. Great audience reaction too.

Russia brings back the party that Israel started, the audience is clapping along the intro. Manizha's on top form, this feels like something many viewers will enjoy but not necessarily vote for.

Belgium, just like in the semi, draws my attention off the blog editor as soon as the first notes kick in. Geike is once again great and this is hard to ignore, even if it drags on a bit.

Israel is first to get a big audience reaction when the song starts. Good vocal performance by Eden, but she still can't pronounce the letter R. General feel: Eurovision has properly started, and this is the buildup for something better.

Albania I can see why bloggers complained about the overload of red in the first two songs. At least the blue (turquoise? green? teal? mint? Linda Martin-dress?) smoke effect makes for something different visually. And once again I cannot fault Anxhela's vocals. I think she said "Thank you Eurobash" in the end 🤔

Cyprus sounds about the same as in the semi (mostly competent vocally, poor diction). General impression: rather ordinary.

Intro is a short video and straight to the flag parade which starts after less than 3 minutes. Quite efficient, so have your snacks ready. The real Senhit and Flo are here. Presenters are dress very festively Chantal's dress kina looks like this year's Eurovision logo, but in gold.

ESC week | Wednesday | Second Semi-Final | Jury Show

This will be a rolling blog, each country in running order, so please refresh to update.

Here I am again. This is quite exciting, I don't think I've ever seen a jury show before. At least not since they were "jury shows". Most likely I have witnessed a good old second dress rehearsal back in the day.

Anyhoo...

It's starting! I see a windmill!

People are dancing. Whatevs. 

The crowd are cheering Chantal's French. A lot.

SPOILER: Edsilia said 10 great songs will qualify. 

🇸🇲 | San Marino

"Good Evening Europe! Are you ready to...[incomprehensible]?"

Hard to say anything that hasn't been said. It has everything you could possibly want and must the most perfect show opener ever. If it qualifies and draws first half...would they dare?

Miss Hit is sounding better than before and just looks *so* happy to be here. Mr Rida is, well, here. And wearing some shorts the BBC had going spare.

🇪🇪 | Estonia

I'm not saying this sounds flat coming after the Most Serene Entry. But well.

OK, let's be positive: It's not that bad.

🇨🇿 | Czech Republic

He's rather breathy. And not in a good way. Yeah, just doing his thing. Enjoyable, but not spectacular.

But the smile at the end. I'm gonna have to distract Sild with a huge bottle of rosé and then steal Benny.

🇬🇷 | Greece

Sounding good. Finds the camera. Every time.

I think the whole green screen effect looks a bit...cheap? But it's a talking point and keeps your attention.

Senhit seen cheering wildly from the Most Serene Green Room. 

🇦🇹 | Austria

He really feels this. And you can hear every word so clearly. If this isn't sweeping up jury votes than I don't know what is.

And there's those lights. Oooh, the lights.

EMOCIÓN

🇵🇱 | Poland

The opposite of emotion. 

Positive: I needed to go and fill up my glass. Yes, drinking on the job again.

*break*

It's Molly Sandén talking about appearing at Eurovision. Hmm.

🇲🇩 | Moldova

The juries won't like those opening "vocals".

Yeah, it's a good job that this isn't the kind of song that needs amazing vocals. And that makes the looooong last note even more conspicuous. Still, this still basically does what it says on the tin. Or packet.

🇮🇸 | Iceland

I can literally point you to my rehearsal blog from Thursday!

Still smiling. And there are *lots* of nicely added cheers. And a crowd shot at the end. Fits in seamlessly.

🇷🇸 | Serbia

Ok, I'm feeling it more now. Actually makes me want to bop this time. Might be the wine. Sanja managing to look happy while singing the big notes, rather than angry, and that's not easy.

Likely qualifier, and then just watch it sweep up the Balkan votes in the final.

🇬🇪 | Georgia

Talking of wine.

Mountain, I wanna feel you. #ThatsWhatSheSaid

This is very dark. And I don't think the juries will appreciate some of those notes.

OK, he recovered. It is quite soothing after the Serbian tempest. So props to the running order peeps.

 🇦🇱 | Albania

  

Albania in red-and-black staging shocker.

Not her best vocals in places. This song will have its rosé-drinking audience. But that's not me.

🇵🇹 | Portugal

We already know I am the anti-Sild. So yes, I really like this.

Masterful staging, which you've probably all seen from clips. legal and otherwise. He sounds like he sounds. This is what this is.

Like Albania really, this is either your thing or it's not.

*finally another break* I'm quite exhausted.

Oh, yay, It's La Paparizou. Now, laugh!

🇧🇬 | Bulgaria

Hmm, postcard and then Chantal talking and then a weird video with Duncan Laurence talking about music.

And then to Victoria.

The sand thing doesn't really work. She looked scared to touch it. And then you could see the bucket being hoisted away.

She is a very engaging performer though. And even smiles at the end. Yay!

🇫🇮 | Finland

Straight from postcard to performance. Hooray!

This evening's theme is songs which have their audience. And this got a very loud cheer.

🇱🇻 | Latvia

*turns down volume*

Hmm, not sure that was the right key, Samanta?

Goodness, it pains me to say this, as I love Samanta and rather like this song, but this could see Latvia back to its golden days of last place in the semi.

🇨🇭 | Switzerland

This is nothing like as busy as I was expecting from reports and previous clips.

It is a bit like a supersized version of Paul Rey's staging from this year's MF though.

Sings well, obvi. And manages some smiles too, which really help.

🇩🇰 | Denmark

To quote someone from the online press centre chat: "As if the stage has been made exclusively for them."

Jesper singing better than in the Danish final.

*clap clap*

So that went quickly. Everyone except Latvia is qualifying.

Aww, Iceland in the hotel lobby for their green room shot in the reprise. ❤️

Interval: It's a bit like Ola & Barbro from Eurovision 63 (only Ola & Ola). And one of the Olas is shirtless.

They have food in the green room. 

Edsilia: Have you spoken to Katrina?

James: No.

Edsilia: Oh...Embers..I've never used that word

James: It means the bit of the fire that's still burning

Edsilia: Oh.

Having just had the chat and clips of the finalists, they will now get to perform in full.

🇫🇷 | France

Nothing new to report from this performance, apart from a slight giggle in between all the Voilàs.

🇬🇧 | United Kingdom

A minute's delay before this to do some "flame checks".

He's swapped the gold outfit for plain black. Other than that, he's doing his best, bless.

🇪🇸 | Spain

"Our stage hands are working hard."  I don't think they'll be putting the UK and Spain next to each other on Saturday.

The vocal/music mix here feels a bit off.

Hahaha. He offers us a "here we go" before the big notes (which he hits perfectly).

I doubt you want to know about the announcement of the fake qualifiers, so I shall bid you a good night. Enjoy tomorrow!

ESC week | Monday | First Semi-Final | Jury Show

Good evening from the Irish press centre! Ben and escgo.com already gave you most of the details, so I'll focus on how they fared during money time and fresh overall impressions.

As semis go, most of us have probably guessed correctly at least 8 qualifiers - tomorrow is all about the 4-5 borderliners. Oh, there's also someone in it who used to be a favourite to win for most of the season. That feels like forever ago, I'm not quite sure that ever happened...

Rolling blog refresh etc.

Netherlands

I'm enjoying this quite a lot now that I expected the photobomber. What a difference can advanced knowledge make!

Germany

This song really isn't intended for hearing more than once. This is one of those moments that I ask myself why I'm doing this...

Italy

Well, me thinking that Malta can win lasted about 30 minutes. Confusing year.

Things while waiting for results

Again I won't give out too many details, but overall it feels like... A Eurovision semifinal. Which is exactly what we needed.

Nikkie is the best host, Edsilia is good too (if a bit overenthusiastic, but that's her). The other two are fillers.

I take that back - While waiting for technical issues, Chantal is improvising a song about Måneskin. I hope she'll be this fun in the real show.

Snabbrepris

Most of them picked the chorus (sensible), except Russia (the ethnic bit), Israel (the screetch) and Malta (the Excuse my French part). Belgium used the end of the chorus, which is a bit strange. Well, North Macedonia doesn't have a chorus, so it's just some random part of the song.

Malta #2

I'm not sure why she's performing again, nothing was wrong with the first go. Did the jury stop listening after the Ukrainian earpiece issue? And this one is just fine too, for a while I thought this might be a replay of the first go but no, she says "thank you once again" in the end. And maybe the last note was a bit better.

Ukraine #2

I thought Kateryna's angry face had to do with the earpiece malfunction, but she's doing it again so it must be part of the act. Flawless performance.

Romania #2

Ah, this is what it's supposed to sound like? Well, mostly, still a few shaky vocals. It's alright for what it's trying to be, but she kinda looks like Semiha Yankı in that dress (not that most viewers will notice)

Greenroom

Some questions while we wait for Romania and Ukraine to perform again.

Chantal: Did you enjoy your moment?
Eden: Yes, I loved Destiny!

Malta #1

We see the postcard and then Chantal. Is this intended? 

I wasn't so impressed on Thursday, but Destiny has brought back her game for the juries and looks and sounds great. Not writing this off just yet.

Ukraine #1

Kateryna & co are starting great but also running into some earpiece issues. What's going on? She deals with it much better than Roxen did. The ending is sheer brilliance.

Azerbaijan

Efendi isn't brilliant vocally (but she has the best draw possible to be average), overall it feels not bad but perhaps not as energetic as Cyprus and Israel were.

Romania #1

Starts off not terrible (what were the bloggers on about), but becomes worse and worse and out of sync as the song goes...

Israel

As some of my colleagues mentioned, this is lacking close-ups, we see too much of the group and too little of Eden's face. Mostly competent singing by her, even if not perfect.

Another break after the song, I guess they need time to roll Eden's hair off the stage.

Belgium

Wow, this is really working, drawing my attention after a lot of generic Pop. Geike sounds great and although I was sceptical about its chances before I now think it's a standout.

Croatia

I hear actual loud cheers from the arena (possibly from 3 very loud Croatian fans). There's absolutely nothing wrong with this performance, she's just fine. Whether I'll remember it in 6 songs' time is another matter.

Norway

Not much to say since we all know exactly what it looks like, and even if he's had too much 17 May champagne we'll never know because the backings do most of the work anyway. In this lineup it feels ok, though not really exciting. The only new thing is taking off his shades to show some fake eye ticks, which is kinda silly (but some may be touched...)

Cyprus

A straightforward Pop song feels exactly like what we needed. Strong performance by Elena, I still have no idea what she's singing though.

Ireland

This looks like story time for the kids. An interesting concept artistically, but a bit amateurish for this kind of big event. She's likeable, shame she can't sing.

North Macedonia

Vasil is very very very emotional. He's having his moment. I'm struggling to care, but good for him. The recorded choir is overproduced and really isn't working for this. He's also failing on some low notes towards the end.

There's a small break after, since some of you don't want spoilers I won't give details (but it's not that interesting really)

Australia

If you didn't tell me that she's not there I probably wouldn't notice, but wonder why she's a bit louder than everyone else and why the background looks so cheap. There's not a lot happening apart from some dancing and a blur effect, this could really have done with some forbidden confetti.

Sweden

The voice is mostly fine at the start, later it cracked a couple of times and was a bit off during the high "can you hear" parts. Still overall competent-ish and I enjoyed it.

Russia

I expected more cheer (real or not) when she+dress are rolled on stage, disappointingly there was barely any. Manizha & co. are as pro as expected, but this is missing some audience energy during the song.

Slovenia

Mic volume problem with Ana sounding faint in the first half line, then suddenly becoming very loud. Unfortunately she doesn't sound that great for the rest of the song and this isn't the microphone's fault. This feels like a first week rehearsal. The good news: She was standing right above the middle of the explosion this time, so she got this right. Yay?

Lithuania

The Roop have been flawless from the start and this performance is no different, all they were missing was some audience energy and now they got it. You do kinda notice that some of the cheers are fake if you're looking for it, but I doubt most viewers will notice.

Intro

Ben was biased, but I can confirm that Netherlands is a beautiful country. Why there are horses on the beach, I'm not sure.

Duncan's new song isn't interesting, but the stage during it is spectacular. And the arena looks and feels full, you only notice that some of them are mannequins if you're looking for it. The fake cheers are much  more convincing than Vienna. Well done!

Nikkie is very tall.

ESC week | Monday | First Semi-Final | First Dress Rehearsal

It really is all about to happen now! In the next few days we will be blogging about all the dress rehearsals, starting today with the first dress rehearsal of the first semi-final.

It's again a rolling post, so keep your finger glued to the F5 button, or whatever you use to refresh on a Mac.

Thirty seconds past three ... Te Deum! We start with some Dutch scenery, we see sheep, Rotterdam Central Station, a windmill and more and after 1 minute 30 we're in the arena. Some quick lookback to 2019 and then Duncan's on stage dressed in red in an augmented reality setting, singing a new song (i.e. not 'Arcade') It's a pretty short performance .... the stage is revealed in a spectacular way before all four hosts come up on stage.

Hosts are full of energy, talking quite fast, Jan's English has definitely improved it seems. Chantal also speaks a bit of French. Hell, they're quick. 

After 7.5 minutes we start with the first postcard. 

Lithuania - Lithuania is 'virtually' on the Rotterdam central station square for the postcard. Before the song starts the stage lights take the colours of the Lithuanian flag. Not much to mention about the Lithuanian performance, it's not much different from what we've seen from them. There are some split-screen moments between Vaidotas and the backing dancers. The hall is empty - yet we're hearing 'fake' applause. But it sounded already a bit less 'fake' than in ESC 2015.

Slovenia - Postcard in the dunes. Stage is mostly golden with a globe projected in the background. During the bridge the transparent LED screen comes down and shows what I think is Slovenian mountain scenery. Decent performance but not as impactful as I would have thought. The ending was very abrupt. She just stopped in the middle of a sentence 'Hey Child ...' ... not sure if that was a failure or intended, but she didn't look really surprised ....

Russia - Bad Dutchie, I have no clue where this postcard was recorded. Egg-shaped houses? [I later learned that these are the 'bolwoningen'/'sphere houses'  from Den Bosch aka 's-Hertogenbosch]. The bloggers before me have already described this performance pretty well. I have not much to add to it I'm afraid. Energetic and fun as usual. 

Sweden -  Postcard is filmed on Museum Square in Amsterdam. Some pretty awesome light effects for Tusse. There's also people on the LED screen at one point and it truly looks like they're actually on stage. Last minute looks quite impressive, light-wise. Vocally this is all very okay too. Not as hopeless as some may have thought. But of course the song is still what it is.

Australia - The football themed postcard this time is not for Spain but for Australia. Montaigne could not be in Ahoy, but she could 'be' in the Rotterdam stadium. No special announcement or so, we just get a postcard and the live-on-tape recording gets shown directly. Of course we do miss the stage lights going all Australian and there's no 'dumdumdum' moment, but the transition is seamless. Montaigne and dancers are doing a (sort of) yazbitti! \o/. Lots of visual effects here, where we see copies of Montaigne  as if she's doing a yazbitti with herself.  Montaigne sounds much better than in some clips we've heard so far. And it *is* very colourful. At the end we see the camera zooming out from the LED wall, bringing us back to Ahoy so the audience can do some cheering.

North Macedonia - Postcard is in a forest, where Vasil is climbing the wall of the tiny house. Much gold on stage again. During the part where Vasil is not singing he shows the disco ball on his costume, which looks very nice. Vocally fine even if he seems to be not giving it all yet. All in all, I think this wins the battle with Slovenia, but probably that's still not enough to make it.

First commercial break. Nikkie is now on stage to show 'the best off online reactions'. She calls it the 'online update'. There's also clips from the Looklabs. We see fans dancing. Surprise appearance by Conchita Wurst. Edsilia then interviews a fake The Roop. She doesn't use the stick herself. Nikkie also connects to Montaigne.

Ireland - We see the 'Skinny Bridge' in Amsterdam over the river Amstel in the postcard. Vocals are not very good I'm afraid. The 'book' part goes a bit quicker and smoother than we've seen in the rehearsal clip but is still not very impressive. So she's walking in all directions amonst all sort of cardboard objects like waves and trees and sometimes interacts with them, but it all looks pretty forced. It look fine - but not spectacular - and also a bit distracting at times and most of all unnecessary. She looks exhausted by the end of the performance. Sorry to say but this feels pretty hopeless :-(

For some reason we now get another break with Nikkie and Edsilia. We also see the billboards announcing what's to come next Saturday as interval act, much like we saw them in Europ Shine A Light last year. Of course this break is meant to get all the stuff Ireland brought on stage back off stage.

Cyprus - First notes were horribly off tune. Elena starts lying on the floor. Vocals get somewhat better further into the song. Visually this is very well done with the mirrors and fire effects during the last minute. It looks like more fun than the lyrics suggest, which I think is a good choice. Safe for qualifying, but not winning material.

Norway - I think that's the Muiderslot in the postcard? Never change a winning recipe, performance is again much alike the MGP one (but with less creatures around TIX). Using the stage doors with light coming from behind makes for nice effects. In the last minute the stage turns into gold. Looking good for Norway to qualify I'd say at this point.

Croatia - Postcard in a random polder. Some visual tricks make Albina appear on stage out of nothing. She's standing in front of the transparent LED screen and the effects look awesome. Dancers join her during the chorus. At one point we see five Albina's and no dancers though. The 'oh noooooos' sound a lot better than we've heard in earlier clips. I think visually this is pretty cool. The fake? applause seems to be much louder here than it has been for others for some reason.

Belgium - First minute of this performance is one long shot from one camera turning around Geike and the musicians. It must have been intentional but with the musicians so close to Geike it looks a bit messy to me. But that may be a personal thing. It's a decent staging ans well sung, but I may have expected more 'magic'.

Israel - Postcard shows Utrecht Central Station. Eden is amazing! This is a fun performance with Eden and dancers moving to the sattelite stage halfway, and then back to the main stage where she does the high notes, and they sounded near perfect to me. This has such a nice energetic vibe. Probably the best performance so far!

A break with Chantal now. And Måns. We can actually see him, so probably not live, but you won't notice. It's of course all to get people warm for the Saturday interval. Hmm, if it's not live the timing is perfect. After this interview Edsilia and Jan announce Romania's performance.

Romania - Roxen's vocals are much better than we've heard in some clips, but she seems to have a bit of trouble with the timing (think Zaleilah but less dramatic). All in all, it's still not very convincing. They should be a little worried now.

Azerbaijan - Postcard from Giethoorn (the Dutch more rural answer to Venice - at least I think it's there). Song and staging is Eurovision by numbers obviously. Lots of gold, pink and turquoise again. And another yazbitti. What did I say? Eurovision by numbers. Well enough performed. Is there still a place for this in ESC 2021 though? I'm inclined to say there is, despite the song being rather weak. 

Another billboard moment, with Jan and Chantal quickly announcing Ukraine.

Ukraine - Had some serious internet issues here, so missed part of it. Well, it's definitely standing out. Graphics look impressive too. I have a blind spot for this entry, never really got it, and as such this performance wasn't winning me over. But I acknowledge that it is probably making the final anyway.

Bit of a hiccup before Malta was going to start, with Chantal quickly standing by to interrupt.

Malta - Destiny has gone for the silver dress and high silver boots and a totally different haircut/wig, which I suppose fits with the 1920's style. Not sure if she's giving it all yet, but vocally she was already more than fine. But I feel this is not a winning performance, neither is the song. May actually be totally overshadowed by Israel earlier on. 

Some pyros before we start the vote. As usual we see the recap with the artists shown at the end of their snippet. For Montaigne we have a live connection. It's apparent that the sound quality of the Australian snippet is much worse (less rich) than the others.

After the recap there's an interval by Davina Michelle about 'The Power of Water', which is partly pre-recorded and there's dancing on stage with lots of bare-chested men.

Quick prediction: Lithuania, Russia, Sweden, Cyprus, Norway, Israel, Azerbaijan Ukraine, Malta. Then there's one left and it's between Croatia and Belgium, I'd say Belgium now, but not extremely convincedly. If there's going to be a huge surprise it may actually be North Macedonia, but I wouldn't count on it. 

All four hosts are back on stage to explain again how you can vote. And we get another recap. With again shots from the green room. At this moment none of the artists are really there, so it's just volunteers and they are having a good time it seems :-)

After the second recap there's about 40 seconds left to vote, so we quickly get to a countdown with Jan and Chantal. After that there's another break with Edsilia and Nikkie. They're standing next to each other in one shot and that looks a bit ... odd (because of the height difference). There's a flashback to ESC history with Johnny Logan, Katrina, Anne-Marie David, Lenny Kuhr, Marie Myriam and Eimear Quinn. They all tell about their experiences. And they're all sooo positive.

We then get a pre-recorded 'Eurovision Tutorial' with Nikkie. Which is very tonge-in-cheek and fun :-)  It has Manel,  John Lundvik with a sad face, Justine Pelmelay and more surprises. The theme is 'How not to win Eurovision'. Obviously we're experts on that subject.

Then we look back for a minute or two at 'Arcade' with Edsilia and Duncan Laurence.

After that there's an awkard break. But apparently this is the point where we'd get to the interviews and presentations of Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Instead we now get to see the postcards for these three countries. 

Oh they're actually performing now!

Italy - Just looks so cool on stage. There's some parts though where Damiano is drowned into the light, not sure if that's intentional. So much pyros at the end. Yes, this is definitely a performance that could do it!

Postcard at Scheveningen beach for Germany, appropriately considering its popularity with German tourists. After the German postcard we suddenly get another intervention with Chantal explaining the theme 'Open up' and a pre-recorded video about the theme with Duncan as narrator. Not sure if and when they will actually show this in the real show.

Germany - Very colourful performance with a prominent role for miss Finger. Jendrik improvises vocally. At the points we hear a male voice 'you did not just say that' the camera zooms on the finger as if she is saying that. All in all, I feel it is missing the clever fun from the video and falls a bit flat on the stage. In the talking part he adresses in German ladies, gentlemen and everyone who's not either. And he ends in Dutch with 'tot snel!' ('see you soon').

Netherlands - Wonderful visual opening with the LED wall 'breaking open'. Jeangu is doing an amazing job vocally. During the brigde all move to the sattelite stage, before the stage turns all colourful. Obviously a lot of applause. That was a very nice performance, and very different from a lot of other things in this ESC. Not saying it is a top 10'er but it doesn't look like certain bottom 5 either.

Okay ... they're now improvising a bit because it's about time to rehearse the qualifier revelation. But first we get a look-ahead to Thursday with the usual billboards. It's mainly about the extra acts though.

They then introduce Martin Österdahl. And it seems like we have a 'valid result'! And he tells Jan and Chantal that they're 'good to go'.

We get to see three-letter country codes with square flags in the 'waiting list' below the screen insert of Jan and Chantal. When they are announced we see the full names to the right of them, as usual. [addition: as far as I recall there were no animations with enveloppes or anything of the sort appearing on screen, so it's just one of the hosts shouting a country name, and only then the name appears in the 'qualified' list]

First fake finalist is Romania, then Israel. They do this pretty quickly again. Cyprus, Lithuania and Norway are next. Also Azerbaijan makes it, it looks pretty realistic so far actually :-) Australia also qualifies and we see a happy volunteer on a couch probably not in Australia. They take a little more time now. Sweden is fake qualifier number eight. And number nine is Malta. And finally it's North Macedonia! We don't get to hear snippets of the songs when they qualify but we get a recap in the order as announced right after the last qualifier is announced.

After that the credits start running and we get views from the hall, also from the green room, which may be interesting because we'll probably see both happy and sad faces there, unlike usually when we only got to see the happy ones.

That was it for the first dress rehearsal. Tonight we continue with the jury final, for which Yair will provide commentary in this blog!

Day 8 | Second Rehearsals | Auto-finalists | 🇮🇹 🇩🇪 🇳🇱

Good morning from the Irish extension of the press centre! Sild and myself will bring you live reports of the last day of technical rehearsals, while Jordy is back in the arena taking videos. He's allowed to post a combined total of 2 minutes - if you have any special request, please put them on our message board! (personally I'm hoping for a Blas howling compilation)

🇳🇱 | Netherlands, No Definite Article

Starts off with Jeangu doing his sexy moves and surrounded by two backing singers and it's just fine, and then when he sings the title a red dancer appears very close to the camera quite awkwardly - at first I wasn't sure if they were meant to be there or is just a stage invader / photobomber. Rather confusing.

The dancer in red seems to be still there after a while and even interacts with the rest of the team, so I guess it's intended. I'm sure it means something very deep and important, but I'm not quite sure it's working. 

Vocally I cannot fault Jeangu - he's flawless at every runthrough and sounds very pleasant too. And he's quite charismatic too. If anything's going to save this rather messy staging, it's him.

Third runthrough and I'm enjoying it more, possibly because I knew what to expect. Over to Sild for the next three finalists.

🇩🇪 | Germany

If you take the LED background of La Venda and replace Miki with Plastic Bertrand, this should give you a clear idea of what to expect. It's obvious that Jendrik isn't a professional singer, struggling to keep up with his own song and becoming out of breath, but I guess none of this would matter for the target audience of this. He does have charisma and enjoys it, which is perhaps more important here.

Oh, and it seems he gave up on Dutch and speaks German again. I think.

Despite his best effort, I don't feel hate towards this. I just feel "aww, overexcited non-singer gets to be on a Eurovision stage! How lovely for him! As long as there's just one of these..."

Also, I can confirm that all colours on my rather old TV work. Good to know.

🇮🇹 | Italy

After so many favourites sabotaged by SJB, it's nice to see a performance that's just, well - a performance, focusing on the band's skills that we already know they have. There's a good play of lights (black and white at first, then turning to a red theme during the "parla.." bit, and near the end changing to blue and red again) and silhouettes on the background, but mostly the focus is on the band, as it should be.

Third runthrough and first goosebumps moment for me this year with the pyro. At first it's a curtain and then it's EVERYWHERE... OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG SOOOOO GOOOOD OMG OMG

But anyway, yeah, this should do as well as this song can, whatever that means.

Day 7 | Second Rehearsals | Second Semi-Final | Second Half | 🇬🇪 🇦🇱 🇵🇹 🇧🇬 🇫🇮 🇱🇻 🇨🇭🇩🇰

This will be a rolling blog, each country in running order, so please refresh to update.

Good morning from Amsterdam (or well .... the Otherdam). Today it's my big pleasure to update you  - on the second rehearsals from the remaining countries in the second semi-final from home, while Jordy will be hanging around in the arena.


🇩🇰 | Denmark

Another upgraded version of the NF performance. They even wear the same outfits. What's new is that there are backings on stage that get their own shot clapping after the word 'dansegulv', which is a nice touch. Also the stage looks amazing. In the same colours we were used to, pink and green/turquoise, but there's a nice animation that makes it looks like they're standing on an even bigger stage. During the bridge Jesper runs towards the sattelite stage, but he also returns quite quickly.

No notable changes in following runthroughs, only the pyro at the last not when Laurits joins Jesper on his mini-stage. The act looks finished and fun as always.

🇨🇭 | Switzerland

Totally not the staging I was expecting for this, but that isn't a bad thing at all. As you know Gjon is standing on a white 'thing' and even has some sort of choreography. We see some very close close-ups and Gjon looks into the camera. He's selling this pretty well, vocally it also sounds more than fine.

During the bridge however for some reason his face is lit with purple light which looks a bit odd. But that's the only thing negative to mention here. This is definitely still a contender.

On the backdrop at times we see some sort of silvery water effect, which looks pretty cool. During the song part of the object he's standing on is being slightly transformed. During the last chorus white spots are lighting up from the background and the floor. It looks great and sounds amazing. It's only the purple bit that seems a bit out of place, but that's not going to break this.

There were small some technical flaws here, the shadow of a cameraman was visible and also a stagehand changing the structure on which Gjon stands in the middle of the song was shortly visible. But these are things that they should be able to fix.


🇱🇻 | Latvia

We didn't get to see the first run, but Jordy just informed me it was stopped in the middle of the song for reasons apparently not obvious. The second run went fine, she and her three backings on stage (yay for that) all in green (backings with the well-know head pieces) and a quite busy yellow-golden abstract backdrop which is also projected on the floor. I was actually positively surprised, expected it to look and sound much more hopeless than it did. Even though it's hard to make something of it and in this semi it is facing quite a hard task. 

Samanta starts at the back of the stage, a bit alike Georgia, but now in green lights. After that she joins the backings center stage. Near the end there's a nice shot from above after which they make the well-know crown gestures. The crown also features as part of the background animation, which as stated above is mostly abstract and busy. Perhaps busy enough for the singers wearing green to get a little bit lost on stage. But all in all, a very decent performance. Is it qualifying? That's probably not the case.

🇫🇮 | Finland

Yay, it was about time for some action, and we get it. The performance, as was to be expected, isn't really much different from what we saw in UMK, but an upgraded version, due to the stage being a lot more impressive. The lighting is mostly red and white. with lots of rays of light in all directions. 

Hardly anything new to tell about this one except that it looks solid and will obviously qualify. And what happens there depends on a lot of other factors, but it could actually get pretty high.

In the third run there's also (modest) pyro effects during some of the choruses. Not the most original song in its genre but well executed.

🇧🇬 | Bulgaria

So Victoria is sitting on this cliff/island thing you've all already seen. With a picture next to her which at one point she emotionally looks at. Stage is all golden lights and golden stars. Much gold in other words. And at one point there's golden sand coming from above gliding through her hands. There were some pretty odd and probably unintentional camera shots in the first runthrough. Also I wasn't fully convinced by her vocals, which seemed to be off at times. But it also seemed she wasn't trying very hard. 

Second run is much better. I called it a cliff/island what she's sitting on, but it's hard to tell what it is. It's floating in a sea which has golden refelctions in the water. And it somehow seems to be turning around during the song. 

They apparently had to cut a bit from the intro and the beginning now sounds a bit odd to me. 

All in all, I'm not feeling the winner vibe some others seem to get, yet. Which may also be because of a bit messy camera work, too much movement, I think it would have worked better if they focused a bit more on Victoria. 

🇵🇹 | Portugal

Performance starts of in 4:3 black and white, and stays like that until the end of the first chorus. The screen widens and we get colour. On the backdrop we shortly see what I suppose is meant to be Amsterdam, then we see silhouettes of an orchestra playing, including a huge piano, all this with a golden background. Near the second chorus a woman appears on the LED wall. At this point the singer walks to the sattelite stage with the woman 'walking along' with him on the transparent LED screen, which is well thought of. Stage colours are very warm (mainly gold and some hints of blue) and well suited to the song. There's also a projection of a big golden heart at one point.

His voice may not be what everyone likes, but he sounded fine for how he sounds. At least the first two runthroughs, there were some pretty ugly notes in the third ...


🇦🇱 | Albania

OK, this looks pretty amazing, from the first second. Anxhela is all alone on stage an wearing a glittery silver dress. On the backdrop we see a lot of red 'explosions', later it becomes a mix of red and turquoise / greenish blue, which may sound odd, but it looks great. During the last minute this turns into a cloudy sky. There's also some smoke on stage. Vocals are totally fine here too, as the artist must realize this *may* be what Europe actually gets to see and hear. Some reporters say 'Iveta' (Armenia 2016) and I can see some similarities indeed. Very well done, and as it was already a borderliner I feel this performance has probably pushed them to that side of the border they want to be at.


🇬🇪 | Georgia

So we're having breakfast with Tornike. Perhaps not the most exciting start of the day, as not a lot happens. Unlike reports from last Tuesday, he is now singing the song as we know it, and it sounded decent enough, even if I feel that the (recorded?) backings are a bit too loud in the mix at points. At the beginning of the song Tornike comes through the stage doors which are lit in white. They close when the starts singing and the backdrop turns into a what sort of resembles a night sky with many moving golden stars.

Coming after some heavy up-tempo stuff, the calm beginning may make this stand out. There's a box on the stage on which Tornike is sitting for the second verse. This is when we see part of the lyrics appear as projections on his face. All in all it's hard to compare as it's the first thing I've seen in full. Also the stream got cut off halfway the second runthrough ....  

I think the opening is effective, and this is important. But I'm not convinced it keeps the attention for long. Also I can't help thinking Tornike feels pretty bored by it himself.

All in all, decent, and not chanceless, but also not very eventful.

Day 6 | First Rehearsals | Big Five (+ Netherlands) | 🇮🇹 🇩🇪 🇳🇱 🇫🇷 🇬🇧 🇪🇸

This will be a rolling blog, each country in running order, so please refresh to update.

Heyhey, it's me again! No, I wasn't in EBU jail, but simply enjoying the views from within the arena while my very capable colleagues shed their light on the second rehearsals. We're back to first rehearsals, so back to me as well! Bring it on!

🇪🇸 | Spain
Blas started his rehearsas standing in the dark with blue'ish lights. Blas is hardly visible. The staging and backdrop look quite beautiful. The backdrop is depicting a dark universe with stars and an eclipsed sun. At one point there are two spots shining on a giant moon that is hanging above Blas. Even though the moon is ruining the staging, it all looks rather gorgeous. The staging doesn't seem to be the issue here. It's the fact that Blas is howling like a frog that is being boiled alive.

🇬🇧 | United Kingdom
The first thing one notices are the two giant white trumpet props on stage that are slowly moving whole James stands on a little stage in between those trumpets. The rather simple backdrop and lighting is mostly a mix between red and blue. He's surrounded by four dancers who play the trumpet as well. James is wearing a long leather jacket with a golden necklace. This together with his attitude on stage of him being a badass doesn't seem to suit him at all. At one point James, after all the dancing with his mates, gets back on the small stage and lasers surround him. I'm guessing this was supposed to look impressive, but it really doesn't. It's a rather harmless performance and as random as unimpactful as we've been used to from the BBC. Other than that James vocals are pretty good.

🇫🇷 | France
Massive response from within the press centre for this rehearsal, but I'm a little less impressed. Barbara is a class act, sings amazing, captivates the camera, but (as I believe this is the question you all want answered) this doesn't seem like a winner. The staging is simple and effective. Barbara is standing behind a microphone stand with a spot direct at her. The entire performance it's spots shining on Barbara and camera shot from different angles.. and nothing else. At one point the camera seemed a little shaky and I'm not entirely sure whether this was part of the act. If it is it's rather odd. Anyhow, as said, I understand they tried to keep it simple, but at the same time it also feels like a waste not to make better use of the incredible features the stage has to offer to really go for that wow-moment. Now it's lovely and qualitatively well done, but also a little underwhelming. I can see the juries eating it up, but do I see Europe massively voting for this? Nope.

🇳🇱 | Netherlands
The performance starts of with a close-up of Jeangu with two of the backing singers/dancers joining him from the sides in the shot before a purple background. Throughout most of the performance the backdrop depicts some sort of transparent layer that seems to be broken/into pieces and also shows the lyrics of the song every now in graphics of bricks breaking (which is probably convenient since everybody seems to hear broccoli). Somewhere in the middle of the performance, while the backdrop depicts Lion-King’ish warm colors, Jeangu and his dancers move towards the bridge on which they perform the choreography we’ve seen more often, incl. the knee moving moves, while the transparent LED-screen (and later on the backdrop as well) depicts a true color-explosion. At the end they carry on to the extra stage to perform more dance routines. It’s solid staging and Jeangu is obviously a great performer. Unfortunately, the whole performance isn’t able to lift the song to heights that potentially might’ve been possible. This will probably keep the Netherlands away from the last spot in the final, but I can’t see it doing much better than that.

🇩🇪 | Germany
Jendrik (really, just name your child John or Hendrik), is on stage together with three other backings who stand on the side behind microphone stands. As expected, the whole performance is an energetic explosion. Next to the three backings, there’s also a saxophone-playing dancer wearing a.. hand. Throughout the entire performance they’re all doing some rather weird, but I suppose for some fun, goofy dancing, including a tapping part. The backdrop is an explosion of different colors. Jendrik’s wearing a pink blazer with a black shirt underneath and black pants. He’s playing around on his ukulele and at one point when he’s doing the let’s-say-words-fast-after-one-another part, he’s looking from side to side in different cameras. He looks like he needs a shower and although they’re trying to be playful and fun, it looks rather cheap and amateurish. This is absolutely not my cup of tea. I think it’s all rather annoying. I feel very much hate.

🇮🇹 | Italy
Damiano is on stage with three other musicians. He's wearing leather pants and is completely (apart from the straps) shirtless. They've placed a staired platform on the middle of the stage with LEDs, which has a drumset on it. At the start there's a camera shot of him walking around this platform. He's then joined by two guitarists. Throughout the routine there are lots of flashes with Damiano going wild while interacting with the others. It's what one'd expect from a rock performance. The backdrop is mainly white with shadows of musicians on it. Towards the end there's lots of fireworks, he's walking up this platform, performing together with the drummer, walking down and laying down on the stage. Vocally Damiano's flawless. As said, it's what one would expect from a rock performance, so I'm not blown away. It's good. Winner vibes? Not really.

Day 6 | Second Rehearsals | Second Semi-Final | 🇦🇹 🇵🇱 🇲🇩 🇮🇸 🇷🇸

This will be a rolling blog, each country in running order, so please refresh to update.

Well, hello. Jesus is popping off to heaven today which means I have time to do a bit of blogging. Hope I can remember how.

But while we're waiting for Vincent Bueno to finish his lunch, let's take a moment to remember his grandma, Kay, from Eurovision 1965.

🇷🇸 | Serbia

Hajde da ludujemo.

Wear black, they said. It will look classy, they said. Stylists have been wrong before.

Struggling with this one. They sing well enough and gyrate all over, but the whole package feels a bit empty and without the necessary joy. Maybe it's just the lack of pink and purple that's confusing me.

Sanja serving some "C'mon Ahoy" realness during the bridge.

Nah, I'm just not feeling it and I'd really like to. It ought to be a right boppy banger.

So that's over and out from me for today. If you're very lucky I'll make another appearance soon, regardless of Jesus's travel arrangements. Jordy will be back to deal with the finalists. Tot ziens!

🇮🇸 | Iceland

The silhouette start is MAGIC. I wonder if they wrote the unnecessary slow bit at the beginning of the song just to include this?

I know I am meant to be bringing fresh eyes to this. But well, we all know the routine by now.  Excellent on camera, this should sweep up plenty of televotes. Juries, hmm, maybe less so? 

But anyway, me during this performance:

Ooh. And unexpected pyro.

🇲🇩 | Moldova

Good news: Natalia has safely removed herself from Kirkorov's lap. Although the fixed grin is still there.

She looks very comfortable singing this and I think will turn it up a notch when it matters. Does feel like she's very much in rehearsal mode. Some of the shots are a bit strange when she's turning on the turning thing. They film her from the side or back and it seems like the timing is a bit wrong. And the "body talk talk talk" choreo looks like she just needs the loo.

Impressive looooooong note towards the end. Not sure who's singing it though. 🤔

Camera work tighter in some parts on third run-through, but less tight in other parts. Hmm.

Dunno. It remains a bit of a let-down when you think of what might have been, with a huge prop and some more fun. Song is still a fave of mine but this performance is more low-calorie sweetener than a delightful sugar cube. 

So here's a delightful sugarcube I prepared earlier.

🇵🇱 | Poland

Talking of lights. But these are less impressive and can't distract from...well...I'm fairly tone deaf, but even I can hear those tones. 🙀

"I'll make it through..." We'll see Rafał, we'll see. Even with shades on. There's precious little to say about this. There's a bit of dancing, he takes his shades off and puts them back on. It's even more half-hearted than Azerbaijan. 

At one point he seems to be standing in the middle of the pyro.

Seriously, if that was the ride of my life I'd be asking for a refund.

🇦🇹 | Austria

This is very competent and he is in fine voice. I'm really not a fan of the song, but did wake up with it in my head the other day. If that means anything at all. Note to his Amen sister: It's possible to sing and walk at the same time.

Song really shows off his voice, much more so than I imagine last year's song would have. Not that I can remember last year's song, but anyway. Simple staging with some gorgeous white then purple then orange lights and a catwalk thingy that I'm worried is going to surprise him by moving like Sakis' giant stapler. 

At times he is trying to emote a bit too much. He should leave that to Vasil.

This starts with some lovely dry ice mist. He sings so clearly, the death and funeral lyrics can't be ignored and that could be a bit off-putting.  Vincent is clearly fishing in jury waters, and it worked for Cesár in 2018 with a similarly bland piece of competence, so who knows?

Gosh, this is a lighting orgy ❤️