Rehearsal

Well, that was definitely interesting. Slavko starts his performance with a huge blue skirt that obviously gets ripped off at some point and then reveals tight black glitter pants!. He's alone on the stage so more hidden backings.

There's a lot going on so I don't even know where to start, especially as there have been only two runs. At some point the stage is filmed from above and we see Slavko's face on stage with some very bright pink lipstick. I'm not really sure the waving with his large braid does this any favour.

And I should mention, this song got the first round of applause in the press centre. But then it was the first up tempo song of the day, and the first real show!

Slavko is alone on stage and giving full effort in glitter pants and swinging his ponytail.
I don't know if the staging is spectacular enough to make it to the final, neither is the rather pedestrian song.
So the only thing REALLY spectacular here is Slavko himself.

It's entertaining, but the camp presentation might really struggle with jury points.

So that was lunch already. The restaurant in the entrance zone of the press centre offers meals at very Ukrainian prices, which means practically for free. Apparently there will be more options in the next few days, so I'm glad that has been taken care of!

An hour has flown by and Belgium has started ahead of schedule! After the first run I must say I'm very disappointed. I had expected so much more from this performance. Blanche is alone on stage (no costume yet), and the backdrop is nice with some moving lines, but nothing out of the ordinary. The promotour performances already revealed that she's not the most charismatic performer on the Eurovision stage and little has changed.

Now, I would've expected some dancers or at least some kind of stage show, so far, zero of that. In the last part of the song Blanche tries to take it up a bit vocally but unfortunately misses the notes, the first offkey ones of the day (and hopefully the only ones!)

It took a long time to get another run from Georgia but we still got a third one. Both sounded a lot better than the first time, especially the third time.

Isaiah has a really pleasant voice and he looks like a star on his spinning object.

The object presents some problems for camera angles, because at the moment Isaiah turns his back to the camera quite too often.

Australia also hired Sacha Jean Baptiste this year, and I would expect the camerawork to improve vastly during the week.

Just adding a few thoughts on Albania.

My impression is that it might be a tad too depressing. Lindita looks tormented and the imagery from the video also gives a slightly depressing effect.

It is nice, that she is joined by her backing singers, but I would like the act to convey a little more hope and positivity. There's still time to fix things though. A little bit of smiling might help for starters.

Isaiah is standing on a round turning stage that turns around and that he also uses as a treadmill. He seems to be wearing his stage outfit, all black with a long blazer. I'm not a fan of the background here that includes flashes on the beat of the song and many images of himself on the LED-screen. It starts all blue but in the second verse more pink. Vocally he's fine though, yet I don't have a feeling we are looking at our next winner or in any case a competitor for the top spots.

The second time he also experiments with different vocal lines. The last part of the song he walks off the round stage and walks around. It's only there when things really start going.

Isaiah also gets to do his song four times and the last one reveals a pyro-curtain.

Tamara is a professional, she sounds good and knows how to work the stage.

Sacha Jean Baptiste was hired to rework the staging from NF and she apparently went for a minimalist approach with this entry.
Perhaps less is more, that is always debatable but in its current form the entry might lack a visual anchor.

Tamara starts in a red cape she takes off after 1st verse, there is some dry ice on the floor. Pyros for the climax.

So far we're going well on schedule and we've already moved to Albania. Vocally again more than decent. Lindita chose not to hide her backings and isn't wearing her dress either. The backdrop reminds of the video she made, now in a greenish colour and with clocks with roman numerals around her and on the floor.
While there is nothing to say against her or the song, still it just doesn't make the same impression as Georgia.

The second time she experiments with some different vocal lines just before the long note. We know now that Lindita can also hit really high notes if she wants but I hope she keeps them out as it does not fit the song. Unfortunately it's been this way as well in the 3rd - and even 4th - runthrough. It's strange how she does a high note, than an awkward silence and then the long and impressive note that she has nailed each and every time so far. I hope it's still some way to save her voice.

Robin Bengtsson is the first one up to rehearse for Sweden.

I can't go on won Melodifestivalen with a slick choreography on treadmills. Sweden, as they usually do, did not change a lot with the presentation other than a few technical details. When Robin enters the stage there are no stairs, a new backdrop, flashing images of neon pink, the backdrop reminds me at times of the movie TRON. It's a slick package with some retro

We did not have sound for the first two run-throughs, the third run-through revealed that Sweden will have to work out the soundmixing a bit to recreate how it sounded in Melfest.

Tamara Gachechiladze just sang her song for the first time on the IEC stage. Vocally no issues as was to be expected, even though she seemed to hold back a bit in the last part, nothing to worry about in a first runthrough in a first rehearsal. She's alone on stage which should mean the backings are hidden, something we saw a lot last year as well. In the next runthroughs I'll keep an eye on it to see if they are visible or not.

The backdrop is very red with some flashes. Obviously this song needed a new backdrop as there was no way the NF version would be allowed on stage.

Also, she is clearly not wearing her stage outfit yet (despite the schedule mentioning that all performers are required to wear their costumes in this rehearsal).

I missed a part from the 2nd runthrough but the third one clearly reveals that Tamara will be wearing a red cape over her dress which is torn off after the first chorus. Now the only question left of course is what colour the dress will be. Red or not?
And there we have the pyro as well. No backings visible indeed but they can clearly be heard and are doing a good job. A very solid rehearsal.