ESC 2016

Gallery:

Oh dear, Ireland.... Much much much improvement needed I'm afraid.

The red staging is completely wrong, the female backing vocalist should really have been a male vocalist, and Nicky just doesn't seem to show the experience he had from doing all these tours with Westlife.

Back to the drawing board for Ireland.

Their absence in 2014 has most definitely revived Serbia's desire for Eurovision glory.

Sanja and her song couldn't be more different from Bojana last year, but my god, she sure does not let down.

Joined by four backing singers, and a dancer who's portraying the abuser in the song, Sanja's delivering power vocals. Gone are the exaggerated facial expressions, from the official video.

Really impressed by this, and think this is gonna do extremely well next Thursday AND Saturday.

I was not a huge fan of this song before I started to see it on the promo tour, and how she delivers it so well....

Now finally she is in Stockholm and there is something palpable about this that grabs you from the very first note. Amazing delivery

Hovi had the press eating of his hand. Besides calling us "bitches" and we of course loving it. He did a fun impersonation of Ira Losco from Malta. And he used the "F-word" several times!

Rykka doesn't make it easy for you, when you have to blog. Basicly she is mostly giggling. So this could be 5 lines with just "giggle, giggle, giggle". However she did tell, that she is barefoot on stage, because she is very clumsy.

IVAN from Belarus is without a doubt the most talked about artist this year, even before the contest started.

His idea to perform naked has partly been granted, as you'll notice from the introduction. A naked IVAN hologram caressing a hologram wolf. You get the party. In fact the whole performance can be described as hologram. There is so much going on that I hope the Belarussian team whittle it down a bit.

Vocally IVAN's not quite on par either, but that's probably just the nerves with all the media attention and being in Globen for the first time.

Michał revealed that he has been to Sweden many times, because he loves to attend the Swedish Rock Festival. He also mentioned that he has been to more than 20 concerts with the Swedish group Europe. Having a bit of a soar throat at the moment, he was a bit concerned about his first rehearsal on stage. But he is confident, that he will be better for the semifinal next week - and who knows...maybe even the final.

Wow! Justs blew my mind away with an acapella version of his ESC entry. And I'm rather sure, I'm not the only one. However when he sings: "Feeling your heartbeat. That's what I want", it sounds more like: "That's what I won't". He said that he enjoyed the first rehearsal. He was comfortable on the stage. In fact he was more freaked out by facing all the press and fans at the Meet and Greet.

Hovi simply stands there and delivers this perfectly to be honest. Stage looks amazing for this, literally stars everywhere with some dancers in hula-hoops to the side which is mildly distracting if I am honest....

Still this is sailing through to the final. Well done