Rehearsal

Oh no! Poor Azerbaijan.... I had big hopes for Samra, but it sounds like the nerves are taking the better half of her at the moment.

Red and light lasers are the main colours for the performance, while Samra's joined by five dancers who also function as backing vocalists.

I think for now, Samra would be better off focussing on the vocals, rather than dancing. I do feel she's getting more and more confident with each run through.

Visually it's all there (pyros you name it), just the vocals need a bit of fine tuning now.

Well-known Russian journalist and public figure recently employed as press-manager of Philip Kirkorov Anton Korobkov-Zemlyanskiy has published leaked footage of Russian rehearsal

Saved the best for last?

Absolutely! Sergey's most definitely putting out all the stops; Visual presentation is key here, and Sergey is undoubtedly delivering.

Wings, 3D Effects, climbing the LED wall, you name it Sergey has it.

Vocally, Sergey's in top form too.

Great first rehearsal, which undoubtedly is going to keep the momentum going for Russia. It will be up to its other close competitors, (ahum France) to challenge Russia.

Well done.

Oh dear San Marino,

While many of you might have thought, Serhat and his team would camp it up majorly, but they haven't. Personally a bit of a shame.

No there's nothing particularly wrong with Serhat's voice, but his song misses a visual identity at the moment.

Iveta gets to go up and she's actually the first performer today to have a technically more challenged performance.

Dressed in a short black leotard with a veil attached on both arms, the singer's seductively singing her song alone on stage, which is smouldered in white smoke.

The atmosphere is pretty dark, but there's plenty visuals too with pyrotechnics added in the performance.

Iveta, sounds fantastic too, and I do think she has an usual presentation ready, which Europe is going to like. In the betting this seems to be overlooked a little. The added pyro's had us all in awe.

Well done Iveta.

Douwe with his musicians performs on a small area with a LED-floor showing gigantic clocks. It looks cozy and special with a good contrast to other performances.
I'm still sceptic about this song but it looks more spectacular to look than to listen to in a studio version. Douwe is stable and charismatic vocalist and works with cameras really good.
Basically nothing happens on the stage, it's just Douwe singing and musicians imitating playing instruments. But you're not get bored!
It's difficult to believe in this song but we have unexpected finalists like this with simple but soulful melodic songs almost every year.

As the Eurovision season finished up, Croatia emerged as one of the front runners of this year's Eurovision. Unfortunately the first rehearsal of Nina may have dashed plenty of those aspiring hopes some of us had.

Nina's vocals are very shaky at the moment, so that's something she will have to work on in the coming days. I don't think that's much of her concern though, the third run through already sounded much much much better.

What concerns me more however is the huge grey dress she is wearing at the beginning of her song.

Just as with Trijntje Oosterhuis last year, the dress overpowers literally everything good about Lighthouse and that's an absolute shame. The backdrop, remains pretty simple, with blue as the main colours. Nina is also joined by four other backing vocalists on stage, though there's little to no interaction with them.

If Croatia is to win any prizes at all at this stage, it will be the Barbara Dex award of the season.

Only a very short snippet with sound was to be seen from Hungary so far.

Freddie's husky, rough vocals are spot on, and he's sticked pretty closely to the concept we already saw in the national final.

No monk in full clothing atire this time, and none have the glowing drum sticks in their hands this time around.

The beat of the drum however is reflected in the floor backdrop which is predominantly red. The beat translates into white cracks into the flooring, which is kept throughout the song.

Vocally, Freddie is on par with things. His voice is sounding husky and rough, so nothing really to comment on there.

Good overall first rehearsal.

Space man alert! Space man alert! Yes Moldova's will wake you up this year, and bring some of that good old Eurovision craziness to you.

Lidia starts off her song Falling Stars by her own. The camera work is pretty much focussed on her and varies close up shots with long shots. And then boom!!! He's behind you!!!! The cosmonaut that is...

Funny to think that recently Lidia invited Romanian hopeful Ovidiu Anton to join her on stage, and that would have most likely been his role. Whether he would have managed to do the same dance routine as cosmonaut, is a question we'll never have answered I think. Cosmonaut, has worked with that other Eurovision alum Aliona Moon.

Unfortunately we don't have any sound either, but we've been promised they are working hard on getting it fixed.

Hurrah! Sound... I'm not panicking yet, but I hope Lidia is saving her voice. She's sounding a little bit off at the moment. Could however be the sound as well.... Neither Lidia nor her backings are actually sounding like they are mastering the backing track at the moment. Let's hope that gets sorted out before the next rehearsal.

Currently we have no sound for ARGO yet, but the staging for their entry Utopian land looks picture perfect.

With an Explosive Gold and yellow swirls in the backdrop, the Greek team have come to Stockholm with a full on routine for the journey to their Utopian Land.

Because of that, their 3 minute performance does not bore at all, and leaves a pretty good impression already.

For Eurovision, ARGO have teamed up with Vasilis Roxenos, a dancer who is specialised in Pontiac dancing.

Looking good, now if it sounds good too, there's no reason to think Greece wouldn't make the finals once more.

A surprise to keep an eye out for.