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Belarus_1

Chuvi on Sun, 05/03/2009 - 08:20

The czech band had already left the stage, but the stage director called them back and they rehearsed two times more.

By some reason they changed the order and now we see Belarus performer.

First there is man standing on a chair, wrapped up in a white bedsheet so that we see only his figure. (At first we thought it was Petr himself). Then appears Petr practically from nowhere. Near the dancing bedsheet man there is a hairy guitarist, shaking his head immensely. Petr is at the right part of the stage. The background displays show kind of result of ultrasound diagnostics, the small front displays show a broken heart, but it looks more like lungs or kindeys.
Vocally very good.

Czech Republic

Shoddy on Sun, 05/03/2009 - 07:37

Radoslav definately has strong vocal abilities. Band's performance may seem a bit messy at first sight, so it's either too static compared to that of Zdob și Zdub back in 2005 or not visually stable to turn out well on TV screens.
He weares the very same orange "superman" outfit that we all have seen in the preview video. Graphical background is inspired by urban style and mid-century US comic strips... Funny enough they rated their performance as PG-33 according to those backs :P
As for first two performances today, stage elements don't look that variable as we expected. The only movement we've seen so far were those displays that form a ring around the stage going up and down during the bridge of "Just get out of my life"

Photos and videos under More

Montenegro

Andy on Sun, 05/03/2009 - 07:04

Well, after first runs vocally it seems to be pretty fine. There is nothing to catch in the song or the presentation though. If you have seen the promo-tour performances of Andrea, the routine is exactly the same - with just one dancer on stage. I'm afraid, from the early start it is not the song to be remembered till the end.

Photos and videos under "Read more"

One thing about organization. The numbers of pigeonholes are distributed in alphabetic order of countries, thus all massive number of Russian journalists get numbers around 900. This surely will not work in distribution of promo-materials, I'm not impressed.

Copycat, Runnin' Wild, Bop-A-Tones in XO club

Andy on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 23:02

Today evening we have visited concert with participation of representative of Belgium Patrick Ouchene, who this way has become the first entrant of Eurovision 2009 caught by us in Moscow. We were almost swept out by wave of rockabilli. We managed to speak with Patrick, who has noted that in past years Eurovision has went significantly downwards from Johnny Logan's times and the song itself is no longer important. This year he hopes that with help of jury his song as well as song of another big artist, Patricia Kaas will be noticed as really good song. Also, Patrick has spoken about his involvement in the unity of Belgium movement and about the concert devoted to this issue that will take place in Brussels on 17th of May with his participation.
Photos and videos under cut:

Accreditation center

Andy on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 23:01

Well, I guess almost all have already reported on that but the first day of the Accreditation Center for Eurovision-2009 has been unprecedented example of kindness and hospitality of the Muscovites and guests of the capital, returning us to the glorious times of Soviet Union. The prevailing majority of foreigners received their portion of the pleasure being made to stand in a long queues with volunteers and other staff of the contest, while organizers usually fail to warn, especially in English, that press can enter accreditation center directly, avoiding any queues. Even if you manage to get the news, you had to face the security, demanding for some reasons the press card, which actually was not required for accreditation itself, but only to enter the building for some reason. How it worked: two minutes of shouting (which will seem to be the usual way of handling the things in Moscow) and they will allow you to enter without press-card.

The handling of accreditations in another story. We're still in pre-computer times, sorry. There have been just 1 or 2 girls dealing with press-accreditations, which have been put into alphabet boxes, there might be two boxes with M - M1 and M2 and the order inside the boxes is chaotic. So, prepare to wait, while they manually run through all the 100s of accreditations in a box to find yours in a very bottom.

And that was yesterday, I hope that with accreditation center working till 21.00 most people managed to get their badges yesterday, as the situation today at 8.30 and the length of queues may really get unpredictable.

Well, see what will happen next and what surprises await us.

Финалисты / Finalists

Andy on Fri, 05/23/2008 - 05:59

Ukraine 18
Croatia 9
Albania 3
Iceland 11
Georgia 17
Denmark 16
Sweden 15
Latvia 14
Turkey 12
Portugal 13

1. Romania
2. United Kingdom
3. Albania
4. Germany
5. Armenia
6. Bosnia & Herzegovina
7. Israel
8. Finland
9. Croatia
10. Poland
11. Iceland
12. Turkey
13. Portugal
14. Latvia
15. Sweden
16. Denmark
17. Georgia
18. Ukraine
19. France
20. Azerbaijan
21. Greece
22. Spain
23. Serbia
24. Russia
25. Norway

EBU Press-conference

Andy on Thu, 05/22/2008 - 05:35

Nothing particularly exciting, but

Preliminary dates for Eurovision 2009 are 12-14-16th of May.
In summer filming of comedy movie about Eurovision will start.
Eurovision rights have been sold to Middle East and Northern Africa and the launch of local competition is expected soon. US is still in negotiation process.
There will be record number of countries in Junior Eurovision. As ESCKaz previously reported we are welcoming Azerbaijan and Israel and probably will see Poland back as well.
In 1st semifinal 10th jury qualifier was same country that finished 10th in televoting.
Again we were shown last year scorecards that in 50-50 case and in only Western countries voting case Serbia still was the winner.

This year for the first time winner trophy will be awarded, which will be transfering from winner to winner.

I quite disliked explanation of numerous empty seats during 1st semifinal. Producer explained that Serbs have mostly purchased packages, while intending only to use final ticket, thus they didn't turn at the semis and this was unexpected to them. I do not see this as truth on the day of semifinal there WERE 7000 unsold semifinal tickets available on the official site, so the reason of empty seats is different.

Lys Assia and Maria Serifovic were present, they will launch the voting window in 2nd semifinal and final.

Another news: secondary Kazakhstan channel ElArna, member of Khabar media holding (Khabar, Caspionet, ElArna) will for the first ever time broadcast show in Kazakhstan. It should be seen as confirmation that at least one of Kazakhstan channels - Khabar or Kazakhstan 1 which expressed interest earlier this year is interested to join EBU in the very nearest future.

Best legs of the contest

Andy on Wed, 05/21/2008 - 21:49

Here is another contest run by our team member Laisves:

1. Tereza (Czech Republic)

2. Isis (Poland)

3. Kurusova (Latvia)

4. Rebeca (Slovenia)
5. Joanna (Bulgaria)
6. Regina (Iceland)
7. Charlotte (Sweden)
8. Karolina (Ukraine)
9. Kalomira (Greece)
10. Evdokia (Cyprus)

and as special guest local from Russia... unfortunaltely photo of legs is not available...


From L. with love))