Czech Republic

First Meet and Greet of the day was with Gabriela from the Czech Republic. She was ver relaxed and happy about being here. The main goal of course for the Czech Republic to qualify for the final this year. And to avoid the mistakes from the past entries, which means better lightning and staging. With the nice ballade from Gabriela it may seem difficult to imagine, that Gabriela mostly do rock music. But the ballade only proves, that she masters more genres.

Gabriela is the first to kick things off and she's proving to be in top form already.

Vocally this lady's sounding absolutely perfect. Not a single note is sounding out of place. The camera slowly zooms in during the first verse, while Gabriela walks down the stage. Apart from that it's a pretty static performance, but her song I stand lends itself for that.

The backdrop and LED floor has been filled with the colours and patterns used in the official video with main colours being purple, blue and magenta. That's perhaps the only criticism there is on the staging for the moment. Vocally you can't fault Gabriela, she is standing right there with her song.

The camera work however at times is a little sloppy, so I hope they manage to sort that out. Not sure using different angles really works for the ballad. The other minus point, is that perhaps the overall colours are a little bit too overpowering. So I hope they play around with the lights a little.

But what a voice! Sincerely hope, Europe votes en masse for the Czech Republic!

ESCKAZ and few Swedish fans were the only ones to meet Sergey Lazarev upon his arrival at the Arlanda airport. He arrived with his manager Mikhail Dvoretskiy and head of press of RTR broadcaster Maxim Kranin. The rest of the team including head of delegation Ekaterina Orlova and head of press Monica Papadatou will arrive a bit later.

We were no less happy to meet charming Gabriela Gunčíková from Czech republic.

I decided not to hang around for the qualifier press conference tonight as I have a pretty hectic day tomorrow, but I have now caught up with the halves of the draw that the ten countries will perform in. It really has ended up as a show of two halves with most of the uptempo songs in the first half and the ballads and slower moody songs in the second.

Overall I think tonight's show was far better than Tuesday's. The songs were better, the pacing was sharper and there was less of last year's winner, though still far too much. The camerawork was also improved, but the issue with flags blocking the screen is still a major problem and has to be sorted on Saturday.

As for the seven songs that went out, only Switzerland and Ireland can feel hard done by and Poland qualifying was a bit of a shock. Some are suggesting it was a sympathy vote, but it was also helped by the draw so perhaps not totally unpredictable.

My thoughts on the seven that went home;
IRELAND: I think Molly performed well and for once I liked the Irish staging. However I thought we were probably doomed on the day we were given the awful #2 draw and so it came to be. I may sound like a broken record here but once again can I suggest RTÉ looks at its selection process. The current formula is giving is the worst set of results we've ever had in the contest.

SAN MARINO: Dreadful patchwork of a song and no amount of youthful enthusiasm can replace a lack of stage craft. It was always a no-hoper. It deserved to finish last and being honest, if this is the best that they can come up with, San Marino has no place in the contest.

MALTA: A much better performance by Amber tonight but there was far too much going on to distract you in the presentation.It was as if no lessons were learnt from Olivia Lewis in 2007. The song was always too weak for this semi, but might have had a chance in the first semi. No surprise this lost out.

PORTUGAL: The Portuguese chose the wrong song in the Eurovision selection, it's as simple as that. No matter how good Leonor was tonight (and she was very good), the song was just poor. Like Ireland, Portugal needs to re-think its selection process. There's enough talent there to do very well in the contest but RTP are not tapping into it.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Whoever decided to add the ridiculous shoe throwing to the act should never be allowed near the contest again. Until that point the performance was solid, even if the song was always a little dull. I fear that we may never see the Czechs back in the contest.

ICELAND: Not only the worst vocal performance of the night, one of the worst of this century. It was always a big heap of nothing of a song, with basically a repeated chorus and no verses but everything about this was absolutely dreadful from he staging to the costume, but especially the off-key performance.

SWITZERLAND: I really feel sorry for Melanie, because this was a terrific performance and hugely improved on the national final. Switzerland just doesn't have friendly neighbours or a diaspora, but if Austria can win, so can they. Really disappointed not to see this in the final.

The following countries are in the first half;
 Armenia
 Australia
 Belgium
 Cyprus
 Estonia
 France
 Israel
 Lithuania
 Norway
 Serbia
 Slovenia
 Sweden
 United Kingdom

That's a lot of up-tempo and mid-tempo songs. Personally I'd probably open with United Kingdom, then go with Armenia and Sweden, for contrast. I would have Israel at #13

At #14 it's Austria

In the second half you have the following countries;
 Albania
 Azerbaijan
 Georgia
 Germany
 Greece
 Hungary
 Italy
 Latvia
 Montenegro
 Poland
 Romania
 Russia
 Spain

There's no up-tempo song in there at all, but Georgia, Germany and Montenegro are at least mid-tempo. Hungary, Greece, Russia and Spain need to be kept apart. The director will certainly earn his money tonight.

Tomorrow I will review the running order, as I fly back to Dublin.

I am very impressed with Vaclav and Marta. Dynamic but at the same time sensitive performance and flawless vocals. I would say that Marta is overdoing it at parts, i think she needs to be careful with that. This is all i was missing from Norway but to be fair,this is a worse song. And it wouldn't be the first time an over-dramatic duet stays in the semi or just qualifies.I am undecided about its chances,i think i need to watch the whole semi for that.

Marta and Vaclav are two true professionals. They are vocally top notch and they have big personalities filling that stage with ease.

No changes in the actual backdrop, and also no changes for Marta, as she continues to chuck her shoes in the middle of the performance and continues to perform on bare foot.

I'm seeing this more and more as a contender for the final. Those final high note together is just spine-tingling.

I heard this guys sing at one of the jam nights for their fans and they appeared in absolutely different role. They were sreaming, laughting at each other, jumping on the stage. Here they changed a lot, they are more serious, they are great actors!
Good luck to you Marta and Voclav!!

Samira and I just returned from the Eurovision jam night – tired and satisfied. The party took place in Albertina Passage in the city centre just next to the Opera. We met a lot of people without accreditation badges, and it’s not a surprise – fans are allowed to these parties the first week.

It’s a very nice place, beautifully decorated with lots of dining tables. On a usual night I would have liked this restaurant but at party with 300 guests….I doubt it. Many tables were empty but in other areas it was fully packed and not enough air-conditioned.

Well, it all started with Maimuna (Belarus) “inviting” Uzari with her violin to come on the stage. They performed their remix very good and today you could see there was a great improvement with their eye contact. Now they look like atrue duo.

Second came Nina (Georgia) singing two songs. Her performance was impressive, full of emotions and pain.
Elhaida Dani was given a turn to perform – it was a big change comparing with the previous singer. She was very open to public, singing her favorite Eurovision song – 2012 Spain’s entry and later, her Eurovision song.
Then we got to hear from Czech Republic – two very cheerful singers who managed to make all people dance. They have a special energy coming out and spreading it to everyone.

The last performers were the two backing vocalists from Slovenia. They sang a couple of songs for us and the dj continued to play the music. When we were leaving, at about 12.30, there were still a lot of people in the club, including boys from Anti Social Media, dancing and enjoying themselves.

Marta & Vaclav from the Czech Republic are the final contestants to take on the stage today and they certainly didn't disappoint.

With yet another blue backdrop, enhanced with glass mirrors which have clouds in them, Marta & Vaclav start their ballad 'Hope Never Dies'. It seems like not only the pre-dominant blue colour of the staging is sought after. We're seeing an influx on black in terms of outfits, as the Czech duo have also chosen the colour for their outfits.

I really like how their votes go together. Granted, we're seeing another love story, but one with a bit of a twist. For some reason Marta has chucked her pumps three times now. What an odd thing to do. I could kind of see the point if she was to throw them in the direction of the backdrop and the mirrors in the backdrop breaking, but otherwise... . Marta & Vaclav are clearly fans of Frozen, as they have opted to borrow Elsa's frozen palace floor and added a bit of red into it.

I have to say though that both these artists have amazing voices. The end note of Hope Never Dies is simply outstanding.

Based pure on their voices, I would love to see this pair in the final, but I'm not sure if the audience are going to get over the throwing away of the pumps.

So Czech Republic, based on that, a solid Sept Points!