Greece

I had a few issues with Ukrainian internet since leaving the press centre, so I apologize for the delay of this Day 2 summary.

I just wanted to give you a quick overview which entries stood out the most today in the press centre:

- Armenia won the press centre poll for day 2. It looks modern, sophisticated and professional, and Artsvik performs it really well. My only caveat would be that it lacks a real climax at the moment.

- Moldova received the second highest score. The staging is fun and upbeat, that should certainly help in a semi full of ballads.

- Iceland and Czech Republic the losers of the day based on the press centre poll. But there is still enough time to turn things around. And the press centre has gotten things wrong in the past, so fans of these entries shouldn't lose hope.

We will see what kind of adjustments the delegations will make later this week.

Have a good night and see you tomorrow!

Here we go. 2nd day of rehearsals and we are starting with Greece and the highly anticipated Fokas staging.

Demy starts on a pedestal in front of a backdrop of raining stars. Visually it is as clean as Demy's skin. The raining stars turn into golden drops of water and Demy is joined by two topless dancers, doing excercises in a little water pool, a water fountain hologram starts shooting out of the pool.

Vocally the harmonies of the chorus don't quite work yet, but that could be due to the soundmix and probably not something to be concerned about just yet.

Another day at the press centre has just begun with the Greek rehearsal. Already the first runthrough got a modest applause from those present in the hall and I have to say it looks really good indeed. Demy's wearing a long golden dress and focuses mostly on her vocals.

She starts alone on stage against blue sparkly background. During the chorus she steps on a platform that then rises up and dancers appear to join her and the colour scheme changes into golden. Lots of great visual effects of water everywhere. Maybe a reference to the original lyrics of the song 'rain falls from above'?
Especially during the verses she sounds great, later in the song could be a bit of an issue.

After having seen 2,5 runthroughs (as part of the last one wasn't shown on screen) I would say that Greece can do very well this year. One thing that needs to improve is the vocal mix as the backings make it all sound off key instead of improving. All in all, a great start of the day!

Mike;

Finland No
Greece No
Moldova Maybe
Hungary Yes
Croatia Yes
The Netherlands Yes
Armenia Yes
San Marino No
Russia Yes
Czech Republic Yes
Cyprus Maybe
Austria Yes
Estonia Maybe
Azerbaijan Yes
Montenegro No
Iceland Yes
Bosnia and Herzegovina Yes
Malta Yes

So someone will miss out from my predictions, and sadly I think it will be Austria

From Daniel;

Finland No
Greece No
Moldova Maybe
Hungary Yes
Croatia Yes
The Netherlands Yes
Armenia Yes
San Marino No
Russia Yes
Czech Republic Yes
Cyprus No
Austria Yes
Estonia No
Azerbaijan Maybe
Montenegro No
Iceland Yes
Bosnia and Herzegovina Yes
Malta Yes

Some slight disagreements here, but more or less we agree this year

Anyway what the hell do we know.....though we usually get 7-9 out of 10

Argo told that their costumes are white and very light in the fabric, because they want to symbolize innocence, and they have to be able to move easily. Especially the dancer. The dancer Bill told me afterwards, that he have a minor problem with his knee. Nothing dramatic, but he does wear a knee pad at the moment. And he revealed, that he will take off his shirt on stage.

Finland
Ok so this is kinda competent but that's all really. Nothing much else to say, the vocal could do with some work really, but in the arena it looks nice as an opener to the show. Still in the cat suit, still using the whole of the stage hope this works out for them

Greece
The big surprise for me so far, was never going to give this much hope tbh, but it looks really cool not he stage, and we have short ripping off moments so early in the show which is always a good thing

Moldova
Starting to come together for Lidia now, vast improvement on her first run through. Well done.

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.

After Finland Greece takes the stage and again we're not seeing much change for the Greek staging.

Somehow the wind machine has dissapeared from the first verse of the song. I'm not entirely sure if that was deliberately done or not, because for me personally the gently blowing of the wind machine through Maria-Elena's hair lifted that performance for me. We'll see how it pans out with the second one.

Otherwise there is no change whatsoever. Maria-Elena is a confident singer and she's sounding beautifully.

I hope the wind machine somehow gets its return with one of the other runs, but if not, I can still see Greece do very well.

Maria-Elena is definitely a good vocalist and a very beautiful woman. But to my mind the song is a bit boring although there is meaning behind it. Her stage outfit is amazing, showing a bit of her décolleté. Is it in fashion this year??? It seems to me that everybody is wearing this style and cut of dresses.

The piano man gives a lot to the performance; he’s producing a very nice piece of music and the performance becomes even more intimate. The background effects are nothing very special – a huge circle mostly in white and blue colors. But it matches a lot with her glittery dress.

The problem this year is that there are more ballads than lively songs so it might be a bit difficult for Maria-Elena to compete with others.

Finally that moment in 2015 arrives when the first countries grace the 2015 Eurovision stage for the very first time, we kick off this morning with Moldova, Armenia, Belgium and The Netherlands and then skip into the afternoon with Finland, Greece, Estonia and finishing the day but no means least Macedonia

We come at the rehearsals with some preconceptions as to what will be good, bad and indifferent as we have already seen performances from many of the delegates on the promo tour.....but forget all that WE WILL clear our small brains of all this and open a totally open mind and be as objective as we can

Just a few more hours and clips from www.eurovision.tv should be online plus opinions from the 5 million other bloggers about to unfurl their (sometimes brutal) honesty on the world