Opinion

Fantastic show from ORF, despite some of these songs being just a tad boring tbh

Conchita was amazing and really did her home country proud tonight

Lets await the dreaded envelopes now

Moldova
Finland
Greece
Estonia
Serbia
Russia
Denmark
Albania
Romania
Georgia

With just over two hours to go until he semi final one starts the excitement is building in the press centre for the first show of this year's Eurovision Song Contest

Still not sure if any of my predictions will come true, but at least it's only a prediction and time will tell what will happen....

Now my dearest friends now have arrived Lilian and Roger arrived so am gone now:-)

So...time for some predictions!Here it goes!

Armenia
Belgium
Greece
Estonia
Serbia
Hungary
Russia
Denmark
Romania
Georgia

i do hope i am wrong about a couple of them though :P

Have fun tonight!

It's high time to post my predictions for the first semi-final. I will list the countries randomly, just 10 of them, not necessarily #1 is the best. So, here you go!

- Belgium
- Serbia
- Russia
- Estonia
- Greece
- Belarus
- Albania
- Georgia
- Moldova
- Macedonia

What do you think? Any thoughts?

Australia has brought some city lights for their first Eurovision performance!And then some more city lights in the backdrop which moves the whole time- like a a drive in the city streets. Guy is the centre of the performance with four dancers accompanying him. There's a play with lights the Jan-Jan way, however i don't think it's coming across as impressive as they would like it to be. Vocals are very good in the first run, holding back in the second. I do like this performance and i find it competent in terms of singing and choreography; however i am missing something to call it a winner.Somehow i can't see the European audience voting massively for this type of performance.

And rehearsing last... possibly Australia first and last ever candidate to take part in the competition; Guy Sebastian.

Bringing the Aussies to the competition with a funky soul track, Guy's ready to show Europe Australia are in it to win it. Red and dragon green are the main colours for the first part until the gold kicks in.

Vocal wise it's more of a technical rehearsal for Guy. So he's not fully singing the entry at times, but he's already getting us in the mood for a serious party!

What a Eurovision this is going to be!

The graphics and the presentation look really impressive here.It starts up really atmospheric; grey and brown are the main colors and the backdrop shows war ruins. Towards the end of the song drummers appear on stage and walk towards Lisa, accompanied with some more drummers in the backdrop. The ruined city gets slowly "re-built" and transformed, the sky becomes blue and the previously dry trees become green again. It ends up with Lisa and the drummers on the same row raising her fist up. Even if it's obvious that Lisa is holding back, it's still a flawless vocal performance.The bad news is that the purple- dekoltee outfit is less flattering than everything she's had on for her TV performances till now. I am hoping that they'll change it because it kind of ruins the whole performance for me. If they do, this can actually surprise everyone and go high.

Well well I didn't see that coming from La douce France...

and yes it really is La Douce France, Lisa Angell has completely won me over with the staging of her ballad 'N'Oubliez Pas'.

The backdrop, featuring a ruin, flying doves and drummers is so empowering, it just fills your eyes with tears.

Absolutely stunning visually and vocally from France.

I have nothing more to say!

And then there we had the moment... We finally got to see what the UK would be doing.
The UK have gone big. It's very Great Gatsby versus neon fun fair, but there's room for improvement. Stair cases, neon lights, lights on the dresses, you name it and it is there.

Right now, I'm missing real engagement and enthusiasm from Bianca and Alex. I think if they continue to work on that, they can bring the sassiness out of the song and do rather well.

Yes there are still a couple of changes that need to be made, especially for Bianca's outfit. Right now she has on back level, a big bunch of wires and devices on her, which looks like she's some sort of toy with battery pack. So I hope there's a way that's either not being filmed or gets enhanced.

Two female and male backing singers are joining in to, both as singers and dancers.

A much needed injection of fun and kitsch from the UK, which I think Europe is actually going to love.