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2013

Dorians Armenia 1st rehearsal

Andy on Thu, 05/09/2013 - 10:24

Very casual outfits for Dorians members, all different, mostly jeans/t-shirts in white/light blue colours. Absolutely no movements and nothing is happening on the stage. I'm awaiting for Albania to compare.
Last run is with pyros. A lot of white smoke on the stage in the beginning. Huge amount of pyros towards the end of the song. Looking much better now.

Lozano & Esma 1st rehearsal

Andy on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 10:26

Well, they are using a different arrangement of the song, a techno one - and it sounds totally bad. It made Vlatko singing in a different tune and tone, which he is very uncomfortable with. His part is completely loosing the ballad feeling now. But it now sounds a bit closer to the vocal style of Esma.

This should be the motto of delegation - if it isn't broken, PLEASE don't fix it!!!! I'm in a shock with what they have done again.

Esma is hardly singing her part, she is almost fully covered with backing vocals. She gets significantly better by the end of rehearsals though and is OK.

They perform a three language version in the way announced before.

San Marino Valentina 1st rehearsal

Andy on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 10:02

Valentina is totally different from last year. She starts with a bright ball in her hands as in the video. She is in dark outfit. The dancers are crawling on the floor in black too. Valentina stands up in the 2nd verse and she desperately tries to get rid of her dark cover and goes all red. After that dancers turn red as well. Well, a good thing they haven't overdone it. With just three people and only one ball on stage it feels very empty there. It screams obvious non-qualifier to me, but fans may think differently.

PeR Latvia 1st rehearsal

Andy on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 09:26

Glitter outfits back for PeR, Ralfs wears his on a naked body. Otherwise, it is a bit messy on the stage and on the screens, but they are making the party feel and the stage crowded even with 4 people. Besides singers there are also keyboardist and guitarist all with very glamorous instruments. Blue colours of the stage. Robotic movement to a satellite stage and end of song is performed there - that was a bit unnecessary. A very lively energetic performance and good opener.

Moldova Aliona Moon 1st rehearsal

Andy on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 11:21

Aliona unexpectedly starts first run in English. Seemingly a mistake, she switches to Romanian in couple of sentences. It is not repeated in futher runs. Hi Pasha! He is joined in the beginning on piano by two dancers. Aliona uses again her illuminated dress. White top, and bottom starts red. Dancers are pretty useless to the left of screen. Stage lights blue. THe backdrop has thunderstorm at song climax. Aliona raises then with her dress above the stage and illumination starts on it. It is looking very cool. But fans won't like there is too few of Pasha shots.

Belarus Alyona Lanskaya rehearsal 1

Andy on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 10:28

The staging is pretty nice there. Alyona enters from a huge disco ball. Two male dancers in front and 2 female and male backing vocalists first to the left from Alyona and then moving behind her. Second part of performance have some tamtam drumming from dancers. Two problems there: backdrop. Its awful and totally don't fit the song. And Alyona when she is relaxed it's great. She is easily annoyed by something though and it quickly shows. She should be totally totally relaxed for the performance. My advice skip all press-activities besides Belarus party, let her rest, especially for the whole Sunday. Sing very easily on Monday and Tuesday mornings. The song stands out and should do well.

Roberto Bellarosa 1st rehearsal

Andy on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 10:11

Even though Roberto looks like a boy whose ice cream was just taken away from him, they did the best thing they could - that is taking the atmosphere of music video in a live stage performance. Two dancers behind Roberto do excellent job. He sings well and he is covered by 3 backing vocalists too. Austrian sticks are back on stage and raise from it. Blue colours of stage. Roberto and dancers and vocalists dressed in black.

Montenegro Who See and Nina 1st rehearsal

Andy on Tue, 05/07/2013 - 09:31

Well, Montenegro continues to impress with ideas of stage performances picking up from last year. It stars with smoke and two Who See guys appearing as sort of cosmonauts or may be that are oil producers? :) Then Nina is raising from the floor of the stage. She is very impressive both in her robot meets dragonfly outfit and vocally. Camerawork is a bit of mess. Colours are yellow. It lacks an impressive finish there should be. However, it is pretty memorable on it's own. No dancing at all, some robotic moves here and rapper moves there.

Croatia Klapa s mora 1st rehearsal

Andy on Mon, 05/06/2013 - 11:18

There are couple of very impressive camera shots there - when the band is shown in shadows and you can not see their faces. They have great suits - from local knighthood of Alka. Otherwise, the big problem of the band is lack of charisma, both individual or as band. Even in the same outfits, they are a not looking as the band. The choreography movements are simple and effective, and singing is great.