2014

Malta have won the Junior Eurovision Song Contest late last year. Can Firelight, bring the big contest to the tiny island as well for the first time in the space of a year? Find out how Firelight got on with their first rehearsal.

Hungary's representative András Kállay-Saunders is one of the big favourites to lift the Eurovision trophy this year with Running. He's the last act from semi final 1 to rehearse today.

As one of the sole countries from the Balkan era taking part this year, Montenegro have send their superstar Sergej Cetkovic to Eurovision. This is how his first rehearsal went.

Hey guys,

We've had three acts so far, with much more to come. Kicking the afternoon rehearsals off are Dutch superstars Waylon and Ilse Delange, who decided to give Eurovision a go as 'The Common Linnets'. They've had their first rehearsal today. Here's the run through.

Portugal are back, it's simply not the same, not having them around at Eurovision. Here's how Suzy fared during her first rehearsal this morning.

Copenhagen 2014 is Valentina Monetta's third Eurovision attempt in three years. Could 2014 be her year to qualify and score big time in Eurovision? Maybe! Here's how the first rehearsal went.

Good morning everyone,

Time for another fun day of rehearsals of 11 acts. We continue to work our way through Semi final one with Moldova and their artist Cristina Scarlat being the first artist to grace the stage this morning.

Well as I am meant to be singing this later today with the delegation I better watch this.....

However it would help if I had sound and vision in the press center;-)

That said just seen about 1 minute of it and not bad at all.....

But that was a 1 minute judgement of it...

Well watching the full run through now.....great choreography on this one, staging is very dark but this totally suits the song....backing track seems to have changed a bit on this one too....less bass and a bit stronger on the vocal....but that could be the sound in the press centre

Oikotimes birthday party and opening night of Euroclub

From Oikotimes and opening euroclub party

Well we finally had nothing to do in the press centre last night at around 9pm, so what’s a Eurovision fan in Copenhagen gonna do except go to the first party of the season

Dimi, Daniel and I rushed home to the apartment, changed, grabbed a quick vodka and then headed off in a taxi to deepest darkest central Copenhagen to Club Vega for the party

So the club?? Well it’s not as big as in previous years, but has a huge stage and seems to have various rooms upstairs and another room to the side. We didn’t venture in there too much as there were only about 350 people there….I know it's early days yet!!

Drinks are a little on the pricey side, but hey we are in Scandinavia so expect that, expect to pay around 50DKK for beer and 65-85DKK for shots and cocktails….Daniel and I started on the “Back Stage Pass” cocktail…..yum, Rum and green stuff…

Well the Party. First a huge thanks to Fotis from Oikotimes who invited personally the whole of the ESCKAZ team. Sadly Andy could not make it, he had too much work to do, but the rest of the team were all there. And another thanks for the glass (well nearly a whole bottle in the end) of champagne….much appreciated!!!!

Performances from the following delegations took place, Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, Russia, Azerbaijan and Alex Panayi (Cyprus 1995) Drama Queen (Denmark 2007) and DJ Ohrmeister. The video clips are on our usual youtube channel. A selection are here;

https://youtube.com/user/EurovisionKZ/videos

We also managed to chat to several other delegations too, Montenegro, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, San Marino, and a great chat with one of the Swedish songwriters Sandra Bjurman who co-wrote Running Scared, the winning song from 2011 for Azerbaijan. Maybe this for me was one of the most interesting chats to have all night, talking about the great relationship between Swedish music and the rest of the world of pop!!!

From Oikotimes and opening euroclub party

So that was it, first party of the season. Was just a perfect opener to the coming week or two and yes we were in bed by 1 am…..I know there is something wrong with us!!!

Axel Hirsoux is the final candidate to take the Eurovision stage at B&W Hallerne today. Here's what I made of his first rehearsal.