After weirdly looking Bulgarian stage layout, Iceland appears as an eye candy wrapped into some fairytale looking backdrop full of clouds, flying dolphins, cloudy ships... you know the drill. Seriously, Iceland just strikes everyone in the hall with some outlandish cuteness tide :) I am about to place Johanna and her song to one of the main contenders to make it to the final just after earliest rehearsals Icelandic team carried out. Watch it out, guys, it can jump to one of audience hottest favourites.
Oh yes, and she has some tiny wind machine that makes Johanna's dress flutter. Awww,

We expexted something sleepy and boring. Instead of this during the first part of the performance we were just touched and hypntized by the pictures of dolphins, doves and other cute things flying on the backdrops in the night cloudy sky with snow flakes falling.
Vocally very good and fascinating, just perfect. In the end lights started to work, this all produced kind of firy tale effect, with sun beams. All very good, the song grows on me rapily. A sure finalist and top-5 in the final.

Just to be short, I'm not any impressed. Backdrops dont match at all, graphics of these vary from some wicked hell engine with some hell (?) fire on the back wall... also supported by official music video inspired pics on the main screen. But as the mess around Bulgaria is mosty based on his vocal skills, there's where much of attention is concentrated. And everyone in the venue including me seems to be fairly disappointed, just cause it doesn't sound as we all expected. No, it's not bad.... it's just... fairly good vocal performance.
Krassimir and the back vocalists sing rather disorganized then joint in his studio version that amused us all greatly :) Well, another center of mess takes place behind four singers where two dancers perform some silly dance routine.... on stilts, that doesn't help it anyhow.
As far as vocals are concerned, the second run was even worse, unfortunately. In conclusion, "Illusion" may face some tough difficulties in its qualification struggle... Pics very soon
Update. According to the camera version, Bulgarian entry encountered a very troubleful sound problems, singers' voices doesn't sound aligned completely and run by run performance went worse and worse...

First there are spinning gears in some heal flame on the backdrop, in the middle there apperar psychodelic pink cloudes or fume. The singers stand on the stage like wardrobes, vocally absolutely out of place.
Two dancers on stilts try to save this terrible performance.
It all looks strage and confusing, I just lack appropriate and decent words to describe all this.

Israel is absolutely amazing in the hall. Vocally perfectly, minimalist presentation with lead singers and three instrumentalists, but it really works, I'm getting tears in eyes at the end. Best performance we've seen so far.

On screens it is pretty messy so far, though.

Video under more.

Well, they added some action and emotions, looks better, a sure finalist as far as I'm concerned.

First there are pictures of dropping water on the back displays and on the floor, so that it looks like it rains on the stage. The front displays show kinds of stones, shelves and moon craters. Both girls wear transculent dresses. In the middle of the performance on the back displays appear blossoms and petals. The girls are standing in the middle of the stage, with the band behind them. In the end the girls go to the back stage and play national drums. In the whole, looks pretty static. Vocally perfect.

As for me, it's a flashback to Sertab. Nothing interesting, absolutely standard turkish performance, boring for those who aren't interested in the singer's boobs and other advantages. Shoddy says she was the only one whose vocals were out of place, as for me, i didnt notice anything. I was disappointed on seeing Hadise's face, looks like a russian singer, absolutely.

Photos and videos under the cut

Switzerland... Oh, Switzerland, it's always hard to judge your very personal favourite, but I'll try to resist and make this review objective. Everyone agrees on my point of view: camera work doesn't make its work at all, to say harder, it ruins the exciting impression from the in-hall audience poinbt of you. The main idea of this act is vast usage of stage spage and its movable screens. During the Swiss performance its layout chances four times: from daylight street level view at the intro to skyline view from some skyscraper's roof. Then evolving into morning flight over snowy mountains and then into a brief look on Earth's surface from the outer space.
Instead of that they show some close views on singer's face and drummers smashing their drums, leaving the main gimmick completely uncovered. Anyway, Swiss performance definately is the most fascinating among today entries and hopefully will face some needed improvement with its camera work.

Photos and videos under More

Photos and videos under cut