Finnish UMK was different this year as Saara Aalto was chosen internally to represent Finland, but public got to vote from three different songs. ‘Monsters’ was chosen to be the song Saara is performing in Lisbon and it’s a very catchy song indeed. Finnish UMK stage show of Monsters was a mess and luckily Saara and Finnish delegation realized this as the stage show has been redone entirely. British choreographer Brian Friedman, who worked with Saara Aalto in UK’s X-factor back in 2016, is responsible for her stage show.

Those of us who followed her in X-factor know her talent as a vocalist as well as her superb theatrical presentation skills. She delivers in both departments. While this is better than UMK show it’s still a work in progress especially with camera work. Saara and her compatriots in uniforms on stage move around a lot so finding perfect camera angles is essential.

Big applause in the press hall after the first run from Saara Aalto.

She starts her performance on a turning wheel, going 360 degrees up and down while singing and wears a short black/white glittery dress with high black boots.

Lots of choreography, Saara seems confident and sounds ok but seems to be holding back in the first run so it's a bit hard to judge on the vocals just yet.

Second run - she actually starts completely acapella so that could be tricky - there's some running here as being unclipped from the wheel turned out to be a bit problematic.

The last run revealed even more pyro - fountains and a curtain and she is taking some risks by falling into the hands of her dancers at the end. Vocally it's become better during the rehearsal.

The singer, who will represent Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest-2018, recently has presented her video.

Claudia Pascoal will surprise Europe with her sensual song "O jardim". She decided not to change the tradition and will perform her song in her native Portuguese.

The composition was written by a Portuguese singer and composer Isaura. According to her this song, is dedicated to her beloved grandmother, who is no longer alive. And she wanted to create something that would put them together forever. Claudia gave the voice to this song.

"We all miss someone who is no longer among us. And the song is about it, "Claudia said.

The clip of the song was decided to be shot in the studio.

"We wanted this video to be understandable for everyone, regardless of culture and from which country the people are. We would like people from all over Portugal to join us - and in our video there are 10 people of different sex and different age categories. "
The entire clip was shot on a green background. This color is made up of blue and yellow colors, that are Heaven and Earth, so this color has mystical properties and it is also associated with plants in the garden, which is emphasized by the line in the song: "My house has become a flower. Now that you are not there, I water my garden. "

The minimum number of requisites was used. The main one was a table on which we can see the books that Grandmother used to read to all the children and the tangle from which she used to knit for her relatives. In general, there were many big plans to emphasize the emotions that we express, feeling emptiness.

According to the rules of "Eurovision" Portugal, as a host country immediately falls into the Grand final, so the result we will see already on May, 12 in Lisbon.

Former Eurovision powerhouse Greece is aiming to buck the trend with Yianna Terzi and her song “Oneiro mou” this year. Having finished in the top tens nine out of ten times from 2004 to 2013, the last four years saw Greece finish close to the bottom of the leaderboard while even missing the big final in 2016. As one of the few songs presented in native language the entry stands out and should gain enough support to reach the final this year. It remains to be seen to which degree the Greece delegation is able to improve the staging and camera work during the next round of rehearsal in order to come up with a complete package.
Yianna is in white dress and has her hand covered with blue paint. Some symbolism here? They didnt show us the final runthrough and we are suspecting them to keep a few secrets for the staging of the instrumental bridge.