So here we are after all of last night's drama - the dress rehearsal for Saturday's Grand Final (and of course, tonight's all-important Jury Final).

Intro and reprise

Ana Moura kicks off the show, treating us to some Fado. Salvador Sobral won't be performing his segment today we've been informed, as we are running a little late. Mariza then takes up the Fado reins, with drums and drummers-a-plenty surrounding her.

The flag parade of the 26 finalists is next, with the flag-bearers walking the outer perimeter of the circular stage before the acts move to the Green Room.

Filomena Cautela, Sílvia Alberto, Daniela Ruah and Catarina Furtado then introduce themselves and as standard, briefly explain the voting and display the running order with the graphics for those watching at home.

1. Ukraine
Postcard: Melovin takes a cliff-walk before horse riding.
Performance: Melovin kicks us off lying in his coffin before being released from it as part of the staging spectacular that we so often see from Ukraine. He's in good voice and it makes for an excellent opener while his coffin burns as he sits at the piano. Should be a top 10 finisher.

2. Spain
Postcard: It's a romantic country walk ending with a meal boiled underground in a hot spring for the Spanish duo.
Performance: The staging is classic and Alfred and Amaia are in fine voice. Although it's unlikely to trouble the top 10 on the night, it sounds great in the hall.

3. Slovenia
Postcard: Lea visits the very windswept and grey Azores. Just as well her pink hair was there to brighten up the weather.
Performance: Very much more of the same fantastic vocals and perfectly executed choreography (including THAT "malfunction" break) that saw her make the final last night against the odds and many of the press predictions. The cult of Hvala, ne! is now a Eurovision phenomenon regardless of Lea's overall placing on Saturday night.

4. Lithuania
Postcard: Ieva takes an antique car out on a quick spin down a country road.
Performance: Ieva's delicate vocals shine in the darkness and her husband can give her her first on-stage embrace as a finalist. Outside shot at top 10 possibly but it's likely that its high placing on the betting market is due to a slight skewing from Tuesday's semi-final's voting demographic.

5. Austria
Postcard: Cesar takes a mountain bike ride through small country villages, ending at a viewing point.
Performance: Cesar seems a lot more relaxed now (as is so often the case with many a qualifier). The pressure gone he gives his best vocal performance to date. Austria is unlikely to trouble the top half too much, but solid it is.

6. Estonia
Postcard: A country walk for Elina before a sheer-cliff face rock climb.
Performance: Impeccably delivered and with a mesmerising light show within the dress. Should sit mid-point in the first half of the table come 11pm on Saturday night.

7. Norway
Postcard: Mr Fairytale is given a spraypaint task.
Performance: As professional as slick as we've come to expect from Alexander Rybak, the song without any sort of notable lyric (ironically) and its on-screen graphics, sits early on in the running order but is still likely to put him on the cusp of the top 5 - despite the betting market effectively deserting it as a serious contender overnight.

8. Portugal
Postcard: The girls put a hard day's graft in with the Portuguese Navy.
Performance: Claudia is strong vocally and brings the song to life a lot more than we've seen in previous rehearsals. It may pick up a few thanks-for-having-us votes but something around a 20th-place finish would be my prediction for this one. However, the girls have done the home nation proud.

Now there's a short break before we see songs nine to sixteen performed.

Well first up Serbia. Neither of us saw it coming - but in the end we were very happy for them to pass to the final on Saturday - scooping up the Balkan votes on 12th May perhaps? Well done to them...

I was a little emotional for Moldova, having followed them from the National final until their arrival in Lisbon and backing them for a top 10 place - I now feel they could go one better and place in the top 5. They would be overjoyed simply to qualify - so this is great for them.

Hungary, again, with it being my favourite song/performance in the whole show, I was totally OTT when they made it through - well done to the AWS, they also announced at th press conference that they are booked for a big metal festival in Berlin later this year. Funnily enough I think they were more excited about this

Ukraine. Possible winner of the televote in this semi, kinda deserved on this performance, even though I am not a huge fan of the song. Why do Ukraine always bring it with their staging?

Sweden. With such a weak song this year I was wondering if they would fail to make it to the final this time - that said he worked the camera like magic and turned it around on the night

Australia. Bad staging, ok vocal, but still they made it. This, apart from Mother Russia, was the big "shock" from last night - I have a feeling they just scraped in in 9th or 10th place

Norway. Again hate this song, such a load of nothing - but he performed the pants of it. And now, despite what the bookies say, he's in a great position to scoop up Eastern Block votes - along with Moldova and Ukraine

Denmark. Well performed, dark and gothic, worked for them. A great bunch of guys and was happy for them to pass - can see this doing a top 10 in the end

Slovenia. Big shock for me. Just do not get this at all. Despite what colleagues on the team say. It really does nothing for me - but it must come across very very well on stage

The Netherlands - Dad Rock did good in the end. I'm sure it was Waylon's eyes that sold this to the TV viewing public

And to all the other participants - you did your countries proud, especially Romania, Montenegro, San Marino and Georgia. I am sure you were all bubbling under the top 10 and did not miss out by that much....

Footnote. Mother Russia. Gone. Probably deserved that they went home. Do we think they will withdraw now? A quick scan of online Russian media today reveals next to nothing of the mood back in Moscow - but who know's - watch this space I guess....

Finishing the year with the concert events I've attended a heavy metal conert (finally pure hard'n'heavy). It was a concert of Swedish band Bullet with support of Screamer and Rexoria. The concert amazingly started in time, but I arrived late since I was pretty tired after the tour and just wanted to see the headline band (sorry).

Bullet having six album releases since establishment in 2001 are playing traditional hard'n'heavy which nowadays is considered old school. They didn't disappoint, despite the crowd actually was the smallest of all concerts this week with around 40 people attending. What is with so many great metal concerts in Lisbon and hardly 100 people attendance to any of them? Prospects of metal music in the country are disappointing if we compare it with Stockholm or Vienna where such concerts were packed with youngsters and even girls.

The following ten countries have qualified for the Grand Final (in order of announcement):
Serbia: Nova Deca by Sanja Ilić & Balkanika
Moldova: My Lucky Day by DoReDoS
Hungary: Viszlát Nyár by AWS
Ukraine: Under The Ladder by MELOVIN
Sweden: Dance You Off by Benjamin Ingrosso
Australia: We Got Love by Jessica Mauboy
Norway: That's How You Write A Song by Alexander Rybak
Denmark: Higher Ground by Rasmussen
Slovenia: Hvala, ne! by Lea Sirk
The Netherlands: Outlaw In 'Em by Waylon

Using the benefits of the Lisboa card given to all press-members (valid for 24 h from the first use, when date will be marked on it) me and Maxim have planned today a trip through Lisbon points of interest.

We've started with the Pantheon, we already were there in front of the building a week ago, but now we actually got inside. It was quite an interesting visit to the history of Portugal and a majestic building.

"The National Pantheon, housing the tombs of Portugal’s major historic celebrities, is located on the original site of the church of Santa Engrácia. Founded in the second half of the 16th century, the building was totally rebuilt at the end of the 17th century by the architect João Antunes. Even though it was never used as a place of worship, it still preserves, under its modern dome, a majestic nave with a polychrome marble decoration typical of the Portuguese Baroque architecture. Being an icon of Lisbon’s cityscape and having a privileged location, as it overlooks the city’s historic centre and the river Tagus, it is listed as a National Monument"

"The personalities entombed here include the Presidents of the Republic Manuel de Arriaga, Teófilo Braga, Sidónio Pais and Óscar Carmona, Presidential candidate Humberto Delgado, writers João de Deus, Almeida Garrett, Guerra Junqueiro, Aquilino Ribeiro and Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, fado singer Amália Rodrigues, and footballer Eusébio"

Official page: http://www.patrimoniocultural.gov.pt/en/recursos/cedencia-e-aluguer-de-…

Next, and we made a huge mistake there, was Teatro Romano. Not because it was uninteresting, it actually was fine, but to get from Pantheon there you have to climb a lot. We calculated that we had to do 30 floor climb on that day. The museum is made of two parts: excavation site and ruins itself and the museum demonstrating antiques discovered on the site.

"The Roman Theater was built in the 1st century, at the time of the Roman emperor Augustus . It was rebuilt in the time of Emperor Nero, and during the reign of Constantine was partially dismantled. Abandoned in the fourth century, it remained buried until 1798, the year in which the ruins were discovered after the earthquake of 1755. The object of several archaeological campaigns since 1967 there have been recovered part of the benches, the stage and a large number of decorative elements. The museum itself is housed in a seventeenth-century building in the probable area of ​​one of the old theater entrances"

Official page: http://www.museudelisboa.pt/en/equipamentos/teatro-romano.html

Less than 1,5 hours left - here are my 10 qualifiers in random order:

Norway
Netherlands
Hungary
Ukraine
Sweden
Moldova
Denmark
Slovenia
Romania
Georgia
Malta

I find this semi so much harder to predict though, not surprised at all if I will get just half of them right now..

It's another very difficult semifinal with a lot of possible outcomes that could be very close.

So with that in mind here is my prediction for tonight's qualifiers:

Norway
Denmark
Russia
Moldova
Netherlands
Malta
Hungary
Sweden
Slovenia
Ukraine

Wiwi Jam 2018

The last few years has seen the rise of the mega parties at Eurovision, from the sophistication of the Nordic Party, the pumped up Israeli Party and finally the Wiwi Jam. The great thing about the Wiwi Jam is that it is open to anyone who can secure a ticket - this year was no exception

Performances from 7 of this years Eurovision contestants, Austria, Portugal, France, Lithuania, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Azerbaijan - as well as some great previous entrants such as Slavko from Montenegro (2017) - and some National Final participants - Tom Hugo (Norway) and Rui Andrade (Portugal)

William and Deban organised a fantastic evening at the Hard Rock Cafe in Lisbon and the show was very much stolen by Eleni Foureira (Cyprus) with Fuego

Hope you enjoy the pictures and videos below; click the playlist link at the bottom

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUj9YGQtlfgEi9YwYIThVlqMqN5kU5ISL

Cyprus artist, Eleni Foureria, has been emerged to win the Eurovision Song Contest with her song Fuego on Saturday’s final. A-P Records and Panik Records are the labels behind the song that has been written by a team of Swedish songwriters and distributed via Record Union.

On Saturday May 12th, the final of the 2018 edition of Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Lisbon, Portugal. Among the finalists stands Eleni Foureria from Cyprus, together with the record labels A-P Records and Panik Records. The song Fuego has, among others of Eleni Fourerias songs, been distributed on Record Union’s platform.

- Record Union is happy to work as a distribution partner to A-P Records and Panik Records. We’re very excited to watch and follow Eleni Foureria in the Eurovision Song Contest final on Saturday and we'll keep our fingers crossed for a win in Lisbon, says Johan Svanberg, CEO at Record Union.

Behind Fuego stands a team of Swedish songwriters: Alex Papaconstantinou, Geraldo Sandell, Anderz Wrethov, Viktor Svensson and David “Didrick” Franzén.

Today we have seen the jury rehearsal of semi2 and the betting markets have reacted on some entries:

Winners:
Romania gave a good vocal performance and is now shorter than before.
Denmark also assured the markets of qualifcation.

Losers:
Russia seems to be in trouble according to the odds.
Latvia also drifted a little bit after her performance for the juries
And the markets seem to have lost in Serbia after tonight which drifted heavily.