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Malta

A short message from the Maltese Team....

Irish Reception in Kyiv

Dear All,

Claudia Faniello, would like to thank you for taking the time to come to her Press Conference, Meet and Greet and interview her.

She is very grateful for all the support you showed to her so far and hope that you will continue to support her through Semi final 2.

VOTE for MALTA......Song Number 4...... Breathlessly

Rodianne Caligari
HEAD OF PRESS for MALTA

Malta second rehearsal

Desiree on Fri, 05/05/2017 - 11:48

The performance from Malta is also largely the same as a few days ago during the first rehearsal. The backdrop starts with a waving piece of fabric, that is later revealed to be the dress Claudia wears on the backdrop. The visuals seem to be largely the same which means her chest is visible for quite some time in the hall, more than on screen where I already noticed it last time. This makes it all very tempted to give this song a new title (obvious?) but I will resist for now.

On stage it's still the same dress as we saw a few days ago.

During the first chorus some kind of chandelier comes down from the ceiling (Malta has done things with candles before so it's not a completely new thing for them)

As the song continues towards the second chorus the backdrop shows more and faster movement, in line with the added instruments in the music.

The vocals are just excellent every time, and gather the largest applause of the day so far. Goosebumps.

Malta Second Rehearsal

ChrisB on Fri, 05/05/2017 - 11:45

Claudia with another passionate, heartfelt and vocally flawless rehearsal. Unfortunately it feels like very long three minutes, as the song is just a little too predictable and doesn't provide any layers of depth like other Ballads we heard from Finland, Portugal etc.
But those are in the other semi final, which might help Claudia out a bit. She would deserve it.

Oikotimes 21 party

Andy on Tue, 05/02/2017 - 23:14

Highlight of the 2nd evening in the Euroclub was Oikotimes 21 party, attended by performers from Malta, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Azerbaijan, Poland and Czech Republic. Several more delegation members were at the party, but without their singers. Very uncommon thing for the Eurovision Club parties was the amount of young girls, who obviously enjoyed performances. However, so did we.

Day 3 Review

ChrisB on Tue, 05/02/2017 - 17:45

Here's my day 3 review:

The big winners of 1st half 2nd semi for me today were:

- Romania.
This is an easy one. The overall package is much more fun than what we have seen in the Romanian National Final.
What they can improve: More camera focus on Ilinca as Alex takes too much space at the moment.

- Denmark.
Just a superb performer in every run through. I can not believe how well she handles the camera interaction.
What they can improve: Change her outfit so it fits better to the color scheme of the backdrop.

The losers of today:

There weren't any losers today. Serbia did not get a lot of love from the press centre, but it was early morning and I have praised for them for the current and clean look of their staging.

So congratulations to all delegations today! Good job!

Malta first rehearsal

Desiree on Tue, 05/02/2017 - 10:19

Claudia Faniello is wearing a cream coloured long dress and she is shown on the led-screens at well. At some moment this causes some interesting images as then it is filmed from her middle going up, so just her chest on the screens before her face is shown.

At the same time I don't think this is a major issue, might be something to look into though. Vocally she is excellent as always and while the song is probably a bit old fashioned, there are some parts in the melody of the chorus that touch me. I'm starting to have a bit of a weakness for this...

After three uptempo/midtempo ballads it is also nice to have a proper ballad. It looks great, it sounds great, could this do better than people expect?

Semi One predictions from Daniel and me

Mike;

Finland No
Greece No
Moldova Maybe
Hungary Yes
Croatia Yes
The Netherlands Yes
Armenia Yes
San Marino No
Russia Yes
Czech Republic Yes
Cyprus Maybe
Austria Yes
Estonia Maybe
Azerbaijan Yes
Montenegro No
Iceland Yes
Bosnia and Herzegovina Yes
Malta Yes

So someone will miss out from my predictions, and sadly I think it will be Austria

From Daniel;

Finland No
Greece No
Moldova Maybe
Hungary Yes
Croatia Yes
The Netherlands Yes
Armenia Yes
San Marino No
Russia Yes
Czech Republic Yes
Cyprus No
Austria Yes
Estonia No
Azerbaijan Maybe
Montenegro No
Iceland Yes
Bosnia and Herzegovina Yes
Malta Yes

Some slight disagreements here, but more or less we agree this year

Anyway what the hell do we know.....though we usually get 7-9 out of 10

Review of the second semi-final by Keith Mills

I decided not to hang around for the qualifier press conference tonight as I have a pretty hectic day tomorrow, but I have now caught up with the halves of the draw that the ten countries will perform in. It really has ended up as a show of two halves with most of the uptempo songs in the first half and the ballads and slower moody songs in the second.

Overall I think tonight's show was far better than Tuesday's. The songs were better, the pacing was sharper and there was less of last year's winner, though still far too much. The camerawork was also improved, but the issue with flags blocking the screen is still a major problem and has to be sorted on Saturday.

As for the seven songs that went out, only Switzerland and Ireland can feel hard done by and Poland qualifying was a bit of a shock. Some are suggesting it was a sympathy vote, but it was also helped by the draw so perhaps not totally unpredictable.

My thoughts on the seven that went home;
IRELAND: I think Molly performed well and for once I liked the Irish staging. However I thought we were probably doomed on the day we were given the awful #2 draw and so it came to be. I may sound like a broken record here but once again can I suggest RTÉ looks at its selection process. The current formula is giving is the worst set of results we've ever had in the contest.

SAN MARINO: Dreadful patchwork of a song and no amount of youthful enthusiasm can replace a lack of stage craft. It was always a no-hoper. It deserved to finish last and being honest, if this is the best that they can come up with, San Marino has no place in the contest.

MALTA: A much better performance by Amber tonight but there was far too much going on to distract you in the presentation.It was as if no lessons were learnt from Olivia Lewis in 2007. The song was always too weak for this semi, but might have had a chance in the first semi. No surprise this lost out.

PORTUGAL: The Portuguese chose the wrong song in the Eurovision selection, it's as simple as that. No matter how good Leonor was tonight (and she was very good), the song was just poor. Like Ireland, Portugal needs to re-think its selection process. There's enough talent there to do very well in the contest but RTP are not tapping into it.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Whoever decided to add the ridiculous shoe throwing to the act should never be allowed near the contest again. Until that point the performance was solid, even if the song was always a little dull. I fear that we may never see the Czechs back in the contest.

ICELAND: Not only the worst vocal performance of the night, one of the worst of this century. It was always a big heap of nothing of a song, with basically a repeated chorus and no verses but everything about this was absolutely dreadful from he staging to the costume, but especially the off-key performance.

SWITZERLAND: I really feel sorry for Melanie, because this was a terrific performance and hugely improved on the national final. Switzerland just doesn't have friendly neighbours or a diaspora, but if Austria can win, so can they. Really disappointed not to see this in the final.

The following countries are in the first half;
 Armenia
 Australia
 Belgium
 Cyprus
 Estonia
 France
 Israel
 Lithuania
 Norway
 Serbia
 Slovenia
 Sweden
 United Kingdom

That's a lot of up-tempo and mid-tempo songs. Personally I'd probably open with United Kingdom, then go with Armenia and Sweden, for contrast. I would have Israel at #13

At #14 it's Austria

In the second half you have the following countries;
 Albania
 Azerbaijan
 Georgia
 Germany
 Greece
 Hungary
 Italy
 Latvia
 Montenegro
 Poland
 Romania
 Russia
 Spain

There's no up-tempo song in there at all, but Georgia, Germany and Montenegro are at least mid-tempo. Hungary, Greece, Russia and Spain need to be kept apart. The director will certainly earn his money tonight.

Tomorrow I will review the running order, as I fly back to Dublin.