I know I’m supposed to do one post per rehearsal, but I’m running late and I’ve wanted to do that pun for like 12 years or more, so smile and indulge me there, move on, we’ll never mention it again.
There are different approaches to choosing your visuals for this contest. You can go to the HoDs meeting and say “Ahh, just film her singing the song. Backdrop? Is anyone else doing sort of goldy brown? We’ll have that then.”
That’s Albania. They don’t look like they’ve put a great deal of thought into it, to be honest. It’s a nice enough song sung nice enoughly by a nice enough young lady, but there’s not a lot of wow factor in there. I know Elhaida has her fans and they’re all over EVERY single Facebook post Eurovision makes about anything, but I can’t quite see this winning over enough people who’ve never heard of her. There’s room for her to come top 10 in a 16 country contest, but a very different story when you’re in a 27 song enormous pudding with a plethora of more interesting menu options.
Alternatively, you can pick the visuals to tell your story. If you’re Magdi Ruzsa, one bus stop and one suitcase probably covers it. When you’re a band representing the entire migrant worker community of the whole of Romania (possibly the whole of Europe), you need at least 12 sealed suitcases, containing different sums of money, and no questions – except one:
“What the hell are you rambling on about man? Get back to the review!”
Yeah, alright. I’m really liking Voltaj’s staging. It’s a thoroughly palatable kind of emotional manipulation, which actually gives the impression that it is being performed from the heart and not the head. It’s not a smooth rehearsal though, the singer has broken off in mid song twice. Still, my heartstrings are tugged. Absolutely sailing through this bit, top table in the final if there’s any justice at all. Romania will win this contest in a rolling five-year window beginning at a time of your choosing.