A mixed grill of Romania, Greece and Russia

I’ve just pootled down to the Arena for the afternoon session – no internet to speak of down there, hence my silence for the last couple of hours. I’m shocked and awed.

Romania has a niceness about it. Vlad the bloke’s better than Nico the lady in my not-so-humble, and the song’s a smidge Song That Goes Like This (YouTube link), but it’s got some charm to it. Wouldn’t be one of my favourites, but it’s a long way from being unpleasant.

Greece were next to rehearse, as I write I don’t know why yet. Greece are teaming up with Russia to cause a problem for the stagehands. You may well have seen on the video sites by now that they have a great big silver platform that opens up into a big sort of thing. It’s the devil’s own job to get on and off stage though, they were easily 10 to 15 minutes getting the faintest idea how to remove it in short order. For the semi, it might be easiest to just fold it up and leave it on stage for the hosts’ spiel into the voting. In the final, they probably won’t have that luxury. There’s all sorts going on on stage, visually it’s a feast, it’s a great song, Kalomaira herself sounds a bit helium-toned and the complete package leaves me a smidge underwhelmed. I’m thinking that with a perfect singer and a perfect staging, they might have been on a winner with this song. I don’t think they’re on a winner.

That brings me to Russia. Russia demands a lot of thought. They’ve got a mini ice rink and a big ladder which, again, is going to be a serious challenge for the stagehands. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a size/weight/quantity limit imposed on props for 2009 after this. Team Dima has thrown the kitchen sink at it, and it’s really being over-performed to within an inch of its life both visually and vocally. It’s not even close to being the ultimate winner on what we saw today, and I’m suspicious that it’s not even quite the shoe-in for a place in the final that it ought to be.

I’m probably completely wrong about that. I usually am!

That’s close of play for today. It’s been an interesting day, and I’m not totally ruling out the statistical lunacy of the last 10 songs all qualifying. The laws of probability and mathematics are against it, as are Kreisiraadio, but… we live in strange and interesting times!

Tomorrow’s going to be a fragmented day on the blog, as we’re moving house at lunchtime. Expect lots of some things and very little of others – it’s possible that we mightn’t even reappear after lunch, as we settle into OnEurope Towers for the rest of the fortnight.

Hope you’ve enjoyed – it’s been a very decent day in Eurovisionia!

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