We’re as keen as mustard to see what the other sixteen countries have in store for us – I mean it can’t be as bad as Semi One, right?? – RIGHT?!
Remember that the juries are still constituted, just in case something goes wrong on tomorrow night’s show!
I Understand the stream has gone down but there is not much more to say anyway tonight.
We should be back in the afternoon tomorrow if we can get up in time for a final blog before the second semi final
Thanks for coming!!
Like you were anyway because its only a rehearsal and not many people can actually see what I am watching!
Let’s meet the people who live Eurovision – but I am not there so how can they?! – I swear to god if I see Wiwi I might actually cry!
OK – One couple from Malta – One for Turkey – One from Australia – I can cope with that and won’t be putting my fist through the monitor. I can also confirm that I dont have half of the stuff these people have because I’M NOT MENTAL!!
Like everyone knows where it is already – ITS AT THE BACK OF THE HALL – SPOILER!
They have decided to showcase some of the 2020 artists on stage – well, technically four of them. Efendi, Gjon’s Tears, Destiny and The Roop!
Straight into voting recap one from here
I think Australia are qualifying because of televoting and would be happy to interchange it with something but I don’t know what.
Czechia
Austria
Finland
Luxembourg
Armenia
Serbia
Israel
Ireland
Latvia
Denmark
===============
Georgia
Greece
Malta
Lithuania
Australia
Montenegro
If ever there was a song and singer to end this farrago it’s the sultry Erika.
Anyone who knows this song knows what they are going to get – and get it right between the eyes and straight into your brain.
She’s wearing black leather, because of course she it, and she whips the crowd into a frenzy by playing with the mic stands suggestively at the start of the song and there is a lot of the UMK performance that has been transplanted to Basel because the stages are similar.
She also doesnt need no dancers because this song is literally all about her and no one else and I have zero problem with that. For me, though, it doesn’t quite have the same effect it did in UMK. The bit before she mounts the microphone is slightly weaker than in UMK but this will have your audience in raptures and still up there for me – but i’m now less certain it’s Top 2 material.
Two to go and its long hair all the way from here on in. Firstly in the very manly shape of Princ (Pronounced Prince for the avoidance of doubt) ringing a rather large cow bell between his legs. Not a Euphemism.. well yes it is, but hey, its past the watershed!
Again i’m thinking with my ovaries here rather than my ears because long haired men are my thing so I am pre-disposed to liking this song. There is a lot of hate around for Mila but it is the kind of thing that Serbia (and for that matter all of it’s mates) have been putting in for the last few years to varying degrees of success.
Visually on stage he seems to be wearing a red trouser suit with shoulder pads – well it takes all sorts I guess – unfortunately the song runs out of ideas after the first verse and chorus and just repeats itself until the Spanish guitar and the fireworks and the slightly more rocky backing track comes in and it takes a certain skill to keep singing whilst being gragged by 4 men on the floor.
I reckon this is through
Someone make it makes sense?
Abor is playing a Cello because he cann, and his sister Tynna is “singing” this song which seems to consist completely of the word “Ballllllllller” sung in tune and the rest of it sung slightly out of tune, possibly deliberately, possibly Accidentally who knows. what I do know is that if Denmark was Cascada, this is filthier than that and I don’t know where that sentence was going!
Tynna’s voice sounds like it is just one wrong note away from completely going wrong and I’m frankly here to see and hear that. There are lots of Lasers and things to distract you from the song. It’s going to score points, an improvement on Germany’s last twenty years but tahts about it.
Well here comes trouble in the shape of the entire country, broadcaster, singer and song!
They’ll definitely tell HER story in the postcard so it doesnt matter that they sent her to prune some hedges in a garden somewhere all your viewer and listener will hear is “Survivor of October 7” and nothing else.
There is a massive prop in the middle of the stage that Yuval sings in front of to start with and then gets into towards the middle of the song by ascending steps to the very top. She did miss one of the strong notes before the middle eight iliciting the response of “oh no!” from me.
Key change and curtain of fire is so prescriptive and formulaic it hurts with it’s placement. Too calculated for me i’m afraid but it’s calculated to score the votes, which it will.
Singing in French in Switzerland is a thing! I’m just not sure that the fourty odd seconds between the end of genius and the start of thisone is enough to explain the point behind the song. The song itself is an updated chanson as far as I am concerned with a costume change for effect. It is, though, head and shoulders above most of them in this field and Laura hits all the requisite notes in the right order (Mostly, there was a wobble) and it really is immaculately staged.
THIS IS MORE LIKE IT.
Oh Adonxs you unfesibly tall minx – YOu have made us wait the best part of an hour and a quarter before giving us the quality in this Semi Final.
wearing a black and white costume he is the first act to make the whole thing look ridiculously easy. CT have thought this through from beginning to end – when the dancers come onto stage it doesn’t look forced and they just appear without any ceremony and blend in seamlessly.
The second chorus is even stronger than the first but I still hate the dance break in the song – it’s like its almost shoe-horned in because they think it has to be and it jars with the bridge and the final chorus and there is even some literally perfect Choreo at the very end.
Thats a shout for Top five in the whole show.
So, dear viewer, if you have been as “entertained” as I have been from the last 10 songs, steal some vodka cos the fun isn’t over yet!
Denmark next, the capital of Fun with Sissel – a woman of questionable age covorting on screen thankfully NOT in that black dress she won the DMGP in but with an added, presumably, faux fur coat.
This song is trying to be all modern and stuff but it just ends up feeling tired and too much like that bad Cascada impersonator at cousin Sylvia’s 40th wedding anniversary.
And i’ve just caught sight of what Sissel is wearing – she’s wearing a skimpy smurf outfit – I’ll leave it to your imagine to visualise that one…. Take a good LONG think about it..
She’s singing in the sands of time but without the hourglass.
I think I preferred it better suspended above the centre spot in the stade de France to be honest but the one thing I like is that last “maman” by some child somewhere isn’t so jarring cos you know its coming.
It’s not a winner – but its still a good song!
Should she be here? – Should she be singing this song? – Who knows or cares, she is and she has to make the best of it.
In the countdown I said I disliked this song because of what it represents and that might have been a touch unfair because I should hate it on the performance! – Miriam is standing at the top of a triangular structure with flag wavers beneath her. She couldnt look any more like a soviet statue if she tried! – Then she goes into English and tells us about freedom – the absolute cheek!!
Yeah not for me.
She receives the second “Oh DO fuck off” of the week because with all the crap she has spouted in the media, p-resumably at PBSs or the song writers behest, she has made a god awful song even worse just by being.
OOoh there is an unscheduled crowd shot before she starts singing – well quite a long pause actually – and i’m not sure why but this will be tidied up before tomorrow.
OK this is a little bit troubling as this is quite a long break now and just shots of the crowd….. Probably a set issue or a prop issue but whatever it is can’t be allowed to go on much longer….
And here she is – finally.
Now we know that Destiny is actually the second voice you will be able to hear when Miriam is singing her song and its noticeable that there are two voices on the supposed lead track.
For such a song that has been pushed to the front it’s actually quote underwhelming for the most part with Miriam just trying to be alluring but failing – and then you get the backing screen with several pairs of womens legs opening and i’m sure that if they had a speare twenty three kitchen sinks they’d have chucked them at this as well.
Not so much.
Before moving onto this lot I forgot to mention that Klavdia had a massive volcano crater on stage…..
Anyway they sent this lot to grafitti a wall, something they seem very adept at doing.
Katarsis are just too pretty to be this goth rock with your blond haired lead singer sporting 90’s curtain hair which is still “in” in Lithuania wails into the camera and looks broody for the first, what, 75 seconds of the song. It’s clearly all about him because he’s hogging all the camera shots.
When the camera does pan back he leads the chevron formation of the band and the wind machine fires up whilst he is still wailing at me..
Yeah I’ve given up on thsi song by this point and Europe will too – this has no natural voting chums here either.
Did someone invite you’re old History teacher to Athens and made her sing a song?? what?? no?!
This starts like every Greek song ever entered in this contest before they discovered “Pop music” – It’d be fine if this was 1995 when the contest was in it’s ethnic phase but the whole sound of the song and the aesthetic is all wrong.
Klavdia does only have to beat six to get to the final but it would be funny if Greece AND Cyprus failed to qualify…. spacetime would rip and believe me there is a strong chance that might happen.
I forgot we were in this contest!
They sent the girls to the top of a mountain for some Apres Ski, cooking and possibly some sausage because, well, Austria.
No dropped notes, thats a first for what is effectively a rehearsal. There is a massive Chandelier on stage that they prance around. Remember this is a technically difficult song with the time changes and stuff and they are actually making a good fist of it I have to say.
Like the song or not you have to admire a girl group that can actually sing the damn song they were presented with. – unlike most UK Entries of the recent past.
Hazel is literally Crowd surfing and trying to interview people and link to the first over 60’s Eurovision party. I wonder if I can sneak in?!
This is some people’s idea of the winner of the whole damn contest.
The staging starts in black and white, JJ in white and the stage in black and the first instance of an origami boat on a Eurovision stage. JJ then takes the white garment off and then starts warbling like Nemo did last year ( See what they have done here?).
The stage paraphenalia turns into a real version of that origami boat and the effect of it being in a storm is very good. Yes JJ can do the whole opera bit but when the beat drops at the climax of the tempest this ship is now in, I just think it’s all a bit over done.
Austrian win? – Maybe not. Austrian good result? – Certainly
as the stage is mopped and the running machine removed before they send JJ to Emmental for yet MORE Cheese related shenanigans!
Now we get a strange cut away to the list of tonight’s entrants? – Mind you PARG has to get his massive prop on stage – Matron!
They’ve taken him to see some goats in the Alps and gets to eat a cheese sandwich… lovely, can I have a nibble?
HE’S SINGING IT TOPLESS! – this has cheered me up as I was a PARG fan before tonight but now, we can see they have gyms in Yerevan! He also has the base of a running machine on stage – this man has some stamina to get through this song and sing without sounding so out of breath like normal mortals – He’s clearly a god!
The second chorus introduces smoke and lights and Armenian in the bridge which is always a good thing. This song has shot up in my estimation and I can even forgive the awful lyric because there is a lot of energy here.
Qualifying!
Ireland
Latvia
Australia
Montenegro
well yes – Latvia who have been sent to Zurich to play with some robots…. all very futuristic!
And then the song starts and we are back in the middle ages, how contemporary. This song reminds me of a bardcore version of Shum, and if you know those words in that order, congrats! – It also reminds me of the 1980s BA advert with the winking face? – no?? just me?
Tautumeitas move nicely across the stage and don’t oversell the song. The costumes are very etherial but the question is, like the other three before it, who the hell is voting for this? It also is a chorus too long for my liking.
This semi final is very confusing for your very average televoter.
She’s having fun with some Australians and she asked them to keep it clean – that might be a stretch at the moment.
And all that to introduce…..
And talking of not good things as we were, next up is the Norwegian Irish Emmy with a song about a very dead dog having a party in the sky – well quite
There is a lot of business in this song with a massive satellite that doubles as a DJ booth in the middle of the stange and 5 dancers all marching in time at the appropriate juncture.
A couple of dodgy notes right at the start of the second verse pass un noticed by you mere mortals!. Is it wrong that this is the best thing that has been on tonight??
No… she’s not basting out Igranka in her postcard, sadly.
My first thought is “Why is she wearing such a silly dress. It envelops her in ways not seen since Little Shop of Horrors. It’s very offputting let me tell you. The song? – well it’s just there and thats the best thing I can say about it but did it warrant the massive thing she is wearing to be the gimmick and not let the song sing for itself?
Towards the end of the song we discover that she can walk in the contraption. Not a good thing.
as Australia’s massive blender gets put onto stage.
Sadly for us that hate this, it has no blades so it cant chop the bastard into a million pieces and before it starts i’m getting all annoyed!
He’s wearing a faux elvis suit from his Vegas residency era to start with before he actually changes into a turquoise mankini. I’m sure that this is finding its audience tomorrow and i’m clearly not it. Sorry to all its fans.
though not so much after last nights shit.
Hazel is wearing a vile green dress and Sandra has gone from yellow to a horrific blue one.
Is someone called Philip (not me) telling you how wonderful it all is before he comes onto stage with an illuminated heart – Awww bless
Take your seats, get your snacks – we’re just about to start
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