LIVE BLOG of Semi Final Two Tuesday Afternoon – Live from 1500 CET

…They are all off to be wrapped up in cotton wool till tonight and, frankly, so am I!

Enjoy it – I know I will!

We all know whats going to happen now and if you dont, or have been living under a rock or don’t like Eurovision…. get your ears round this tonight. 

She didn’t blow me away last night so Erika has some stops to pull out to get back into first place.

She nails the first two notes, which she has a habit of losing down the sofa but I still think that this lacks attack unlike it did in UMK but that’s probably because I’ve seen that performance a thousand times and this one precisely twice. 

If you see if for the first time you are gonna go ” Fucking hell!” followed quickly by ” Whats the number for that leather clad bird?”.  I suspect it has another couple of notches to go yet!

Two more to go and first, Serbia. 

Princ is singing his heart out again here and if a woman was singing this song the internet would say ” Top 10 all day long”.  Typical Balkan ballad sung with the usual dramatic choreo that would normally accompany songs of this ilk.   I don’t think its that bad to be honest but again, I can’t see the televote only jury giving it enough love.   I’d love it to qualify though. 

Some people, not me it must be said, think this is brilliant.  I actually think it’s an accidental last place waiting to happen. 

Granted, i am not its intended audience, not gonna lie, but I just dont get anything from this song apart from a lot of try hards trying to give Europe a club song.   Sorry to those German fans!

time for another interval whilst they get Germany onto stage.  

1965 meets 2025 here with Laura Thorn in a deliberate re-working/updating of the former.   It’s a great idea and the song on its own is strong enough without that link to the past. 

There is a slight delay getting Luxembourg off and Israel’s paraphrenia on because Yuval has a set of steps to climb (presumably alluding to going to heaven) and sing as she goes up.   Her voice was a bit off on a couple of notes on the first verse but nothing that major in context.    I just think that it goes on a bit and as I write this, she wobbles on a note sung at the top of the stairs enough for me to go “ooooh” when I listen.   I wonder if the government imposed pressure will get to her?

Two ends of the Eurovision spectrum come alive here.  Denmark have brought Cascada’s mother on to sing a very average song quite well and Czechia are Top five in the entire contest.  The reason I say that? – is because it is staged and sung immaculately.  The Oneurope/Eurovision Ireland table thought that this was in danger of not qualfying last night – they are stupid and wrong.   A song in 3/4 time should do well in this contest on difficulty alone, but Adonxs sings this so well its unbelievable!

Covering the stage in sand is a health and safety nightmare but, again, I think that this song has lost “something” from that preview and I now think that this is more about the stage show with a song wrapped around it than the other way round which it should be – but that final chorus does hit.  

with commentators!

Mariam is down by the docks and i’m shocked no one thought to push her in.  If you didn’t know any better you’d swear that this is a woman singing a song on the pointy bit of a fake mountain.   However this has veyr heavy symbolism written all the way through it.

Freedom my arse!

Thankfully there was not a huge delay toight getting Miriana’s mouth glitter ball thing on stage. 

She’s sounding a bit better compared to last night which is a bonus and for some reason it’s looking restrained in the verses and it actually makes it better.  Better than what, there is a lot of things to choose from so you can use your rapier wit. 

I still dong like the women opening their legs on the background, but it’s probably all the sass they can get away with and the bouncing up and down on the medicine balls is just stupid!

There is nothing intricately wrong with this song, it just drones on and on and on.  

Sometimes even I run out of things to say!

Another song where I can’t for the life of me see who the hell is voting for it.  

This song is not what modern Eurovisionists think of when Greece is mentioned.  It’s very much a step back with the ethnically Greek sound and hardly any pop music nods in the song at all.  In a televoting semi final being Greek can only send you so far in this contest.  Cyprus can’t vote for it tonight and the greek diaspora may be strong, but it’s surely not strong enough to get this song into the final?  

As a casual viewer it’s a very challenging three minutes to get to the end of, even with her standing atop of a volvanic structure – I just feel that they are doing the distracting thing again!

As I said last night, they sent the UK girls to the top of some sort of mountain – which introduces the element of danger to any postcard but thankfully they made it down in one piece.  

Stagewise this looks..eerm… different and reflects the video somewhat (From memory) that they are in a stately home and have got royally hammered on things in order to forget what happened.  

Vocally it is better than last night cos I think they now have the mix just about right on this occassion.  The LED Floor is used quite well and when the songs keeps changing gears those vocal need to stand up to scrutiny and they do.   This isn’t winning – it’s miles away from that but the girls can sing live but, again, who is voting for this?

around Europe so they are showing the video of the over 60s party which is a great idea to get everyone included in the contest!

They whip of PARG’s travellator to replace it with a ship, an origami one at first but JJ turns into Nick Knowles half way through this and builds a representation of it.   Granted it’s not the Blue Peter but it’s a good effort. 

“The Internet” thinks this is the best thing since sliced bread but the more I look at it the more I am getting convinced that this is not winning.   JJ sounds like a cross between the Vienna Boys Choir and a female diva and I just can’t tell if the internet are latching onto “it sounds like Nemo so lets think this wins?” or whether they genuinely think this is the best thing in it. 

It certainly has one of the best stagings as that boat he’s knocked together becomes the centre of a tempest.  I think this is going to be a marmite song and couple that with the fact that he sounds too breathy towards the end of the song means I’m not convinced it winning. 

As you will have seen last night – I’m a big PARG fan, well I was till I remembered that G:Sson co-wrote this – does that man every quit!

Parg is very shirtless whist walking on his travellator singing some very dodgy lyrics and an equally dodgy english accent which is clearly supposed to be South East England but ends up being just not normal. 

Survivor does NOT Rhyme with Staying Alive-ah!

There is a very long look at tonight’s line up…..

Clearly someone ran out of script!

Latvia are up next and not before time. 

Again, for me, this song reveals all the cards that it is holding in the first 20 seconds.  I couldn’t adequately describe their outfits last night but if you remember Horoscopes from Eurovision 1981 (You young people might need to google that) – they are clearly channelling their outfit. 

Who’s voting for this? – Lithuania probably but beyond that I am not so sure.    It’s not all up in your face like Australia and Ireland so that could be in its favour but I do not know how much of Europe is into the dark ethnic qualities of this song. 

So they are interviewing the audience.   First rule, though, is to listen to the question that is being asked and not the one you thought was being asked!

And to complete the triumvirate of mental, Here’s Emmy!

I hate to admit it, but this song is growing on me – I did think at first that it was a 1000-1 outsider but inspite of the lyrics (which are banal) this song has a great beat to it and gets stuck in your head whether you want it to or not. 

Most of the viewers tonight won’ care that Emmy isn’t Irish, or that she’s singing about a dead dog, they’ll see the marching backing dancers  and Emmy having a jolly time on her podium a top of a set of stairs (always a bit of a danger putting singers on things, I think!)

I fear for my own sanity this is qualifying as well…

Another song that didn’t need to be staged in such a ridiculous fashion.   As I said last night her angel wings/flowery petal thing she is wearing is too distracting.  When Europe stop going “What the fuck is this?” they’ll have forgotten Nina is actually singing a song!

That song, though, is not good either and is distinctly average at best, even with this remix of the song – would it have done better if she just stood and sung the song? – Probably.   Vocally, though, despite carrying some extra weight she is spot on ( well she is a professional) but this dog of a song drags on way too long for my liking!

It’s carry on Eurovision!

Yes it’s all about sex and stuff but I have to say it’s perfectly staged for this stupidity.   Go-Jo certainly is a performer alright and knows where the camera is, but I still hate this song with the fury of a thousand suns.  

Sorry not sorry

Lord knows why i’m tuning in – clearly I didnt think last night’s show was bad enough, i’m sitting through it again this afternoon!

Do i need certifying?