Israel – the hot favourite! Ooh yes! The staging is a treat! Netta is flanked by a couple of shelving units featuring an array of those golden Chinese waving pussies you get in a Shanghai pound shop. She has an illuminated looper, which takes an age to set up for the first time with a few technical issues. This is why we don’t have live instruments at Eurovision! She’s in a short kimono, in a range of pinks and purples and looking great! The three dancers begin on the bridge and are less frantic than they were in the video.
Netta stands at the looper for the first part, then moves with a handheld mic into the second verse where she’s joined by the dancers. For the end they move to the front catwalk. There’s great hilarity in the room here as she indicates the need for a boost of volume in her in-ears by singing her request to the sound deck in time to the music without missing a beat.
The first runs of this are a little disappointing if I’m honest. This is my favourite and I really want it to do well, but it needs tightening up; it’s getting there by the third go. As good as the staging and costume elements look in this on the first go it’s not really getting the first-listen grab that the video delivered. Having led with the bookies for such a long time the refreshing thing is that this is now by no means a done deal. The question of where we’re heading next year is still very much unanswered.