When Mia said that she wasn't wearing black and
the staging would change a lot from DORA, she wasn't kidding!
Welcome to Day 2 for Eurovision 2022 Fortnight.
Yesterday's article was an introduction to the whole Contest two week period but not much has changed as far as what the Press can access from the venue in Turin. We are still in the first rehearsal stage, with SF1 completing today and the only video evidence of what has happened is still only on TikTok (although to be fair, Day 1's content is still there, despite the EBU suggesting otherwise). As per day 1, the one thing I could do for you was:
Watch each artist's Meet & Greet and summarise it here
We still have our conference hosts Mario and Laura with their differing styles of interviewing and picking which questions to ask from us Online Press people. I posed a question to each of the EIGHT acts today - SIX of them were answered! Unfortunately I would have loved Amanda from Greece and Rosa from Armenia to have answered as well, but I can't be greedy! I will show you what I asked and what the answers were as we go along - first artist to show for a M&G was MARO from Portugal...
PORTUGAL (MARO - "Saudade Saudade")
"Looking at the rehearsal pictures, you are all in a circle singing together, making this even more intimate than Festival da Canção. Does seeing each other sing heighten the experience of the song for you?"
And it generated a nice answer from MARO herself, along with one of her other singers, all five of which had joined her at the M&G. She said that yes, being able to see each other sing did make the performance a lot more pleasurable, especially as she was singing with friends. The other vocalist said that singing together in such a way made the experience even more beautiful - I am looking forward to the second rehearsal now to see if this synergy gets transmitted to me too. The other points we learnt from the chat was that studying at Berkeley in USA allowed MARO to have the confidence to perform in front of others, that she wanted to collaborate with Amanda Tenfjord from Greece (more of her later), and we had a comical situation where the host asked the artists to sing acapella and clap, with the only way of doing that was to put their microphones between their knees and bend over to sing in their seats! Good sports all and here's to a great show next...
CROATIA (Mia Dimšić – "Guilty Pleasure")
"Your staging in DORA had you interacting directly with your 'Guilty Pleasure' but the rehearsal pictures show three others on stage, as though you aren't involved directly. Does that give your personal performance a different focus?"
Her answer to that one was that there would be a different focus for her in that she wasn't directly involved as she was in DORA - instead she was part of a dream, where she was watching events unfold between the three dancers. She hoped that everyone watching would understand what was going on and enjoy it, as a lot of work had gone into how it all looked. Even the costume designer had undertaken a statistical analysis of what colours and styles did best at Eurovision - we will find out how good that was by May 15th! We learnt lots from Mia today - Taylor Swift is her main influence, this year's 'Guilty Pleasures' would be S10, Cornelia and Mahmood/BLANCO, she has a 'Croatian shot' before each show (more of a Red Bull than alcohol), she admits that she speaks in English with an American accent, and that her guitar at the M&G was called Martin! The most important bit of info was that Croatian will be added into her song at Eurovision but we have no clue as to how much or where. She is still one of my favourites and I am really looking forward to this in the second rehearsal...
DENMARK (REDDI - "The Show")
"For Ihan, how does Eurovision in Turin compare with your time in Baku, and have you been giving advice to the rest of the band about the process?"
She seems to be very smiley anyway but even so I sensed that she was delighted to have been asked this question (she was the drummer with Soluna Samay in Baku). She said that Baku was almost a lifetime ago, ten years, and she felt like a baby then, as everything was new. She then said that Eurovision was her 'point of no return' in that the whole experience made her decide to be a full time musician. She said that it was a dream to be back, especially after forming REDDI. It is nice when a question really pleases someone. The other points raised today included that one of the guitarists thought that the back of the stage looked like a vinyl record, that St. Vincent was Siggy's icon and she used one of her guitars specially designed for female musicians, that it was harder to 'fake play' than play their instruments for real, and Ihan has the ritual of deliberately dropping her drumsticks back stage before a gig so she wouldn't do it for real (although it does make the other band members nervous)! Yet another great M&G and it looks like if you liked their DMGP performance then you will love their Eurovision one...
AUSTRIA (LUM!X ft Pia Maria - "Halo")
"How did your rehearsal go? Are you happy with having the bigger space here than at the promo parties?"
You have never seen two happier people than Luca and Pia were at that moment when they replied that they were very happy with how it all went and that they were delighted with how it looked. Even Mario hosting commented that they were exuding happiness - that might suggest that Pia nailed her vocals too. As for the rest of the M&G, we found out that Pia always laughs about the fact that some fans thought that she wasn't real before she turned up at the promo parties and she loves being a meme, that Luca is happiest producing electronic music in a way different to everyone else, that of the 2022 entries that Pia would love to sing "Lights Off" and Luca really likes 'SNAP', that 'Brividi' and 'SNAP' would make a good mash-up together with 'Fulenn' adding a crazy element, and that even when chatting in an M&G Luca holds his microphone like he does when DJing! This was a very uplifting chat to be part of - long may it continue for the Austrian pair...
ICELAND (Systur - "Með hækkandi sól")
"Looking at today's rehearsal pictures, your staging looks much like it did at Söngvakeppnin and the promo parties. Did you decide not to change anything much as it was a winning formula back in Iceland?"
Their reply was as concise as the answers they gave to my questions in Amsterdam - they said that they had decided to keep the roots of the staging but make it a bit bigger and give it more polish. So that suggests that there isn't much change happening in Turin but some of what we found out during the Q&A session did show slight chinks in their armour. For instance, their song is written from the perspective of an Icelandic woman in 1726, their swaying is as much dancing as any of them are prepared to do, their brother joked that if their results are poor he can just walk away from the band and nobody will know at home, and that Sigga would be Sigrid, Beta an Elf and Elin would be Will Ferrell in any ESC Movie remake! They gave a very professional showing at their M&G today, much like their music...
GREECE (Amanda Tenfjord - "Die Together")
NORWAY (Subwoolfer - "Give That Wolf A Banana")
"I was trying to work out if DJ Astronaut's suit has had an upgrade? It looks more golden and shiny - is it a present for him due to his help with getting you to Eurovision?"
The Spokesman acknowledged that it was a new suit but that he had got it due to the old one being old and getting a tear in it! DJ Astronaut even came stage centre to show it off! As for the other questions, if Subwoolfer win we are all invited to their moon base but we would need our own transport, so Keith & Jim would ask Norwegian Head of Delegation Stig if Norway could host Eurovision 2023, we should say "We wolf you" when chatting to aliens, they joked that the second rehearsal would have no music/routine/lights and that their favourite planet in the Solar System is Uranus (yes I know)! The actual performance looks as though we are getting much like their MGP winning show, so all systems go for Subwoolfer...
ARMENIA (Rosa Linn - "SNAP")
Surely Achille Lauro will be bringing more to the table
than we saw in Una voce per San Marino...
He must do...mustn't he?