Alvan & Ahez of France were the first Direct Finalists on stage...
That means that Sam Ryder took his turn too!
Day 6 is always a bit of a weird one, as we have a mix of rehearsals we can see (the last three SF1 and first seven SF2 second rehearsals) plus some we can't (first rehearsals of the Big 5). That means that this article will be a mix of my thoughts on some rehearsals and also reports on five Meet & Greets. You've got used to the style by now - as positive as I can be for the Second Rehearsals, any questions answered plus interesting points raised with the M&Gs. Let's start how the day did - a nice peaceful introduction with Iceland...
ICELAND (Systur - "Með hækkandi sól")
Now we almost had the same issue today that we had yesterday - the livestream did not kick in for the first act straight away! Unlike Albania where the whole of the second rehearsal was missed, we got to see the third run through of Systur and to be blunt, one look was all that was needed. The staging and routine is almost identical to Söngvakeppnin in sound and look, with their brother on drums far left, Sigga next in a trouser suit, Elín in waistcoat and hat and then Beta at the right hand end in a skirt and boots! They are all in a diagonal line to give some different camera angles and they have their bounce and sway. There are some choreographed looks to camera and that 'Dallas style' three split screen which is a nice touch. Bigger stage but you wouldn't know it - I had this slightly higher than in Iceland, up from 6.75/10 to 7.00...
NORWAY (Subwoolfer - "Give That Wolf A Banana")
And yet another performance that has not changed much from its National Final - Keith, Jim and the female minions are still doing their dance and posturing, the main difference being that DJ Astronaut is now in a booth in the air (at a very similar height to what Slovenia's drummer was behind their disco ball). DJ seems to be less involved now - no diving in front of the crew at the end as in Norway, but there are better graphics that come up on screen. Blue and gold are the colours chosen and perhaps the stage is a bit bigger but this is much the same as before. To be fair, the surprise and fun all comes when you watch GTWAB for the first time - you can have too much of a good thing and this is becoming quite samey for me at least. Having said that, I did increase their score from 8.0/10 to 8.25...
ARMENIA (Rosa Linn - "SNAP")
Now this was a great way to end the SF1 rehearsals and once you had seen the full staging, it was obvious why this will finish Monday/Tuesday night's show. What you see first is a bedroom with a chair, side cabinet, lamp and bed, with every surface covered with white 'Post Its' - Rosa starts singing on the bed with her guitar. The rest of the routine is very well choreographed and timed, with Rosa moving around as she sings, tearing sections off each wall to reveal a phrase or a sign that links in with the song. Her vocals while she is doing this are spot on and her timing is impeccable, making sure she is at the right spot to match the phrase to that bit of the song! The last 30 seconds adds a new layer in that she rips the notes off one wall to reveal a hole that points out into the venue, that she then stands on the hole and completes the song. This is the most ingenious staging we have seen so far in Turin and adding to that such an earworm of a song with a very recognisable sound, this will see Armenia through to the Final no problem. It is still one of my favourites, same score as before 8.75/10.
And so how does my SF1 list look after second rehearsals?
UKRAINE
ARMENIA
LATVIA
CROATIA
GREECE
NORWAY
DENMARK
AUSTRIA
PORTUGAL
SWITZERLAND
MOLDOVA
NETHERLANDS
BULGARIA
LITHUANIA
ICELAND
ALBANIA
SLOVENIA
I could easily see Moldova and Netherland swapping with Austria and Switzerland in reality - who knows what will happen at the Jury and Public SFs? With the second rehearsals done for SF1, it was now the turn of SF2 and there were seven of those today...
FINLAND (The Rasmus - "Jezebel")
This was definitely a good call to put as the opener for SF2 - The Rasmus picks the mood up instantly and the staging has loads of balloons! Lauri starts with his mac on and a yellow balloon in his hand, moving away from it to reveal that he was actually off stage. Running on stage to meet the rest of the band is the obvious thing to do plus they have bigger balloons! Now there will be a need for some close camera angles to be monitored, as those spheres get everywhere but we do get the now iconic 'Emppu and topless Lauri lean' partway through. There is also a very novel use of the backing vocal rule that nobody has used before and it is genius - hold the mic out to the crowd that aren't die hard fans that no every word and you might get a muted response. How about record backing that shouts out a word? Works perfectly and if the crowd shout too, the more the better - clever people, very clever. I enjoyed this more than at UMK - up from 6.75/10 to 7.25...
ISRAEL (Michael Ben David - "I.M")
Israel since they hosted have had two entries now that I wrote off at the pre-Eurovision stage, Eden Alene in 2021 and Michael Ben David in 2022. That is all based on the song itself and the lack of much else live - I do not know who their choreographers are but they are resurrection artists! "I.M" is now an incredibly watchable routine, with mirrors, superb floor lighting, a dance routine in total synch plus his massive charisma. It is still not the best entry in the world but there is a chance that Israel could yet again make the Final with not much else than a performer who connects and a visual masterpiece. A bit of a jump in score for me, from 6.25/10 to 7.25...
SERBIA (Konstrakta - "In Corpore Sano")
Now I asked Konstrakta about her National Final performance that this is almost identical to, and whether she felt that non-Serbians would be able to understand what was going on - she said as part of her answer that there would be phrases on screen to help. And she was spot on - at the bottom of the screen, at the critical phases of this entry, there are lines in English that explain what is being sung (eg "What is the secret of a healthy body" and "The body is healthy, so what now?"). That is really the only change but it could be a critical one for this entry's success. This is still 'Marmite' for me but those lines, plus the obvious hand clapping and moving hands that might be picked up on by the crowd, could push this over the line to the Final. I still don't get it but even I pushed it up from 5.50/10 to 6.75...
AZERBAIJAN (Nadir Rustamli - "Fade to Black")
This is all about Nadir's vocal which is still immense but the staging suffers from the general dark nature of every entry that is on this Turin stage (it is becoming the Eurovision of the Dark Arch). To be fair, the song is about fading to black but it is very dark, the blue and white lighting the only thing helping us to see Nadir and his male dancer who mimics his every move when they are on the same stadium benches. When those split into two halves, the dancer becomes his own entity but then quickly fades away at the end and this all makes for some confusing staging that for me doesn't bare any relationship to the song. I think that this will need lots of jury love to go through - I dropped my score from 7.25/10 to 6.75...
GEORGIA (Circus Mircus - "Lock Me In")
Now we always say that Georgia go on their own path at Eurovision and Circus Mircus are no different. Their Steampunk look is unique, they still have hidden their identities and there is even a miniature version of the band as they look on stage inside the music box! They have made good use of the floor art and have done well to keep a fair amount of the their LEDs around the arch - the problem I have is that everything about the band is static and of course the song does tend to repeat itself. I have to say that this hasn't caught my interest as much live as it did in the studio - I think it might have to have a lot of music professional love to stand a chance of making the Final. 6.50 down from 7.50/10...
MALTA (Emma Muscat - "I Am What I Am")
Emma Muscatis the star and focus here - she sings brilliantly and looks amazing on stage. She connected with the fans at the promo parties but here in Turin, where she will be away from the crowd and having four dancers who really don't add much to the show, I think that her star quality alone is unlikely to be enough to get her to the Final. As there is not much to focus on as far as staging is concerned (bar her standing on her piano at the start), the lyrics of the song become more prominent and for me are found lacking now. She has already scripted in lines to gee up the crowd which might suggest that she knows that this entry is going to struggle. A big drop for me from studio to live, 7.50/10 down to 6.25...
SAN MARINO (Achille Lauro - "STRIPPER")
And so we reach the last second rehearsal of the day and what a show this was! Everyone who knows what Achille Lauro can do with staging had been telling everyone else who thought that what we saw in San Marino was it, "Wait And See" - we were in reality hoping that the glimpses we saw with the first rehearsal TikTok and pictures were just a small part of it. Oh yes it was! We start behind a red screen with hands and long finger nails scratching the surface, then Achille appears in a star studded cowboy hat/boots/feather boa/sheer body outfit and small speedos. We have two band members in cages, three guitarists with different coloured hair and outfits, with one that Achille focuses on erotically, so much so that the guitar player goes all phallic with his instrument. To top it all, there is a diamond studded sofa rodeo bull that Achille gets on and rides in circles for the last 30 seconds of the song. Just add smoke and pyros and this is OUTRAGEOUS EUROVISION! Surely no talk about whether San Marino make the Final - surely it has to be how many places higher than "Say Na Na Na" will Achille take his adopted nation to their best ever placing? No changes in score for me - 9.00/10 before, same after...
So that was the seven SF2 second rehearsals for the day - San Marino way in front of everyone else for me, with the other six having scores low enough that they would have not made the top ten in my SF1 rankings. The rest of SF2 are to come tomorrow with a couple of potential winners in the bunch (Poland, Sweden) - for the rest of today we reverted back to first rehearsals and Meet & Greets. The Big 5 were here, kicked off by France...
FRANCE (Alvan & Ahez - "Fulenn")
The picture above (plus the one that started this article) tell the story - we are likely to see something like what we got in the French National Final, just with more yellow on the outfits by the looks of it. The dancer is still there and we learnt from their Meet & Greet that she is an integral part to the staging, due to the song being based on a Breton tale of a young girl who wanted to dance all the time and ended up losing her life to the Devil. The four parts of Alvan and Ahez felt that the rehearsal had gone well but the main part of the M&G (which now had journos in the room with the artists) was focused on Breton. It is the main language for the Ahez trio and Alvan had to learn it phonetically, although his grandmother spoke it and his mother danced to it. It was interesting to hear that the trio of ladies met at school and Alvan met one of them by chance in a bar in Rennes! They were at quite a few promo parties, with Madrid being their favourite due to meeting Tanxugueiras there. I have to admit that I love this entry and loved them in France, so I expect that to continue when we see their second rehearsal on Saturday...
ITALY (Mahmood & BLANCO - "Brividi")
No, no clue who that is with Mahmood - nobody ever told us who the stand in was for BLANCO who had a gig today in Florence. The presence of sunglasses was probably due to the lack of sleep that Mahmood had, given that he had flown straight from Madrid where he had a concert the night before. He was tired during his M&G but was in good spirits - he said that the overall performance had reached 60% in his eyes so lots to sort out when he and BLANCO were back together on Saturday. The outfit is not what he will be wearing for Eurovision and looking at the pictures, it was difficult to tell if the whole rehearsal had been a bit of a waste of time. I am certain that they will click straight away with "Brividi", so it is worth waiting to see what Saturday holds in store. As for the M&G, the lack of sleep meant that it was a bit of a write-off too...
SPAIN (Chanel - "SloMo")
That was the main news of the day as far as Spain was concerned - the outfit that Chanel had on, which is probably the only way that RTVE can spend their staging budget this year, given that Chanel appears to have stopped any wicker men or giant moons appearing. She looks very smart and the pictures of the staging suggest much of the same as Benidorm Fest, every promo party that Chanel attended plus any other event. As long as what she is wearing doesn't impede that incredible routine, Spain are still on for their best ever result at Eurovision since 1995. Chanel's English is still not great so her M&G was lots of smiles, checking she was saying the right thing with two of her male dancers helping out, and more smiles. We did learn how she got a job dancing for Shakira (Catalan dance coach was involved), that she has a lot to learn about herself for future songs in her career as a singer, and that she supports Barcelona over Real Madrid. Oh and you can never have enough mango juice. Looking forward to seeing if the routine is still spot on this Saturday...
GERMANY (Malik Harris - "Rockstars")
So we get to the final Meet & Greet of the day in reality but I am leaving one until the end, for obvious reasons. It looks like we might be getting something like Malik's German National Final staging, with all the instruments he plays on stage with him and his rapping into the Steadicam too. He came across as a really nice bloke in his M&G, paying tribute to his grandmother in the USA and the fact that he would have his grandfather's opera singing as his personal "Sound Of Beauty". We found out that writing songs is like therapy for him, his thoughts turn into melodies and then he shares those with his fans. His overall impression of Eurovision fans? He loves them and their intensity, plus the fact that he now feels again like a rock star, given that there are people to sing to again. He loved the promo tour, especially Tel Aviv where he was amazed that fans knew his song and were singing it, and Amsterdam due to it being a big live show, the kind that he had experienced before Covid. In a year where most of the Big 5 are considered top ten potential, here is hoping that Malik gets a decent result too in the Final - perhaps when we see his second rehearsal, we will have a better idea...
UNITED KINGDOM (Sam Ryder - "SPACE MAN")
Vladana has said that she will be part of an art installation
and we have seen a large thin box back stage with her...
How will that look on tv?