It’s day 5 in Düsseldorf, and we’re back where we started from, with Poland strutting their stuff on the stage as I type this opening sentence.

Before we get to that, though, a few quick notes on last night. EuroClub opened its doors for real last night, with the Henkel-Saal providing the proper dancefloor that many fans had been itching for. The Austrian, Ukrainian and Icelandic delegations were having plenty of fun in the bar earlier in the evening, and the Slovakians were spotted later on. I also had to fight a Portugeezer for a meatball. (Finally! Free food! And plenty of it!)

Getting back to today, the rehearsals come thick and fast, with each country having 30 rather than 40 minutes to impress – so I’ll be updating every two or three songs. As always, keep us bookmarked and keep checking back!

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Full confession time: I might not get to blog Croatia, as the rehearsals are running behind schedule yet again and I need to get away from the press centre in some kind of good time for once. Should see a few runs of San Marino though, so stay tuned for that at least!

I’m not sure why Glen Vella is bothering to rehearse this, really – he’s got both vocals and routine down to a T, and this one is entirely stage-ready as it stands. The fact that Malta doesn’t have a hope in hell of qualifying is entirely secondary, albeit undoubtedly true.

I hate it when a song I love starts looking really good on stage. That might sound counter-intuitive, but I hate getting my hopes up when it comes to ESC only to have them dashed when my favourites fail. The thing is, it doesn’t actually happen all that often recently, unlike the dark days of the 1990s when I’d routinely fall in love with songs from “-ia” countries only to see them end up in the doldrums while pseudo-Celtic shite romped to victory again. So I’m going to dare to say this much: Finland is coming across very well. There’s a large number of people calling it a dark horse, and when enough people are doing that, a song really isn’t much of a dark horse any more, is it? Anyway, without jinxing it any further, I’m going to focus on qualification and say that if Finland don’t manage that, there’s something very wrong with the world (speaking of which, the planetscape doesn’t quite connect up properly on the LED screens, which is a shame!). As for what happens in the final, only Master Peter knows.

Georgia are still wearing the daft costumes, but they’ve fiddled with the camerawork to make it more Sopho-intensive – this is a Good Thing, as she looks bloomin’ fantastic – and the vocals are more or less spot-on here too. The stage looks amazing, but then it’s amazing for most songs really, big compliment to the German techies and designers on that front. Anyway, I’m seeing this as a likely qualifier to a far greater extent than I was four days ago (good grief, has it really been four days already?!).

Switzerland has barely changed, as you might expect really. Despite Lys Assia’s advice, Anna’ s dress colour is still red (and Cyprus is still a lovely town). It’s a smooth, classy, reserved performance and that’s probably the right approach for it – the risk is that it’ll be ignored rather than standing out from the field. You’d have to say they have a prime draw in terms of the songs preceding them, mind you, it’s just a question as to whether the draw is kind enough to them when it comes to the identity of the countries in the semi. I suspect not, but it’ll be a close call.

Russia next, and Alex Sparrow (well, he’s not calling himself that here, but I like it because it sounds daft) is nailing this vocally and visually. Well, mostly – there’s an ill-advised backflip that could go horribly wrong on the night, and you just know there’ll be plenty of fans hoping that it does! Otherwise it’s a professional performance with plenty of low-level gimmicks (mostly involving lighting in various shapes and forms) and an oddly 50s vibe on the clothing and quiff front. It’s not a strong enough song to be a winner, but if Russia could finish 11th in 2009 and 2010 – for all I adore both songs and don’t particularly rate this one – there’s no reason this significantly more commercial number shouldn’t do some serious damage on the scoreboard.

Ooh. Now that Serbia have dressed Nina and the Nina-ettes in their stage clothes, I really don’t think it works against the psychedelic and busy backdrop. If anything, the concentric circles and tunnels on the LED screens – cool as they are – move far too quickly, and it all ends up a bit distracting and headache-inducing. Which is a shame, because Nina is performing it nicely and singing better than she did the other day (though it’s still a bit shouty towards the end), and the dance routine is very cute. Still firmly a borderline-to-strong-borderline qualifier, but if it didn’t make it, there’d be several easy reasons to point at.

Turkey give us essentially the same performance that we saw last time, but the woman in the ball is doing some proper gyrating today, so I assume we can expect more of that on the big night. I’d say there’s a likeability issue with the singer, if we’re being picky, but otherwise it’s thoroughly solid. First male lead singer of the show, first rock song, first properly “dark” staging and it’s Turkey, so qualification seems guaranteed.

Armenia next, and I’m not quite as impressed by this one as I was last time, but that’s probably just a question of familiarity. The boxing routine is fine from a dancing perspective, but I’m not massively convinced by them all starting in boxers’ gowns (the boys in black and Emmy in red), and the two dancers who are assigned to remove Emmy’s gown during the first verse never managed to get it particularly right in any of their run-throughs here. Minor points, I suppose, but this kind of thing does detract and distract when you’re aiming for a slick, professional visual to accompany an otherwise fairly cheap song.

The song is working fine for Albania, and Aurela unquestionably sings it well in that intense way of hers. Superficial though it may be, my concern is with her looks. She does come across very harsh on screen, with the veins in her neck particularly prominent towards the end. Whether that’ll put off your average televoter I don’t know, but to borrow a line from a fellow press centre type this morning, she’s not exactly made for HDTV. Decent rehearsal in all other respects though.

By contrast, Norway is coming together nicely, and any doubts I had about its qualification are starting to dissipate. There are still too many long shots for my liking, but this was a friendly, competent performance and it’ll look even better with a flag-waving audience in the venue. Good work.

I’m still not sure Poland is working. The beat is effective enough, but the routine is a little lame in places, the outfits are a bit too cheap (and bizarre – the backing singers seem to be wearing sumo belts under their dresses) and the long notes towards the end risk wandering all over the place. It’s exactly what you want as an opener – a decent, solid, modern pop song – but it seems a little lacking beyond that.