EuroClub Slagthuset calling! It’s the third morning of rehearsals for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest, the coffee is hot, the Latvian boys are glittery and things are about to get moving on stage and on screen, so let’s see what Wednesday brings…

LATVIA
It says a lot about how distracting the first few days in a new environment can be that it took me until yesterday afternoon to realise that the lights hanging down from the ceiling of the arena – which are shown along with the caption at the start of each song – are in the flag colours of the respective country, rather in the style of last year’s Crystal Hall illuminations. Apparently SVT didn’t disapprove of everything that happened in Baku after all. So there we go!

And here we go with “Here We Go”, which, if nothing else, works quite decently as an opening song in terms of both the second semi-final and waking up the dozy hordes in the screening cinema here! It’s much the same as in the Latvian final really, and it’s not like there’s a great deal of singing (and beatboxing) to go “wrong” as such. The PeR boys are wearing glittery silver and glittery black suits respectively, one of the backers is playing a keytar-esque instrument with a Latvian flag on it (we approve!), and there’s a dance bit in the middle eight where they all creep across the catwalk slowly in perfect synchronisation that… well, it kinda works, though it looks a bit odd too. Rather like their call-and-response sections (hello 1995!), it’ll probably work better with a full audience. It can’t be easy to shout “Everybody! Make some noise!” to a hall full of carboard cut-outs of Mr. Spock and Elvis Presley.

As an aside, I wonder how many people here in the press area (Roy Delaney aside) recognise the lyrical lift from Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” towards the end of the song. Of course, that may well have been replaced by “Hello Ventspils Malmö!” by the time the show rolls around and there’s a full audience in place. Anyway, Latvia: a solid start to the day.

SAN MARINO
One of the most anticipated rehearsals of the day from a fanboy perspective came right at the start of Wednesday’s proceedings: the (glorious?) return of Valentina Monetta. It goes without saying that all of her run-throughs were greeted with huge applause and cheering in the fanboy viewing cinema, but what have we really learned about the microstate’s chances of making it to the grand final for the first time?

The performance starts with Valentina sitting on a dark stage with two backing girls lying down in the background, all of them wrapped in dark sheets that look a bit like body bags – why, it’s almost as if there’s going to be some kind of butterfly-emerging-from-a-cocoon sartorial moment later in the song! Valentina then starts singing while fingering an illuminated ball, before standing for the second verse, still wrapped in her cape. Her vocals are fine, but she seems to be (deliberately) making little eye contact with the cameras, preferring instead to clutch herself and look anguished.

The tempo change then happens, with all three ladies casting off their capes Danijela-style to reveal scarlet-coloured dresses with lots of flappy material to spare (butterflies, you see?). The last minute of the song actually feels very reminiscent of Hera Björk’s “Je ne sais quoi” – slow, steady side-to-side movements slightly at odds with the fast beat, particularly since Valentina doesn’t have the excuse of being a big girl.

All in all, it does feel a bit like a small country making a low-budget attempt at something bigger and more meaningful. The stage looks quite empty and dark (remember Montenegro 2009, another Siegel effort?), but Valentina is getting more comfortable with every performance, which is nice to see. And hey, maybe they’ll throw in some pyrotechnics to brighten things up a bit.

MACEDONIA
As anticipated, the Macedonians have switched to a largely English version of the song, and I think it works well enough. If Macedonia are to qualify, the key will be to overcome the fact that “If I Could Change The World” has a fundamentally difficult structure – Vlatko and Esma’s parts really do belong to different songs, so a disjointed-looking visual on top of the disjointed-sounding audio could kill off their chances.

As such, today’s run-throughs didn’t tell us a great deal, since they primarily focused on moving the artists around like chess pieces, ensuring the cameras picked them up properly, and so on. (Esma does not adapt to you, you adapt to Esma!) We did eventually get four full runs in the entire 30-minute session (though one of them wasn’t broadcast in full to the cinema screen), but while things were looking a bit smoother by the end, I’d argue we’re still none the wiser really. Esma wanders on from the back of the stage like she owns the place before doing her thing, Vlatko is a really solid vocalist – whether the whole thing will hang together nicely (or even can hang together nicely), we’ll see on Saturday and beyond…

AZERBAIJAN
Jaw. Dropped.

So let’s try and get this one straight. Farid starts the song standing on a tall glass box – all perfectly normal by Eurovision standards. The next shot reveals a black-clad dancer lying at the bottom of the box. The dancer then turns himself upside-down and starts mirroring Farid’s movements, and continues doing so once he’s upright again. (Do you remember the doppelganger prince that you had to merge with on the original Prince Of Persia game? It’s like that!)

At the second chorus, a woman in a bright red dress with a huge train walks on from the back of the stage for no immediately apparent reason. She and Farid then gesticulate at each other from either side of the glass box, while the box itself fills with rose petals like a slightly soppier version of the Crystal Dome from the end of The Crystal Maze, threatening to engulf the dancer (who then starts flirting with the girl while Farid deals with the key change). The whole thing ends with Farid and girl united at the front of the stage while the dancer glowers angrily at the camera.

Good grief. They’ve done a right job on this, and for all it’s a bit ridiculous (obviously), it’s the kind of thing that will get HUGE social media attention and probably quite a lot of votes indeed. Interesting…

FINLAND
We kick off the afternoon rehearsals with the Finnish rehearsal – Krista is in her full stage outfit of her wedding dress, and she has three female backing dancers dressed in blue velvet costumes that get ripped off towards the end to reveal pink dresses – she also has two female backing singers in white and red outfits and there’s some fun close up shots of them. The backing dancers also bring on a long flowing veil which they put on Krista’s head, and there’s a wind machine! The song ends with Krista kissing one of her backing singers, and right after the performance, she jokes that she didn’t use tongues! Maybe she’s saving that for the actual performance?

The screen behind them has a mock up of the Las Vegas logo, and DING DONG comes on screen when they sing DING DING, funnily enough! On the last performance we have fire and pyros! The whole performance is fun and slick, though there are a bit too many long shots of the arena, there is a lot happening on stage and I think they should concentrate on that more. You can definitely tell that they have spent a lot of time working on this routine, and it will definitely be remembered, but unlike Ukraine on Monday, in a good way! For me, this is an easy qualifier.

MALTA
The Maltese performance is simple – Gianluca stands centre stage wearing mustard coloured trousers and a black waistcoat – he has the same backing singers from the preview video including his big sister Dorothy who has participated in the Maltese National Final a few times. In fact, apparently it’s a family affair and they’re all brothers and sisters. Towards the end of the song, they all come together. The backdrop of the song has the words to the song appear on screen – rather like the Hungarian preview video. Overall, this is not too bad, he did seem a little shaky and nervous though, but then it was only the first run through. The second time, he was better and they all look like they are enjoying themselves, and it’s all very pleasant. I don’t think they should have any troubles qualifying – this is definitely a jury pleaser.

BULGARIA
This starts off with Elitsa and Stoyan drumming away in the centre of the stage, the drums are covered in water and it looks quite effective. However, sadly the same cannot be said of the vocals – which are more than a bit shrill at times and Elitsa misses her cues a few times. It all just sounds very messy and it doesn’t quite work.

There’s a backing dancer prowling around with what looks like bagpipes and then some sort of strange face mask. Their drumsticks turn into bright yellow glow sticks which looks good, and towards the end of the song Elitsa walks down the catwalk to the satellite stage and is joined by Stoyan and the dancer. There’s also three backing singers who wail away with Elitsa dressed in traditional red and white costumes. And when I mean wail, I mean SERIOUSLY wailing. It almost sounds like two cats mating! Let’s hope it improves dramatically on further run throughs as based on this performance, they could seriously be looking at last place in the semi final.

ICELAND

Eyþór brings today’s rehearsals to a close dressed in a black suit with a white jacket. He stands on stage on his own and is joined by some backing singers at they key change. The staging for this is darkHe sings this really well and is definitely giving it his all, perhaps a bit too much, I think. It’s difficult to judge this one as he is definitely better than the song and I think he will pick up jury votes for his performance, but whether the song itself deserves them, I’m not too sure. It’s all just a bit dull.

So overall today, it was a bit of a mixed bunch, from the performances I saw, I don’t think we have a winner amongst them, but there are definitely quite a few press mentioning Azerbaijan again. Let’s hope that Lynda Woodruff has managed to learn how to pronounce it properly!