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Live Rehearsals Day 6 – Portugal to Azerbaijan

by | May 16, 2015 | 2015 Rehearsal Liveblogs, escgo at Eurovision, Uncategorized

Live Rehearsals Day 6 – Portugal to Azerbaijan

by | May 16, 2015 | 2015 Rehearsal Liveblogs, escgo at Eurovision, Uncategorized

And that completes our second blog post of the day! Join us very shortly for the run through from Iceland all the way to Poland. We’ll be here for you, here for you.

AZERBAIJAN
The opening shot is now a side-on view of Elnur and his werewolf-like high note, only turning to reveal the twilight/Twilight moon after a few seconds. The wolf dancers are still there (Ruslana approves), and a choreography full of awkward moments reaches its most awkward point at the key change, when Elnur is required to dramatically push the dancers apart but makes it look more like he’s trying to squeeze his way across a busy platform to catch his U-Bahn train.

Really solid vocal on the first run-through, which suggests that he was just holding back during those weaker performances on Wednesday, although you have to be a fan of the Mihai Trăistariu school of vocal acrobatics to fully appreciate what he’s doing here. Once you’re used to the weirdness of the performance, it hangs together quite well and it’s certainly staged effectively within the brief they’ve defined.

I’m trying to pin down what Elnur looks like here. The best I can get so far is a tentative “if Shrek were an elf…?”. I’ll work on it.

Oh bless, he’s wearing a “CONCHITA U R UNSTOPPABLE!” T-shirt on his final run-through! You can decide for yourself what the PR effect is intended to be.

Is it qualifying? Yep.

LATVIA
We’re still getting those epilepsy-inducing quick shots in the first verse. They’re good though, as they build a strong contrast to the long and elegant sweeping shots that take over once the first “your love” kicks in. Aminata is in fine voice here, writhing and giving it the whole “dancing to the music in my head” thing like only a True Artist can.

There’s talk that “Love Injected” could be this year’s “Suus”, but while I understand the parallels, the presentation here is very different. Most specifically of all, Aminata does not make eye contact with the camera – the staging is specifically set up for her not to – while Rona Nishliu was determined to let you know exactly how much she was QAJing and how it was probably all your fault somehow.

As I write this, Aminata is doing a vocal run-through of the verses without the backing track, and it’s notable how little of an actual song (in the conventional sense) this entry actually contains. That probably goes some way to explaining why I adore it. Anyway, much love for the staging and the way this is coming across – if it doesn’t qualify, it won’t be because they got it wrong in Vienna.

Is it qualifying? My heart says yes. Then my brain says yes too, and my heart is surprised. Then my brain says “LOL j/k” and my heart goes off in a huff. Oh look, it should, it really should. And I think it will. But Eurovision, like life, has a habit of giving you a nasty kick in the balls sometimes.

ISRAEL
Had to take a phone call, so I only caught the last run-through of this, but I’m told there were a few false starts as Nadav was instructed in hitting his marks on the stage just right.

Performance-wise, this is a real mixture of things that work really well and things that don’t work at all. The way he plays with the camera on the “forget her” line? Works really well. The way he seems to stagger, crouched, when he should be moving slickly? Doesn’t work at all. The spoken last lines and the “Polaroid photo” ending? Works really well. The – urgh – thrusting as he sings “do you like my dancing?” Well, that’s not a rhetorical question and I know what my answer is.

But… but but but… I think this is working, on the whole. We’re meant to buy into the gawkiness of him as a young man (and why should Cyprus have the monopoly on youthful awkwardness in this semi?), and overall I’d say it’s a progressively more confident Nadav we’re seeing here. Still needs to smile more, but you can’t have everything.

Is it qualifying? My hard-earned money says it is. But I don’t get every bet right…

CZECH REPUBLIC
“Your love is a torch”, we hear. It’d be nice if someone could shine one on the stage.

Marta is still hurling her shoes before the final chorus. This leads to some really cute interactions with the crew. “You can throw them at the steadycam, no worries,” they tell her. “What if I hit it?” “It’s fine, we’ve got two more.” And afterwards: “That was great, you can throw them a bit higher if you want, then it’ll hurt even more.”

Marta and Václav deliver the song with a real twinkle in their eye – it’s just a shame the song itself isn’t as playful, because their chemistry and interaction deserves a better canvas. That said, I don’t understand how Václav’s voice can be so strong throughout the song, yet suddenly go all croaky and horrible for the very last note. It’s not that much higher that it’s suddenly out of his range, is it?

Is it qualifying? If this semi-final didn’t have Lithuania, Norway and voters who like happy things, maybe it’d be in with a chance. As it stands, you’d have to say they’re up against it – although there’s a chance that juries might absolutely adore their vocal stylings, in which case all bets are off.

PORTUGAL
No hats for the backing singers (so far). Odd decision – this isn’t exactly a song that needs to be made less memorable.

Leonor’s fringe isn’t quite as intrusive today. She’s in good voice, even after the key change, so either she’s been in training or that Portuguese TV studio had some seriously Late Late Show-esque acoustics.

The blue staging seems less of a problem now that we’re not having to sit through several hours of this. At least the neon cityscape on the backdrop provides a bit of variety. The ending is still rubbish.

If hands could talk, the applause in the press centre would be saying “Aww, bless”.

Is it qualifying? Ahahahahahahaha.

Introduction
Hey everybody! While I type this, I’m in the background of a long shot on Moldovan TV, so just in case their camera has a particularly strong zoom: YOUR PERFORMANCE IS SLEAZY AND HORRIBLE, PLEASE STOP IT.

Right! With that out of the way, and having applied a whole ten minutes of sunshine to my baldy head, let’s get started with the rehearsals from Portugal, the Czech Republic, Israel, Latvia and Azerbaijan. Should be an interesting and varied selection, at least.

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