The sixth day of rehearsals quite literally had all the things in it, mixing in the remaining second run-throughs from the first semi-final, stirring in a few more second rehearsals from the second semi, and shaking with the first appearance of the direct finalists. I apparently really need a drink, and that’s in a day that only had five entries from semi 2. I don’t know what I will do today, or during the actual semi. Let’s not think about that right now. Let’s think about the 15 countries we’ve seen today in Lisbon instead.

Semi 1:
16. Armenia
I’m not the first and probably not the last person to complain about hidden backing vocals, and it’s not the first year in which we run into this, but it does feel like it’s getting slightly more ridiculous every year. Sevak stands there all alone in the middle of the 8th wonder of the world, the Armenian Stonehenge – looking entirely unaware of the fact there are people at home he’s singing to, I should add – as the voices of the backing singers come through the stones and engulf him in whatever it was that Yianna’s spirits surrounded her with. I wonder what lost spirits do in between rehearsals. Do they just hang out there and wait until the next time someone needs a very vocal ghost? Although I suppose, given the fact we have multiple hidden lead singers this year, I can’t really complain when Sevak really does give it his all. At least it’s definitely him doing the singing then.

You’re not alone (Eurovision.tv / Thomas Hanses)

17. Switzerland
“Stones” is actually such a nice song when it’s on and so entirely competent – especially if you think about what Switzerland sent last year – that it pains me to think they are probably more likely to not qualify, despite such a promising running order and a performance I have nothing actively negative to say about. It’s just that again, like the song, I think there will be very few people in Europe who can be asked ten minutes later what the Swiss song was and how it looked on screen and actually know the answer without YouTubing it first. I think I generally feel bad for all of the competent NQs from semi 1 that would have qualified in that other semi we’re not talking about (yet).

Nanana (Eurovision.tv / Thomas Hanses)

18. Ireland
If you told me that after seeing TV feed clips from 24 semi-finalists I’d think Ireland has the best camera work, I would have thought you overdid the Guinness. But what do you know. Years of cluelessness about pretty much everything and suddenly not only do they get it right, they manage to get right something that no one ever gets right: how to have a dance routine narrative going on during the song and actually make it work. Well, here’s how. Out of all the songs and performances, at least in terms of my stage and camera direction nerdiness, this is the one I really want to see in full the most.

Without your love (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

19. Cyprus
This looks and sounds exactly like I expected it to, which means the dance routine is as tight as it can be and it sounds like Eleni Foureira isn’t singing it, and so far so good. This is exactly what delegations are supposed to do: take what they have and get absolutely everything they can out of it by using their resources correctly.

It did stir an interesting discussion, though: if you’re a jury member, do you glare at the blatant lack of actual singing (although she made sure to hold the microphone very close to her today at all times, so not cutting words in the middle. But since Eleni is a superhero she apparently has no need to breathe at any point during this), or do you respect the Cypriots for making it work and deem the fact the credits say “Eleni Foureira”, and not “Friends feat. Eleni Foureira”, entirely irrelevant? Semantics, you know. After all, no rules were broken, and no one ever said that the person credited as the main performer of the song actually needs to be the person who sings it, right?

Touch my fire (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

Semi 2:
1. Norway
Just watch the national final performance and transport it in your head to a slightly worse stage.

Tonight again (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

2. Romania
It was Star Wars day, Romania. May the Fourth! If you had to force me to go through this again, you might as well have brought some actual force, or at least get Darth Vader on stage. This is not even an entertaining WTFery. It’s just there to make even San Marino look slightly saner. Yes, yes, I know you sing better than them. You can tell them that when you meet them at the airport on Friday morning.

Face the shadow (Eurovision.tv / Putting)

3. Serbia
I’m sorry, Serbia. I wrongly blamed you for mashing up every Balkan performance ever. I was wrong. You have no rollerskater. And the rollerskater you don’t have is not there to leave tracks on the LED-less stage. How am I supposed to keep track of all the mileage you are putting in otherwise?

All in all, this is still a Stereotypical Balkan Entry at Eurovision. Or, you know, Almost Every Balkan Entry at Eurovision.

Moje 3 (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

4. San Marino
So your robots can hold funny signs, sure, but can they hold light sabers? Can they? You have a few more days to see how far you can push this, so I want you to try really hard to challenge your robotics team, as they are obviously the more capable part of this year’s (not really) Sammarinese effort.

(You know you have a problem when you do a rehearsal and the most exciting thing I can say about it is I only just realized that the adjective is written “Sammarinese” and not “Sanmarinese”. Although I suppose if you don’t realize you have a problem by now, it’s too late anyway.)

I’m a golden boy (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

5. Denmark
I am trying really hard to understand the sequence of events in this. There’s a boat. There’s snow. I don’t think there can be a snowstorm while you’re still on the boat, because you don’t have an Agnete with an icebreaker to come and save you. So I’m trying to figure out in which part of the song you arrived to the mainland, and did you go all Disney and skip the whole burning villages and gruesome death part and go straight to surrendering while gazing at the pastoral sunrise? And you call yourselves Vikings.

I will give you this, though: at least you don’t hide your backing singers! All of them, by the way, would serve as a better Rasmussen than Rasmussen himself. Is it too late to change them around? It’s hard to tell with those beards anyway. Rasmussen can go be Rusmussen instead, he’s used to it.

Nomads in the night (Eurovision.tv / Thomas Hanses)

That concludes the second rehearsal part of our program, and it’s now time to take a first look at our direct finalists! Because apparently my brain wasn’t confused enough without having to remind itself that I can’t compare those clips to the ones I’ve just watched, because this is just a first rehearsal and it’s not the television feed. (Come on, brain. We can do this.)

Portugal:
Apparently the main advantage of being the local entry is that you get to come to your rehearsal in your pajamas. And apparently Benjamin Ingrosso’s offensive and quickly retracted ESC reactions didn’t go entirely unnoticed, because there is no chair! As a thank you gift to Sweden, they at least made sure to keep IKEA in their thoughts, invaded their lighting department and bought about seventy lanterns that actually create a beautifully intimate environment that I am yet to have any clue about whether it works on screen.

I always sort of assumed that, considering the song is about a garden, we would see some more obvious staging hints (perhaps not as obvious as Francecsa Michielin’s, but you know: colors). But apparently it’s a garden at night and that actually works better.

Although, what does it say that the host country stages their own entry in a way that entirely disguises the stage?

White and black blues (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

Germany:
Once in a while there comes a song I dislike so much, and am also so aware of my dislike being in part due to my own inability to deal with anything in a similar vein to begin with, that it becomes really hard to try and judge it through the eyes of people who might not be as predisposed to loathing everything about it.

Either way, I’ve been told by many people this is considered to be a good rehearsal. As far as I can see, Michael still has the stage presence of a hidden backing singer, but I do have to give them props for sticking to their concept and going all guns blazing for the least subtle presentation of a song at every available moment. If there was a tiny chance that you missed what this song was about, the backdrop makes sure no viewer will go through the three minutes of this missing any piece of information. Just wait until they cut to his shot in the green room during the recap, and I’m sure they will be waving signs with the song lyrics, just to make extra sure you didn’t accidentally forget a word from the first line of the second verse or something.

It still might do well, I’m just not the right person to call this one. I’m generally not the right person to be in the same room with this song in the first place.

1 Life (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

United Kingdom:
Oh! Another random structure serving as a mini-stage and making me wonder whether there are some lyrical or cultural references I am missing here in order to understand why a delegation would choose that particular mini-stage out of all possible combinations of shapes and materials available to them. Either way, it seems like a relatively straight forward setup that calls for lots of tight shots and close-ups, which is really what you need to do when the best thing about your entry is your performer and the most visually memorable thing about her is her haircut.

I don’t necessarily understand where the storm is, which is very confusing: I’d expect the Brits to have a better grasp of crappy weather – but I actually heard the Vikings have a snowstorm, so maybe they stole UK’s climate conditions too. Obviously, invading Britain wasn’t enough.

THE RAIN! THE RAIN! (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

Spain:
Me, reading comments about the rehearsal before watching: What do you mean it reminds you of Norway 2015? What do this and Norway 2015 even have in common?

Me, watching the Spanish clip: Oh. It really kind of does.

I disliked “A Monster Like Me” even more than I dislike this, and at least this one has sincere facial expressions. Or just facial expressions, really, even if half of them do belong to Alfred, whose facial expressions I could have lived without.

I am still hoping the camera work has a 95% – 5% split in favor of Amaia, which probably accurately represents the percentage of people who picked this entry in Spain because she was in it versus because he was in it.

A monster like me (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

Italy:
Tip for the future – get yourselves a favorite you know well ahead of time is not going to challenge for the title, and you won’t be disappointed when the inevitable happens and their performance is very clearly not going to win anything.

In a dramatic development, Meta and Moro’s performance is not just exactly like Sanremo. It’s mostly like Sanremo, except it’s also a bit like their video only without the images, so having every sentence in a different language displayed on screen will probably not make much sense.

It’s still my favorite song because I have to be different and have them as my favorite the one year they are not everyone’s favorite. I’m special.

There must be another way (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

France:
No, really, someone please explain to me that black on black trend? How does the process of picking clothes go?

“What color is the stage?”
“I dunno. It’s dark though.”
“OK, let’s wear black, it goes with everything!”

It’s not even a very nicely designed black outfit. It’s more like “oh, this is me not trying. It’s just something I found at home”. With red sneakers, because why not, it’s not like the rest of it made sense.

Otherwise, the French entry is as it was, with a more impressively shot “Mercy” section of them standing on the satellite area, but the tricky thing about those shots is that it’s really hard to get the angle right until you have an actual audience with actual flags there. And them suddenly standing in the middle wearing black could be a good way of getting lost in the crowd, especially when their shoes are better at expressing themselves than their faces.

Chain of lights (Eurovision.tv / Anders Putting)

I am really curious to see how the finalists come across on screen, of course, but we have to survive an entire day of semi two rehearsals first. The life of an ESC fan can be full of sacrifices.

Next up on the view from San Francisco: Russian mountains. Apparently Alaska is not the only place in the US from where you can see Russian geography.