It’s time for the last two rehearsals of the day!

Greece
One of the most anticipated rehearsals of the first semi, Greece retained much of its videoclip concept, including the fencing and the tulle (albeit in yellow). But in line with today’s theme, they also tried to see how much extra and possibly unnecessary stuff they can add. So we had a monument which looked like a reversed condom serving as back drop for Katerina who in turn was dressed in an intricate Victorian dress. She had her ballerinas and her fencers as well as a girl who was carrying a very big inflating ball, before throwing it into the fake audience.

The staging was soon overpowered by lotus flowers on all LEDs which brought on a pink overload, and overall it felt just a bit too messy and generally too much. It had some nice visual elements but they weren’t necessarily the right ones for the song.

They had a last run through with a different opening shot which sets up the song better and they actually use no art on the LEDs for the run through, allowing the camera to be only focused on Katerine and her backings and dancers. I don’t know whether this was a mistake or an attempt at a different version to see what works better, but I hope it’s the latter, and that they stick to that one.

San Marino
I’m sure I will regret saying this, but as the lovely German next to me just said, the problem with this one is – well, among others – is that while everyone else threw too much at their stagings, this one was just not enough. And she’s correct: while it does have a properly suitable colorful and slightly kitsch staging, which of course includes five female / dancers and backing vocalists, his own platform and a lot of floating text (mostly NA NA NA, obviously) it’s a bit of the minimal side, because apparently they are trying to take themselves seriously. Not usually a problem I will complain about, but when your lead artist is Serhat, the only way of really selling this is going down the crazy batshit the audience will just have to televote for it route. And of course, also unsurprisingly, this comes across as so very dated – with particular shades of Words for Love, actually.

All images from eurovision.tv