Oh, joy! It’s a half day at the press center, with 9 run throughs of the second semi and then time for some beauty sleep ahead of Euroclub’s opening night.

So how did the five countries of the morning session do today?

Croatia
It’s beautiful on screen. It really is. And he’s fantastic. And if he was in semi 1 I could have made some arguments for him qualifying. In this semi, however? Not so much. Sorry, Roko. Come back with a better song.

Malta
They have dropped the bedroom prop and now do all the projects directly on the wall. It means they need to do some work on it since they didn’t practice it as much as before, but it’s a good decision: having just the main stage backdrop behind them makes it look better on screen overall, and this is great fun.

Lithuania
Well, at least I didn’t forget to blog him now.

Russia
As expected, Russia has tightened up some shots that weren’t working before, and while they have some work to do still, the transitions in the problematic parts where shots just lasted for too long are better. It’s very dramatic but I still feel they managed to balance the usage of props and tricks well so it never feels overboard, unlike his previous attempt, and the act overall connects well the song.

Albania
I’m really mad at you, Albania. You have this ethnic track that no one else has in this semi, and this gorgeous, talented singer with such commanding presence, and you manage to do nothing with the stage to make it remotely interesting or memorable. Not that I have anything against 1991 stagings, but still. They did give up on the eagle, thankfully, and instead tried to make the stage look fuller by moving the backing singers forwards, which I like, as well as adding more dynamic shots with her. But all in all, it will be extremely hard for her in this semi.