Afternoon all! Well, wasn’t that a night last night? So many paradigm shifts, so many things we learned and re-learned anew.

Armenia and Turkey don’t have a guaranteed place in the final and will be punished for uncharismatic performances of average songs. Switzerland and Hungary can qualify despite having practically zero voting friends. Peter Urban sounds remarkably romantic down a 1970s-style telephone line. And German humour can actually be funny!

So here we are again, back in the press centre for the first run-through of the second semi-final. And this is supposed to be the less predictable one! Keep tuned over the next two hours as we update this post throughout the dress rehearsal (if the TVs in the press centre work – I suppose it’ll be our job to re-tune them again…).

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15:09 The TVs are on in the press centre, but no sound as yet. Definitely going to poosh some buttons if things haven’t worked themselves out by the start of the Bosnian postcard. Oh wait, here we go. Hurrah! Hosts doing their same kind of spiel as last night, as you’d expect.

15:13 Technical problems, but we’re not sure what yet. Hosts leading the “audience” in a singalong of the first lines of Bosnia while we’re waiting. Cute.

15:15 Ah, that was all just a warm-up. “Te Deum” and here we go! I love these hosts, they’re taking the piss out of themselves and the general pyro overload in a really nice way. Ooh, postcard!

BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
Very solid. There’s talk about whether Bosnia will go the same way as Armenia and Turkey – “permanent” qualifiers drawn early that get left behind in the semi-final – but come on, it’s Dino Merlin we’re talking about. This is friendly and cute and winsome and it feels natural despite being so carefully thought out, which is exactly what was missing in the aforementioned entries. Some of the camerawork is a bit shaky, but then it’s been several days since they last did this one I suppose! Still can’t work out if they’re actually trying to find a camera with the wave at the end (they don’t quite, anyway).

AUSTRIA
Nadine’s got pipes. And this’ll probably work really well with an audience. Mind you, we said that about song 2 last night… I really hope this makes it to the final, and if Switzerland and Hungary can then so can Austria. I still suspect it’s a bit too “Idol wannabe”, but Nadine and the backing singers are giving absolutely everything they can (well, a bit more smiling would be nice, but hey, nobody’s voting on this one).

NETHERLANDS
Urgh, he’s still wearing the Chris Doran jacket. DO NOT LIKE. Particularly when the other Js are in more casual wear. It makes the whole thing older and therefore less interesting than it needs to be. Vocals aren’t exactly on-point here either, unfortunately. The song’s in my personal top 10 for the year, but I suspect the Dutch are in deep, deep trouble here.

BELGIUM
Well, what to say? They’re sticking with the non-matching outfits, which probably isn’t a bad idea in terms of making the whole thing come across as a bit less cheesy. Singing well, though some bits are way off. The song is still as irritating as a posse of Israeli hammergays, but who knows, maybe the style has its audience? It won’t be enough to qualify or anything, but I do reckon this’ll be further away from last place than many think.

SLOVAKIA
Oh bless. These girls really can’t sing very well at all, can they? Three very, very, very long minutes. And the long notes are the longest of all. Good thing there’s a beer break after this, we’ll all need it.

UKRAINE
Whoops – stopped after a few seconds because the sand art isn’t appearing on the big screen. This gimmick really is more trouble than it’s worth… Still waiting for them to resolve the problem. Aha, here we go at last – hopefully things will be OK by tonight! Mika is singing perfectly, the problem is that she’s simply not in the focus of the whole thing, although I think they’ve tweaked the camerawork somewhat to include more Mika. The sand art would be awesome on the backdrop if it wasn’t for her hands – maybe they should have just stop-motion filmed it instead. As it stands, it looks awkward. Still think this is sailing through to the final though – there’s more about it than last night’s shock non-qualifiers.

MOLDOVA
They’ve decided to go without the mini-screen on stage, so it’s all about the flying hammers and other stuff on the backdrop. My first instinct was that this is a rubbish song with few redeeming features, and instinct turned out to be right when it came to Turkey and Norway this year, but given the start to this semi-final I still reckon they’re getting through then ending up with an Epic Sax Guy result in the final. Not much else to say really, they perform it with the silly hats on much as we’ve seen it before, and at least you know they’re not going to let nerves get to them. Particularly since all they really have to do is shout for three minutes.

SWEDEN
The intro looks and sounds awesome in a stadium environment, and Eric struts on and exudes an “I’m the first star you’ve seen tonight” aura. (He probably stole that from Vorobyov too.) It’s proper effective, this, as well as enjoying an absolute peach of a draw. And he and the dancers do a bit of the Yaz Bitti dance in the middle, which worked a treat for Azerbaijan. There’s a bit of shoutiness in the vocals today, which I hadn’t really noticed in the earlier rehearsals, but I think the visual impact and the backing track will be enough to offset that. Hm. Not sure what happened with the glass, did they just roll in an empty pane? Possibly. Saving it for tonight or have they ditched the idea altogether?

CYPRUS
No dry ice on stage here, but I assume that’s just them saving money, since they’re being charged by the puff. Hope so, anyway, since the wooden shoe-boards look daft otherwise. Uff, seen in context this really is a bit of a confused mess of a performance, all kinds of connected interpretive dance concepts combined with less than stellar vocals (this afternoon, anyway). As a song, I hope it gets through, but if they don’t then they’ve only got themselves to blame for the baffling staging.

BULGARIA
Ooh. Has she been reading the fan sites or is she just saving the real outfit for tonight? Either way, the pseudo-wedding dress and the Croatian strip don’t materialise here, with Poli sporting a black jacket over a white dress instead. I think it works a lot better. The song is professionally performed, though the powerful high notes in the chorus are always in danger of going just a weensy bit wrong. If they hold it together, though, it’s an effectively staged number that should hopefully get to the final on its own merits despite the language barrier.

MACEDONIA
All dancing are Grek! There’s a very real chance that this will come across like the interval act rather than an entry in its own right, what with all the distractions they’ve stuck on it. And somehow the backing singers are managing to shout out of tune, which is quite an achievement. Still, Vlatko is a bit more likeable on camera than he has been – indeed, he almost seems to be enjoying himself now – and the whole thing bowls along nicely. Not a hope of making the final, but we’ll be waving the flag anyway!

ISRAEL
Urgh, this is qualifying, isn’t it? It’s a terrific draw, the first bit of “easy” stupid-pop after some darker and more difficult numbers, and Dana performs it like Dana performs it. Green latticework dress as seen the other day, backing singers all in white. It’s still a nothing of a song and so spectacularly lame for someone who’s such an ESC icon, but I rather fear we’ll be enduring it again on Saturday night.

SLOVENIA
Lungs, part 2. An absolutely spot-on performance from Maja, and I really hope last night’s Luck of the Friendless continues for Slovenia. Incredibly strong performance and she and the dancers are really coming across well on camera too. The lack of a discernible hook is the one thing that might cripple it, but I can see the whole package scoring very well with juries at the very least, and that might be enough.

ROMANIA
Another song that’s fundamentally quite weak, but this is probably qualifying from the first moment David eyes the camera. An assured if nasal vocal performance. Is there room for the alternative Danish entry to reach the final alongside the real one? I suspect yes.

ESTONIA
Oh my God. Estonia have just absolutely murdered this song vocally. OK, it’s only a rehearsal, but if it’s like this tonight and tomorrow then they could be in real trouble. The performance itself is actually more likeable than before, if anything – Getter seems to have bought a portion of personality from NDR’s pyro ‘n’ wind machine store, although the delegation clearly can’t afford the full set – and it should qualify on the strength of the song, à la Hungary last night. Right now, though, those vocals just make the whole thing come across incredibly messy and amateurish, and it’s doing nobody any favours.

BELARUS
And speaking of dodgy vocals… No, this is a bit better than it has been actually, and the chorus is particularly strong. It’s just not very interesting on-stage, and if you’re going to try and force a horrible bit of propaganda on people, the least you can do is camp it up a little. Next!

LATVIA
Uh-oh. Overfamiliarity/boredom with own song alert. We’ve seen this before, and I hope it’s just because it’s the first rehersal and it doesn’t count for anything, but they’re ad-libbing and oversinging and generally not sticking to the actual melody of the song here. The melody that EUROPE HASN’T HEARD YET, remember? Come on, boys, get it together – I still think this is a (narrow) qualifier performed right, and they’re curiously likeable as a pair, but they need to be more disciplined.

DENMARK
Could be the semi-final winner. Vocals are flat, but again, it’s not as if that matters now. The main barrier is the ridiculous run out to the podium and back again that the singer does around the last chorus. What’s the point, seriously? Just stay out there, you’ve already proved that your guitar isn’t plugged in… I assume there’ll be pyros and stuff here and it’ll all look terribly effective and stadium-y on the night.

IRELAND
It’s always hard to know how to judge a Jedward rehearsal. The vocals were rubbish, but they were always going to be (though it’s a bit worrying that the backing singers were way off too). The visuals were basically strong, although they remain the least coordinated twins I’ve ever seen and – that word again – entirely undisciplined when it comes to actually doing what they’re supposed to. The chorus in particular does come across really strongly though (the verses are placeholders really), and obviously the draw is basically ideal for them as long as people don’t give up and make a cup of tea after the first few lines. And the backdrop has that “stadium gig” vibe that’s working so well for the likes of Georgia and Azerbaijan, which is canny of them. Probably a qualifier, much as it doesn’t really deserve it on any kind of musical merit – but hey, this is Eurovision!

Voting reprise now, so we’ll see what else we get in terms of the show. Presumably no interval act, but there might be a few other titbits here and there.

OK, not much to report really. There’s another extended-postcard-set-to-music thing, the screen froze on an image of Jedward for about five minutes, and now they’re testing out the countdown (because that’s hard to do). I think that means it’s time for me to fly the press centre nest and go and enjoy the rest of the day’s sunlight – see you all tomorrow for my semi 2 qualifier predictions. Should be good for a giggle considering how wrong I was last night!

Oh, the interval is breakdancing. Definitely going home now then. Ta-ra!