Urgh. Hangover. And with good reason – it was the Georgian party last night, and you can read my report about it here, because it deserves separate attention.

Meanwhile, esc-chat.com is back in the press centre and ready to go with the sixth day of rehearsals for the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest.

Let’s catch up on last night first, though. I did see San Marino and Croatia, even if I didn’t get to blog them. The former was much as we knew it already, though Senit’s vocals seemed a bit off, while the latter is just a mess – two costume changes, pointless gimmicks, lots of walking around and no obvious concept. At this stage, I could well believe that the consecutive trio of Malta, San Marino and Croatia will be our bottom three in this semi-final.

Moving on to today, then, I’ll be updating this page every two or three songs like yesterday – so keep us bookmarked and keep checking back!

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And now, as semi-final 2 begins – Bosnia & Herzegovina sounding and looking great except for some unnecessary pyrotechnics near the end, Austria as competent as ever – I’m actually going to head off, as burnout is kicking in and I could use a quiet afternoon. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow, though, and in the meantime you can follow chatter Roger’s reports over at our sister site ESC Nation. See you tomorrow!

A propos of nothing, but while I have it to hand, there’s a useful list of artist meet-and-greets at the EuroClub here. Could be of interest to non-accredited fans who want to meet the singers they like. Or even the ones they don’t like!

This is not a comparison I ever expected to make, but Greece is basically Hera Björk, isn’t it? The kind of song that will make little to no impact in the final, but stick it at the end of the semi-final draw and it’s so different, so welcome a change from what’s gone before, that people will vote for it in their droves. And not just the diaspora. The rap is still rubbish – in the hall it sounds like Stereo Mike is shouting it, but on screen it’s the usual mumble – and the dancing needs to be filmed more effectively (and presumably won’t be, at this stage).  The backdrop is spectacular and Loukas is absolutely nailing the vocals, though, and the whole drama overload thing works brilliantly as a semi-final closer.

Azerbaijan is still a curious wee beastie. It’s going straight to the top 3 of this semi-final, the song is still lovely and the vocals are hanging together a lot better today (I wasn’t fond of the backing vocal mix last time round). And the stage, my God, the stage looks fantastic – we’re talking MTV Awards levels of lighting and general visual production. And yet, and yet, there’s something about this duo that’s just plain peculiar. No matter how much they style her, she does come across as a MILF being chased by a teenage Anžej Dežan, and the intimate moments between them are fumbling and awkward (perhaps appropriately, given the comparison). Is this a problem? Not really, but an intangible sense of unease could easily be enough to send this – arguably the most chart-friendly song of the year – from “potential winner” to “safe 5th-placer but nothing more” territory.

I’m going to group Portugal and Lithuania together, because any changes between the first rehearsal and today are so minor as to be imperceptible. I think they’re still playing around with the camera angles on Lithuania, particularly during Evelin’s sign-language routine in the second verse (which still looks clumsy and unnecessary, by the way), but otherwise everything is sitting right. And Portugal were so on point – it’s not as if they actually do much, after all – that they even left the stage 10 minutes before the end of their allotted time.

Hungary suffered from a seriously dodgy first rehearsal, but I’d say they’ve got things back on track here. Kati’s vocals will probably always be a bit of a concern, since it’s a demanding song to sing, but the dancing is a bit less intrusive now (although that does raise the question as to why they’re bothering when it’s in the dark half of the time), and I think they’ve mic’ed up at least one of the dancers because the “gospel” section sounds a lot fuller now. Definitely a better day at the office for Hungary, then, but they too will be relying on the perceived strength of their song to get them through to the final given the flaws that remain in their performance.

Iceland were first up and showed no real signs of last night’s partying. It’s still the same “nice” atmosphere we saw last time, they haven’t changed the (in my opinion) slightly unfortunate LED backdrop, and the performance is solid. Song strength will get them through or not, basically.