The first ESC 2012 week has finally arrived in Baku!

Today, the press centre at the Crystal Hall opened, and the first rehearsals and press conferences took place. esc-chat.com will do coverage from Baku from Friday on (as reported earlier). This week, Martin and Felix will write daily reviews on the rehearsals from their homes.
So let’s get to Day 1!

Montenegro

Rambo Amadeus kicked the rehearsals off today. He wore a white T-shirt and came across rather lost on stage. We have our doubts if he knows what he actually wants to do on it. At least he brought a wooden donkey, but otherwise, the whole rehearsal seems rather messy. We heard that Rambo wasn’t pleased with it, and the fact that he plays with his in-ear-system quite often might give a hint what could have been the problem.

Euro Neuro will be a messy start to the contest and misses the chance to give itself the boost that it could have got with a darker, more psychedelic, hypnotic staging.

Iceland

Greta Salóme & Jonsi show what a decent rehearsal is, with the stress on the latter. Jónsi was not spot on in the lower notes, but that’s what rehearsals are for. Vocal performances change, stagings and the overall atmosphere don’t do so as often, and there Iceland is showing its full strengths. Both singers are tight in the rhythm and give a captivating performance.

Never Forget convinces on nearly every level. Iceland – for me – will  definitely get into the final, if not to host ESC 2013.

Greece

Eleftheria Eleftheriou and her dancers apparently have a different choreography compared to the Greek final, but will the majority of European TV viewers notice? We have our doubts. The pop-ish backdrop fits the song perfectly, the vocals are slightly off, but what’s more important for the target audience: They are all good looking and deliver a tight and fun performance.

Aphrodisiac is one of the more enjoyable Greek entries in recent Eurovision history, wiping away the depressing apocalyptic feel of last year’s entry with its innocent, juvenile, happy charm. That’s the Greece we like. Keep your heads up, guys.

Latvia

Anmary rehearsed her Beautiful Song (and I think it is one) like it’s all taking place in a shopping centre. First of all, I think the new version didn’t help. Latvia knows how to change its entries to the worse, as it already proved in 2001. This rehearsal misses all the charm and bizarre moments that Anmary’s show in her semi-final of Eirodziesma had.

Beautiful Song is still beautiful, but doesn’t manage to transport anything with this rehearsal.

Albania

Rona Nishliu is one of the most exceptional singers in this year’s lineup, performing probably THE most exceptional song we heard in recent years. She is not supposed to be normal on stage. That’s why she wears colourful balls on her head. Her vocals are brilliant, as one of our chatters put it: “She screams it very well”. The music is a thrilling, goosebump-creating masterpiece, the close-ups in the bright light don’t do her any favours though.

Suus will either be disliked or praised. We praise it, we would just recommend to make the stage a lot darker.

Romania

Mandinga’s first rehearsal was fine. Romania does a Moldova and puts an epic bagpipe player on stage. What can I say, the rehearsal was ok! I struggle to find more words for it really.

Zaleilah will be loved by those who like those kind of songs, I don’t count myself among them, that’s why it’s hard for me to judge the rehearsal really.

Switzerland

Sinplus deliver a solid first rehearsal. The stage fits the style and feel of the song perfectly, and they manage to transport the atmosphere from the Swiss final and their music video onto the stage in Baku. You know, some stage architectures are favourable for some songs, and vice versa. This stage is *made* for Switzerland.

Unbreakable has more of an impact than The Highest Heights that it gets compared to a lot, and it will most likely get a better result than its predecessor from 2009.

Belgium

Iris has developed from the Belgian song presentation, but only in one way: Her style is more grown-up, the whole thing has more credibility now. However, she still has some problems to hit the notes perfectly. In general, her presentation comes across more solid and accessible.

Would You will have its fans, but will it be enough to take it to the final? I have my doubts.

Finland

Pernilla Karlsson sadly struggles to impress. How can one impress with this song? The answer is probably by singing it in a more mysterious, lovely way. Pernilla did more of that in the Finnish final, but today it was all but mysterious. It was dull and uninspired as a dirty cleaning cloth that a cleaning woman throws on the wet floor cos she’s bored of her job.

När jag blundar is on the way downwards, and probably won’t be back on its UMK level when it counts. Sad, really, because some of us liked this a lot.

On Youtube, the most watched rehearsal clips from Eurovision.tv were Montenegro, Iceland and Latvia. Of these three, Iceland has the best like/dislike ratio.

What else?
Well, it was a potentially challenging start to the ESC fortnight, as a cycle race blocked all of the roads to the arena for several hours. It wasn’t just the bloggers who were affected, either – rehearsals began somewhat later than planned as the Montenegrin delegation (and others) were unable to reach the venue in time! Things soon cleared up, however, and apart from some technical issues with the press centre screens and similar, everything seems to be running fairly smoothly. Teething problems are to be expected at the start of every ESC fortnight really…

So here’s our picture of the stage finally:

Tomorrow, the rehearsals will start with Israel. It’s scheduled for 11:00 local time, but our experience suggests that there will be a delay again, so don’t place your bets on that. We will also get a first glimpse of the hotly discussed San Marino, as well as another highlight in the shape of the Russian grannies. Jedward will bring the 2nd rehearsal day to a close with their promised big show.

Stay tuned!