Day 4 in Baku, and today’s rehearsal schedule included easily the most hotly-awaited performance from the runaway favourite with fans and bookmakers alike.

But more about Donny Montell later. First, we take a look at the nine songs that preceded his appearance on the Baku stage, and how they came across to a pair of remote ears and a pair of translation-fatigued eyes over on the other side of the continent.

Slovenia

The Slovenes have a glorious history of wardrobe disasters at ESC, memorable recent examples including Rebeka Drivelj and whatever those people who did that Dailidounyancatni Rock song were called. And after last year’s competence, they’re back on form here. The look they’re going for appears to be “My Big Fat Austro-Hungarian Wedding”, which is not really what I’d expect for a 16-year-old girl (although I suppose she is freakishly tall), and there’s lots of slow arty movement from the backing group that’s probably terribly meaningful. As promised, though, there’s no ridiculous headgear. Yet.

I think Eva basically sings Verjamem pretty well. The first verse is tricky, but then the whole composition is basically geared towards the last, Molitva-lite minute. The problem I have is that I just don’t care. And based on this rehearsal, neither does she. Last year Slovenia got a decent result because the performance was committed and in-your-face, this year it feels like they’re striving for more of the same but can’t quite reach the same heights. Which puts it in a direct fight with Portugal for a borderline squeak into 10th place at best, in my book. Still, early days, and she might well bring her A-game later in the week.

Croatia

Much as expected – some will call it classy, others will call it dull. It was certainly a competent rehearsal, anyway, and we’ll see if the song turns out to be friendly/jury vote fodder or not.

What certainly can be said about Nebo is that Nina sings well, but her dress is pretty ugly – although it suggests the potential for a late-90s Croatian strip at some point. One can only hope, even if a late-90s Croatian result seems unlikely. There’s a big sheet being waved around towards the end too, which suggests that their points of Euro-reference really are a good few years out of date. Meanwhile, the rest of the routine features yet more Meaningful Artistic Group Movement, thereby successfully making it blend in even more with what we’ve already seen today. Bravo.

Sweden

The (actual) big favourite, then.

Having experienced the OMG SAADE IZ NOT SINGING hype bubble in the press centre last year, and remembering the similar blogkaos that ensued when Carola sensibly decided to save her voice at several rehearals in 2006, it’s important to bear in mind that Loreen is a professional singer, Sweden is home to a professional music industry and there are still eight days left until she has to perform in the first semi-final. It is worth mentioning that she seems to be riffing and improvising her way around the vocals somewhat, a common Eurovision pitfall – you’ve sung the song 3,000 times already, but most of Europe hasn’t heard it once yet, so stick to the melody! – but that’s precisely why I started with the disclaimer above.

With that out of the way, then, does Euphoria justify its favourite status? Well, the jury is still out (no pun intended), but I think Loreen and her team can be happy with the way things went today. The staging is very much still like it was in Melodifestivalen, although it remains to be seen whether the same is true for the camerawork – we were promised more long shots by the organisers generally, and the “arty” nature of the performance rather depends on the opposite being true. Apparently they’re getting the close-ups they require, though, and the video backdrop with its snow effect towards the end seems pretty effective. Plus the necessary introduction of backing vocal(ist)s works well enough. And the shallow “box” she’s standing on appears to be a neat way of using the real-life snow without having to sweep the stage with Nelly Ciobanu’s mop afterwards. And…

Well look, we could over-analyse this until the cows come home. Lordi only knows what result she’ll get on the scoreboard, but ultimately, any upside or downside will have nothing to do with the transferability of the concept from the Globen stage to here, as they’ve achieved that just fine. Next!

Georgia

From the sublime to… well, to Georgia. If this is supposedly a song from a future rock-opera-musical that Anri has planned, you’ll forgive me if I don’t rush to buy front-row tickets for the opening night.

But the thing is, I’m A Joker (I still want to call it I’m Jocker, but what can you do) sort of works as a song, in a grotesque kind of way. The key is to achieve the right kind of visual performance – a bit jo(c)key, basically, but not in a punchable way – and for all it’s hard to tell from the rehearsal camerawork, I’m not fully convinced they’re bringing it across the right way here. It all feels, God forbid, a bit… too serious? Anri starts on one of the catwalks, while his backing singers start on mini versions of Safura’s stairs that look more like zimmer frames. And, well, they do their stuff. There’s a grand piano that gets used towards the end in a Reverse Daniela Simons kind of move. And, OK, it’s pretty professional. I just expected something a lot more bombastic, and I think the song needs it.

But hey. Georgia always qualify. Don’t they?

Turkey

And hey. Turkey always qualify. Don’t they?

See, that’s the thing. Now that we know Turkey isn’t an invincible semi-final behemoth providing it has a dull enough song, a poor enough performance and an insufficient base of voting allies to draw on, the question is how good they have to be to definitely make it through. And Love Me Back has always been a curious case. A slightly rambling sea-shanty of a song that I still find quite charming, in spite of the general lack of structure and the fact that they didn’t bother to write any new words for half of it – and that, depending on who you listen to, the words they did write are somewhat less than appealing.

But it was all going to hinge on the performance, and the performance is… confusing. Can doesn’t really seem to be engaging with things yet, although he might be holding back at this stage, and the overall vibe is one of a bunch of pissed-up hipsters having a bit of a knockabout singalong in the pub accompanied by some gymnastic moves. Which might be great fun when you’re the ones doing it, but far less so when seen from the other side of the bar. So, is it a qualifier? Well, I think it is, despite last year’s lessons – it does fulfil a quirky niche that isn’t really being served by anyone else in this semi, there’s a decent slice of personality in there, and the various ethnic elements ought to have some appeal beyond that, without the whole thing having to be belly-dancingly über-Turkish about it. But they’re not making it easy on themselves…

Estonia

Interestingly, no blue in Estonia’s backdrop, with the initial darkness followed up by a kind of stormy sunset and blossom/rose petal effect at the key change. We’ll see how it looks through the real camera’s eye, but it certainly seems effective from this distance.

You could argue that a male ballad in a native language is a bit of a risk in this day and age, even with the return of juries. But Kuula seems to cut through that lack of commerciality in a way that might just return a healthy number of points for Estonia. Either way, it was a decent vocal performance from Ott today, although there’s not really much that can go wrong when your staging is so last-century. I don’t mean that in a bad way, either – following the excesses of Turkey and Georgia (and arguably even Sweden), Estonia couldn’t have a better draw. Pretty decent contrast to the next one, too!

Slovakia

To be honest, even though I’ve got money on him not to qualify (and I’ll roll out a betting blog in due course – there are some interesting markets out there, as always), the teenage metalhead inside me is desperate for Max Jason Mai to succeed. And even more so after he uploaded this awesome video! So what are the chances for poor old friendless Slovakia?

Well, you’d certainly have to say that Don’t Close Your Eyes stands out of the semi 2 line-up. The only thing even remotely in its ballpark is arguably Belarus, and if you like your faux-rock performances with decent vocals and a healthy dose of commitment, you’re going to plump for Slovakia instead. The question may simply be whether there are enough votes in that market to begin with. Good solid rehearsal, I reckon, though I expected a bit more in terms of performance – will we get the Slipknot-lite gimmick of his bandmates wearing bank-robber masks? I suppose they wouldn’t want to wear them to every rehearsal, especially at Baku temperatures… Convincing enough generic metal backdrop (in every sense), lots of black and white and steel and strobes, and Max basically hits the notes confidently enough, although I remain unconvinced about the higher end of his range – he always seem to end up a bit sharp on the chorus. Still no idea where this is ending up, anyway, but they can party happily enough tonight.

Norway

Ooh. For a while now, I’ve wondered whether Tooji might be this year’s Getter Jarni. (No, really, bear with me here.) See, for me, Stay is a modern but quite disjointed pop song with serious potential for car-crash vocals on the night, particularly given the amount of movement involved. Not a non-qualifier, but conceivably a song that could flatter to deceive and ultimately end up quite low down on the final scoreboard.

They’ve addressed the singing side of things by bringing one dedicated backing vocalist to Baku, plus some dancers who can carry a tune – and today’s performance has actually put Norway right back on my radar. Maybe not as a winner, but certainly as a solid scorer in the final. My one major reservation is that Tooji’s falsetto is still a bit hit-and-hope. He barely sings the “stay” lines in the chorus, and that’s perfectly sensible, but the last half-minute requires him to play a more active vocal role in that higher register of his and, unless the sound quality of the rehearsal videos is hiding something, he never really quite makes it to where he needs to be. I don’t think that’s vital to the overall impression though, and the performance is visually very impressive.

Bosnia & Herzegovina

I know I tend to write too much, so sometimes it’s nice not to have a great deal to say about a rehearsal.

Korake ti znam is an attractive if daringly low-key ballad. Maya sings it very nicely and honestly, starting at her piano and staying there until about halfway through, whereupon she hits the front of the stage in time to attack the last chorus. The stage looks pretty enough, with the backdrop full of what I can only describe as, well, architecture. No backing singers, just some heavy reverb on her voice at key moments. The whole thing is incredibly simple and understated, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing after what came before – or maybe it’ll be the song’s downfall. Who knows?

Lithuania

And a marathon day of rehearsal activity comes to a close with our first sighting (hah!) of Donny Montell. For the sake of full disclosure, I should point out that I can’t get on with this song at all – I’d honestly rather spend an hour in the company of San Marino on repeat. But rehearsals week is renowned for springing a few surprises and making previous no-hopers seem like easy qualifiers, so what chance of a turnaround in my view on Love Is Blind?

None at all, as it happens. Donny comes across as a very sweet lad, but really, this is a strangely structured performance of a strangely structured song. It’s much as we knew it already – he’s all alone on stage, there’s the glittery blindfold, there’s the semi-backflip, there’s hundreds of silhouettes on the backdrop (think the Rounder Girls but less colourful), there’s an all-pervading sense of utter tedium… Well, OK, let’s at least say something positive: his vocals are very strong, and with juries rewarding that kind of thing, that alone might be enough to keep up Lithuania’s comparatively decent qualification record in recent years. I can’t see it happening though. (And neither can he!)

What else?
We found out today that one of Latvia’s promotional giveaways this year is chocolate bars with Anmary’s beaming face on the front. I was hoping there’d be two Smarties embedded in the chocolate to represent her googly eyes, but sadly not. Wasted opportunity.

Also, for those who are yet to arrive in Baku – including our own roving reporter Danny, who will be giving you all the on-site gossip starting from later in the week – it might be worth bringing some waterproof trousers, as the combined forces of Twitter and Google have conspired to locate the venue (and its inhabitants. Poor Emma!) in a surprisingly damp part of town:

Tomorrow we go back to the future, with Sunday’s (and some of Monday’s) countries returning for their second set of rehearsals. Will Greece have solved their tuning issues? Will Valentina’s backing group remember to charge their iPads? Will Rambo Amadeus ever crack a smile? Stay tuned to our website and Twitter feed to find out!