Good morning everybody! It’s the last day of the first week of rehearsals for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest, and having seen all 33 of the semi-finalists put through their paces over the last six days, it’s finally time for the “big 5” – Spain, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy – plus host country Sweden to take the stage.

For us in the fan press area, it’s the same story as from Monday to Thursday – the arena is closed and we’ll be relying on the video and audio feed to the press working area, which can safely be described as “intermittent”! Nevertheless, things will surely work out, and we’ll get going shortly with ESDM from Spain.

SPAIN
The colour scheme for Spain is warm gold/yellow and blue/purple, and it works rather well on the Malmö Arena stage. The first shot is of a silhouetted piper on the satellite stage – who, also being the drummer, has to quickly run back to the main stage afterwards! – then it cuts to the band, with Raquel wearing an attractive canary-yellow summer dress. ESDM appear to be going for a fairly straightforward band performance here, which makes a lot of sense.

Their main “gimmick”, if you can call it that, is that the lights hanging from the roof of the arena (the ones that will display the colours of each country’s flag during the wide shot while the captions are displayed) are lowered to just above head-height just before the middle eight. Raquel then places herself on the satellite stage and caresses one of the lights before it rises up into the heights of the arena. It looks more effective than it sounds from my description here, particularly given that we’re still only on the first camera rehearsals and it’ll surely be picked up better in later runs.

Vocally it all sounds nice enough, if not astonishing (but hey, maybe they were at the Belarusian party too). Either way, my initial fears for this song’s chances have subsided a little – it’s a competent performance that could prove to be a pleasant oasis among the over-staged entries that will surely join Spain in the final.

FRANCE
First important question answered, I guess: There’s no band staging for the rocky French entry, it’s just Amandine front of stage with three backing singers in darkness behind her. And indeed the camerawork demonstrates that Amandine is the star of the show here. The stage is appropriately moody in fiery reds and dusty golds, and her performance is similarly moody – she basically comes across like an angry, hungover, French girl.

In particular, she goes mental – there’s no better phrase for it, or at least none that springs to mind right now – during the last minute of the song while the camera “struggles” to track her movements. I use those inverted commas advisedly, because I hope the effect is deliberate: it works very well in a somewhat subversive, French kind of way, but it could just be that the cameramen haven’t figured out what on earth to do with her yet!

Definitely a quirky and completely different addition to the final line-up, as we’ve come to expect from France over the years, and the stage presentation is appropriate for the song. Not a hint of a clue whether it’s something Eurovision viewers will buy into, but it’s authentic, if nothing else.

GERMANY
The most hotly anticipated rehearsal of the morning came from Germany’s Cascada, with everyone keen to see how the experienced Natalie Horler would command the Malmö Arena. Vocally and in terms of her stage presence, the answer is simply “extremely well”, and that’s without the kind of live audience she absolutely feeds off as a performer. As a filmed TV experience, however, “Glorious” remains a work in progress – like you might expect at this stage.

During these first rehearsals in particular, it’s important to wait until the last run-through before clicking “Update”, as that’s when the pyros, smoke and mirrors tend to be rolled out. At least, that’s what we assumed would happen here, because the backdrop looks a little plain and ordinary. And  so it proved – puffs of smoke during the first instrumental section, and the obligatory curtain of sparks for the last chorus. Not quite as OTT as it might have been, though, so perhaps they’re relying on a full, flag-waving audience to bring the atmosphere – there are certainly plenty of long shots that will help achieve that.

I’ve lost track of the various three-minute cuts of “Glorious” somewhat, but if the “Echo version” is the one that gets to the chorus really quickly, then that’s the one she’s singing. A good choice, I think – having the beat kick in right from the start of the song helps to restrict the immediate comparisons with “Euphoria”. Natalie sings the first two minutes or so from the top of a glass-and-metal stairway/podium construction before descending and – obviously – proceeding along the catwalk to the satellite stage. (Were ever an artist and a song more made for a catwalk strut?) Meanwhile, there are two backing singers who get a nice little moment in the limelight during the middle eight, singing “gloooorious” at each other before encouraging some audience participation through the universal language of exaggerated clapping.

To say this was a solid start for Germany would be an understatement. Professionals at work – and boy, it shows.

And now it’s time for Danny to take over for the remaining rehearsals of the day!

SWEDEN

For once, Sweden have actually changed the stage performance from the Melodifestivalen version – the prop here is a slightly raised platform, and Robin is joined on stage by a male and female backing singer and three dancers. They are all wearing rather simple outfits in various shades of white and grey, and I REALLY do not like Robin’s outfit at all, it’s possibly one one of the worst outfits this year. The theme here is definitely interpretative dance – the three dancers seem to be going around the stage doing random movements, it doesn’t add anything to the song at all and actually I think it detracts from it. There’s a nice shot where the six of them on stage walk down the stage though. There are quite a few dodgy camera shots though but as this is only the first run through they have plenty of time to iron that out. It’s a bit better the second time round, but there’s a point where one of the male dancers almost drops the female one! On the third run through, we have the pyro curtain which looks really effective.

It’s interesting that quite a few people were worrying that the problem with this song was Robin’s vocals, however based on this first rehearsal, it’s pretty much EVERYTHING else about it, as vocally it’s spot on. I really have no idea what SVT are thinking with this. I think I can safely say we won’t be going to Gothenburg, or any other Swedish city next year.

UNITED KINGDOM

Up next is my home country, and another hotly anticipated rehearsal from arguably the most famous contestant in this year’s competition. Bonnie is obviously not in her stage outfit, wearing a black top and pink leggings. The colours here are red, orange and yellow and it looks warm. Bonnie is joined on stage by a full band. Vocally, Bonnie is a LOT better than she was on Graham Norton, she’s confident and works the stage really well. She starts the song to the side of the stage with the band on the other side rather than in the middle, and I think this works rather well. She then walks to the band for the second verse around before walking down the catwalk during the middle 8 to the satellite stage.

And then – as the last chorus kicks in, the platform rises – not sure it QUITE works but may be because of the camera angles, and on the last run through it looks a lot better. So visually and vocally it’s all fine – I think the problem with this is the actual song itself – it’s just dull and uninteresting.

Overall, I’m actually pretty pleased with that rehearsal, I don’t think it will do as bad as Englebert did, but I can’t see it on the left hand side of the scoreboard.

ITALY

Last up today is Marco Mengoni who apparently only flew in this morning and is flying straight back out after the Opening Ceremony this evening to Italy and is coming back for the second dress rehearsal on Wednesday, and is not doing any press stuff at all today – one of the Italian press says it’s because he is on tour in Italy at the moment. This is another simple performance, Marco stands on the stage alone, and the colours are very similar to the Israeli staging. He’s dressed in casual clothes of jeans, leather jacket and hat, and sporting some lovely facial hair!

His performance is rather non-chalant and detached, he doesn’t look into the camera at all, and as usual with a Marco performance there are some interesting facial expressions. You can definitely tell he’s just going through the motions and not bothering much at all. As such it’s quite difficult to judge Towards the end of the song, the stage is lit by some bright yellow lights.

It’s a nice understated performance and Italy are going to do very well – they seem to have got the hang of this contest rather quickly, again though, this is going to be much more popular with the juries than the public. But I think it’s a definite top tenner.