09:55

Good Morning Europe! Today is when Eurovision 2014 officially begins! We have the first ten countries on stage today for their first dress rehearsal, and I will be bringing you all the latest news from what is happening on the Eurovision stage!

10.01 

Armenia is due to have begun but we are not getting any feed on the screens yet. Bear with us and as soon as we have some action, we will let you know!

10.08 

So we can HEAR Armenia, well the BASS at least, which is pretty deafening, but still nothing on the live feed.

10:17 ARMENIA 

And we have video! No sound yet though, although we can hear it a little from the arena. Aram is alone on stage and he stands pretty much in the same spot for the whole song. Visually, it starts completely dark – you can barely see Aram but then it starts to get brighter culminating with some very impressive lighting effects that look as if he is being struck by a MASSIVE bolt of lightning just as the beat kicks in. There’s lots of white and reds and it looks very effective. This is my first proper view of the stage and I think it looks really good on screen. We eventually get sound on one of the later run throughs and it’s nice and loud unlike in Malmoö last year. Aram sounds in fine voice although I still think this song takes far too long to build to the climax which is by far the best part of the song. Overall, a competent first rehearsal, I think he should be very happy with that. Have we seen the winner yet, though?

© Thomas Hanses (EBU)

10:45 LATVIA 

Up next are the Latvians, who start on the catwalk before making their way to the main stage. The whole thing comes off very jolly and fun if just a little bit messy. The band stand in a line singing their song and they are all smiles, and towards the end of the song they move back to the catwalk before running back onto the main stage. It’s not quite as bad as Safura but it doesn’t look good. Vocally, it’s decent enough but I did think he sounded a little bit hoarse. There seems to be a growing contingent of fans for this song, so it could have a decent shot of qualifying!

© Sander Hesterman (EBU)

11:17 ESTONIA

Tanja starts the song lying on the ground with her dancer which I think looks really striking  – there’s a part where they sit up and it looks really effective. Then they get up on their feet and move into a smiliar routine that that they did in the national final with a couple of changes here and there.  There are some wide shots of the stage which make Tanja and her dancer really tiny! The choreography is pretty good – they’ve definitely been working on this before they came to Copenhagen. It all looks very artistic with a hint of ballet. They are wearing white outfits, which I think could well be their proper stage outfits – let’s just hope they wash them before the show if they are going to be constantly rolling around the floor wearing them! There’s some blue and white lighting effects which also look good. Vocally, it’s adequate – there are a couple of bum notes here and there but it doesn’t sound like Tanja is giving it her all, but that’s not surprising when she has the most complicated dance routine of the contest to deal with! Overall, a very competent rehearsal, and I don’t think they have anything to worry about at the moment.

© Thomas Hanses (EBU)

11:50 LUNCH TIME

So now it’s an hour’s break for lunch! Join us again soon for Sweden!

12:50 

And we are back from our lunch break! Just waiting for Sanna Nielsen to take the stage for Sweden.

12:52 SWEDEN 

The big fan favourite is up next. Instead of the crystals that we saw in Melodifestivalen, we have Sanna standing inside a circle of blue light. She is wearing a simple black trouser outfit which obviously isn’t her final outfit. During the second chorus, the blue lights fall down to emit the light into the audience, with the long camera shots this looks really good. At the key change, the stage turns to white which really highlights the shift in key. Sanna stands on the stage herself, her backing singers are nowhere to be seen, and vocally, it is sounding pretty much on point – you can tell that she is a seasoned performer, and she’s not holding back on her performance like a lot of other acts are likely to do. Hopefully she won’t overdo it too much though, she needs to hold something back for the actual live performance. Second time around, some of the camera angles were tightened up and it looked better, and the following run throughs were just as strong. She seems to be emoting more than she did in Melodifestivalen and it feels less clinical. Is it a winning performance? I am not sure, but for me, it looks more of a winner than Armenia did.

© Thomas Hanses (EBU)

13:30 ICELAND 

We’re back on schedule with Pollapönk up now wearing their colourful costumes. I don’t think I have ever seen them wear anything else! This song involves lots of lights and the scaffold-like background is lit in a neon green colour. It’s performed well and the guys look like they are having fun on stage,but it does feel like they are holding back a little with their energy levels and it looks a bit half-hearted at the moment. I think the problem it has though is that it is competing for the same vote as Latvia is, and I think only one of them has a chance of qualifying. At the moment, I think that will be Latvia, as I think it will appeal to more people, and the type of person who would like the Icelandic song isn’t likely to be watching a Eurovision semi-final.  Overall though, it was a decent rehearsal, although for the latter rehearsals the vocals sounded very strained. For me, probably the weakest so far.

© Thomas Hanses (EBU)

14:08 ALBANIA 

Hersi is standing on a weirdly shaped podium and is joined on stage by a guitarist, a drummer and a couple of backing singers. Weirdly, she has a pair of shoes at her feet! Are they hurting already? You cannot fault this vocally at all but it’s a little bit boring if I am totally honest. She’s not really connecting to the cameras. I’m not really sure WHY she is standing on the platform, as it doesn’t add to the performance in anyway. There are some nice camera shots in this though the second time around, but overall I think it’s a bit of a filler and is looking increasingly likely to be going home early. On the third run through, there’s no vocals, so I imagine they are just testing the camera shots out, but there’s some fun shots of Hersi just standing there doing nothing making some funny faces! For the final rehearsal, she’s back in full vocal and it sounded and looked the best, but sadly, I still don’t think it will be enough.

© Thomas Hanses (EBU)

14:50 RUSSIA 

Anastasia and Maria, better known as the Tolmachevy Sisters are up next! We can hear them doing a vocal run through before the song begins. After a little delay, for some technical issues, the first rehearsal begins. The song starts with the girls standing barefoot on a raised platform holding long light sticks in their hands which for the first performance at least aren’t lit. They are dressed in simple jeans and denim jackets. Double denim is back in fashion! For the second verse, the platform starts moving up and down like a see-saw with one girl at each end, then they step off the platform and walk to centre stage, the platform then turns into Chinese fan, the background of which is plain, I suspect they might project something onto it though! Vocally the girls are fine, they are boosted by the backing vocals which were VERY strong. I know this isn’t fancied much by a lot of people but I think it will do fine. It’s not a contender but I do think it’s an easy qualifier. There seems to be quite a few technical issues to sort out as there is a long pause after the first run through while they watch back the performance. The second run through finally starts, and the girls are now wearing long ponytails that are joined together at the start which break apart. After this, we were told by the stagehand that this would be the last run through with FULL PYRO! And indeed we do have the classic rain of pyro at the key change, and it actually looks really good, unlike the Georgian one last year. Overall, a decent enough rehearsal, a few things to tighten up on but a good start.

© Thomas Hanses (EBU)

15:30 AZERBAIJAN

The last artist up before the break is Dilara Kazimova with her ballad “Start a Fire” who gives us a  few acapella bursts of her song before the first run through. Let’s see if Azerbaijan have any gimmicks this year.  Dilara is joined by a female acrobat who is floating around the stage on a trapeze. Some of the shots aren’t quite right yet as it’s quite difficult to see what’s going on and I think they really need to work on this because it looks a bit messy at the moment. There’s a touch of Gothic elements to this with the lighting and that part at least looks great. Vocally, they have absolutely nothing to worry about as it’s almost note perfect, and probably the vocal performance of the day. I have a feeling though she has absolutely NO IDEA what she is singing about! I think the lyrics to this song are beautiful. The other run throughs were just as strong vocally, and I think that this song could surprise some people – I think it will definitely keep up Azerbaijan’s unbroken run of top 10 finishes.

© Thomas Hanses (EBU)

16:00 BREAK TIME

We now have another break, this time for 40 minutes before we are back with the last 2 songs of the evening – Ukraine and Belgium! Stay tuned!

16:40 UKRAINE

And we’re back! Up next is Mariya Yaremchuk. We can hear her chatting to the floor manager just before the song starts. There’s a large hamster wheel on stage which a male dancer is rolling around in, theres some nice shots of this at the intro of the song. It’s certainly different, that’s for sure. I’m not sure what it adds to the performance though. During the second verse she interacts with the dancer and then climbs on to the wheel towards the end. She’s dressed in a black and red flowing dress and is sporting a long pony tail. She looks STUNNING and is giving us some sultry facial expressions. The dancer joins Mariya at the end to grab her. Vocally, it’s not quite perfect, though her ad-libs at the end are good. She talks a lot in-between the run throughs and says “Where was zee wind?”, so I suspect the wind machines will appear at some point. She is woman who certainly knows what she wants! On the second run through the song is stopped during the intro as there seems to be some camera issues, but then we get another run through which goes without hitch. Overall, it’s competent but I’m not quite sold on the staging for this. There’s then another long gap before we get one more final run through of the song, and it seems there’s a bit for them to work on. I think it would have been better with a few more dancers as for this type of uptempo song it looks a little empty.

17:13 BELGIUM

And last, but by certainly no means least we have Axel! He’s wearing his trademark tuxedo that he wore in the national final performance. He stands alone on stage, which is very dark. The creepy female dancer is back too, so there’s pretty much no change from the national final at all. There’s really not a lot to say about this performance, it’s very simple but it’s also a very divisive song. Axel sings it excellently, though at times it does feel like he is over singing it a little bit. There’s definitely a market for this type of song. It’s not really my cup of tea, however I have a feeling it could do very well, much to the chagrin of a lot of EuroFans. It’s a definite qualifier and I think it could easily be in the top 10 come Saturday evening.

17:45

And that’s all for today! Ten countries had their first rehearsal, but have we seen the winner so far? It’s difficult to predict, but I definitely think we could have possibly seen a few Top 5 performances in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Sweden. The next few days should give us a much clearer picture of how we think things will pan out. Now, it’s off back to the apartment for a quick freshen up before heading to the opening parties of both Euro Fan Café and EuroClub! Stay tuned for gossip from both places, and see you all again tomorrow!