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HELLO EUROPE

Good afternoon people! I am here in the press centre ready to blog the first dress rehearsal of the FINAL! I cannot believe we are finally here! Who will win? Sweden? The Netherlands? Austria? Stay tuned for all the action!

I’m really excited for today’s show – the contest is wide open this year! Who knows where we will be this time next year. A few shocks from the semis saw the likes of Israel and Estonia failing to qualify but we have 26 songs still remaining in the battle for the Eurovision crown. Today we will have a chance to see if we can have a better idea just who might cross over the finish line in first place. At the moment, I have no idea!

1400 CET comes and as yet – the show has not begun but I am sure we will start very soon!

AND WE ARE OFF!

The screen in the press centre cuts to something, and then it goes. Oh, ok.

Now we have people on stage dancing around with the flags of all the nations in the final and the #JoinUs logo is on the floor! The announcer asks us if we are ready? HELL YES!

Now we get an announcement of all the songs in order and all the artists walk on stage with a huge flag behind them, it’s like Miss World! Poland and Greece get mixed up and come on stage for each other’s songs – and then there is a pause, we get a shot of Conchita for a second, but they’re trying to fix it now. Doesn’t anyone know the proper running order?e

Still nothing happening now, one of the song captions appeared on stage for a few seconds and we can hear people cheering in the audience!

Now we start Miss World pageant again with Ukraine starting us off. The countries are all announced in English, French and the national language of the country! Nice touch!

After all the countries have been introduced, the hosts then appear on stage to welcome us to the show! Pilou even speaks Chinese! They tell us over 180 million viewers across the World, not just Europe, are watching right now. They tell us that in this past year, every day is a Eurovision day. Well we KNEW that! There’s a video of a family around a table who pop some streamers.

Now we get the usual voting rules and the running order appears on screen with the voting numbers, and the app also gets a plug before they tell us about the postcards being a personal touch this year. And they tell us the contest has begun!

UKRAINE

The postcards are the same as before – we will tell you about the pre-qualified finalists ones. Ukraine are first up, and the whistling is back! Where did that come from? Did the EBU decide to let them have it? Good opener I would say, I kinda thought this might have been first up. Vocally it’s strong and I think this could be top 10. The dancer just comes off the wheel at the end and doesn’t grab her. Probably saving this for tomorrow night.

BELARUS

The draw of death this year goes to Belarus, so I think that means that they just sneaked through. I think they are just happy to be in the final but this isn’t going anywhere and will be lucky to be out if the bottom 5 come tomorrow evening. Performance wise, it’s decent but I’m just not enamoured with this song at all. Still a bit bitter about Israel. 🙁

AZERBAIJAN

The first of many ballads this evening comes from Dilara and she is still singing in a language I think is supposed to be English. The performance of this is the same as before and vocally sound. I’d say the Azeri’s are assured of another top 10 position but I don’t think it will do as well as they have done the past few years, especially with this early draw.

ICELAND

The Icelandic boys are up next to inject a bit of fun into the show. Quite a contrast from the last song, and they give it their all as usual, but I’m not sure how well this is going to do and I think it might end up with a similar result to how Iceland have fared recently, possibly around 20th?

NORWAY

Not the best draw for Carl Espen, I must say, and I think this will really affect the result for them. He performs it well as always, but this has now drifted to tenth in the bookmakers, which for a song that was once the hot favourite to win really says something. I am thinking mid-table at best for Norway, which my bank balance is quite happy about!

ROMANIA

Paula and Ovi are next, and they’re decent enough, I guess. From what I can gather, they changed the hologram thingy during the rehearsals so it only appears on screen when Paula sings her line in the first verse. I also don’t like how they changed the cameras during Paula’s high note. Overall, kinda muted performance and I think they will struggle to make top 10 based on that.

ARMENIA

The once hot favourite which has now slipped to fourth in the betting is next. He’s in a Union Jack T-shirt – is this a sign? Despite not being in his performance outfit, he performs excellently but I feel this has lost too much traction over the past few days to have much of a chance to do well. I predict around fifth for them, and we will not be going to Yerevan next year.

MONTENEGRO

First time in the final for Montenegro and Sergej is wearing a black zipper top with his accreditation around his neck. Good performance from him, but I do feel that this type of song has a bit of a limited audience, particularly when there are very few Balkans competing this year. Still, the fact they are in the final is a huge accomplishment so wherever they finish, the Montenegrin camp will be happy!

POLAND

Poland are up next with their first final appearance since 2008 – congratulations to them! They bring some much needed energy into this contest and Cleo and her girls do their thing on stage well. I think it’s on a bit too early to really do any damage but I think they’ll be around mid table. Some slight sound issues with this from the press centre but it didn’t seem to affect their performance at all. First time we have actually had some applause from the press centre for this one!

GREECE

The fun continues with the Greek boys and Riskykidd remembers his words this time! I still think the vocals for this are a bit off but they manage to get away with it. This is not a winner, but I expect this to do well and I think that it will be around the top 5 somewhere, but I’d say the Greek’s would be happy with that, as winning would probably bankrupt the new broadcaster!

AUSTRIA

And last night’s huge success story is up next! Yours truly even got to ask her a question in the Winners Press Conference! Vocally, she really isn’t on the best of form today, perhaps she jus saving herself? I think if she IS going to win she needs to improve, but I do think she has huge momentum behind her, so if she pulls it out of the bag tomorrow evening then we could perhaps be going to Vienna or Graz next year? Very good applause from the press centre!

GERMANY

First of the pre-qualifiers is up next and the German girls are in a kitchen for their postcard where they make candies in the German flag colours. Simple performance for them as all three stand centre stage. I had this down as last place and I still stand by this prediction. It is not a bad performance by any means but it’s just THERE.  I’d even say this could get NUL POINTS, which would be a first since 2003. There’s some streamers at the end of the song which completely drown the band and frankly, looks ridiculous! And now, it’s time for a BREAK!

BREAK

Nikolaij is up telling us about HASHTAG Join Us before we get a bunch of awards including Highest Hat and we get the Highest Note award which I won’t spoil for you, but I guessed it right! Pilou and Lise are on stage and introduce the 11,000 strong audience including the hardcore Eurovision fans, and Pilou tells us the arena used to be used for shipbuilding before introducing Sanna Nielsen!

SWEDEN

After the cute Swedish postcard, Sanna is on stage in her full outfit, and she does what only Sanna can do, and performs the life out of her song. On this dress rehearsal, she is far stronger than Conchita, and at the moment, I’d say she is the most likely winner of the thirteen songs we have heard so far, but then this can all change, so who knows? Nice applause from the press centre too!

BREAK?

So now we have a slight break as there is a slight technical issue and Nikolaj looks a little lost on stage as he announces Twin Twin on stage – wonder what happened there?

FRANCE

Twin Twin are up next and in their postcard they make the French flag by setting off some smoke canisters on bikes. Lots of flashing light and screen effects for this, they really inject a lot of fun onto stage but I do think it’s overall a little too messy to do well with the juries and therefore I think perhaps 16th or so is the best that France can hope for.

RUSSIA

The twins are next and they are not in their stage outfits today, but wearing blue jeans, white t-shirts and red jackets. They use the sticks to make sure they don’t fall off the edge of the see-saw. Good performance for the girls and I think, despite what Europe might think of Russia right now, this looks like a solid top 10 placing for me.

ITALY

For her postcard, Emma is in a market and buys some food including cheese, tomatoes and basil from which she makes the Italian flag. Nice! She then appears on stage wearying a top with some Cyrillic letters on it, but the performance is not so great. Vocally it sounds rough but she does give us a lot of attitude on stage which partly makes up for it. I’d say this at the moment looks mid-table. Perhaps 12th or so, which would give the Italians their worst performance since they returned to the contest in 2011.

SLOVENIA

Surprise (but in a good way) qualifiers Slovenia are next, the only qualifier that I didn’t predict. Nice to see them back after a few years of failures. Good performance for them but I think they might just have scraped through on Thursday, so I don’t really expect them to do anything tomorrow and will be somewhere on the right hand side of the scoreboard.

FINLAND

Not much to say about Finland, no changes from before and while I don’t really like it, this is in a genre of it’s own in this line up. so I think could do well. But not challenging for a high position at all, and is another one I’d say will likely finish somewhere mid-table.

SPAIN

Ruth is next and has balls of wool which she and a rather handsome male friend tie around some pillars to make the Spanish flag in their postcard. This still starts off with the sound of falling rain before the song begins. Visually it looks good and Ruth is definitely in fine voice, her hair looks like she has just stepped out of the shower! DANCING! Ok, no idea at ALL where this is going to finish. Nope. Nada. Not a clue.

SWITZERLAND

SEBalter is next, we’re getting on the home stretch now. Another good performance from him, and he really does enjoy himself on that Eurovision stage but I can’t really see this in the mix anywhere as I think it sort of gets lost within this line-up. 18th or so?

HUNGARY

Hungary next and what a change from the jolliness of the Swiss song and it contrasts starkly to the darkness of this. It’s performed very well but I think the subject matter is going to put some people off  and therefore I don’t think it’s a winner, however it is a definite top ten and I would say the Hungarians would be pleased with this.

MALTA

Richard, Michelle and the gang are up next and Michelle is sporting a pair of glasses! Vocally this is fine, I heard they had a few issues in the semi final? I never noticed from the arena. They really know how to have fun on stage and I have a feeling this is going to do well, I don’t think it’s a winner but it should give Malta their best placing since 2002.

DENMARK

The home nation are up next, and Basim and some friends paint some furniture including a TV, sofa and table into the colours of the Danish flag! Not my favourite postcard really. Lots of movement in this performance and he performs well, but it falls kinda flat for me. It won’t be an embarrassing performance for Denmark, but I think we can safely say we won’t be returning here again next year. Thankfully, they have changed the banner to remove Basim’s face and is now just has a red heart with the word LOVE inside it. DR must have been listening to us!

TECHNICAL ISSUES!

There’s now a BREAK, which weirdly, comes after the Dutch postcard! Pilou stands on stage and there is another technical issue and he tells us that we are going to take a trip down memory lane and there’s a VT which says we are experiencing some technical difficulties and shows us some of the biggest Eurovision hits which consists of Alexander Rybak, Cliff Richard and Lena! Pilou then introduces The Netherlands.

THE NETHERLANDS

Up next are who could have been the winners of the first semi final, and they have an excellent draw, and they are now third favourite to win the whole thing! For me this came out of nowhere. It’s excellently performed but I do not feel it has that spark to go the extra mile, but with the number of outlandish performances in this final, a nice simple staging definitely stands out and the juries are definitely going to love this. I’m thinking third place, which for The Netherlands, would be amazing, considering their past record!

SAN MARINO

Plucky little Vale is up next who finally gets to grace the Eurovision stage on final night! I am so happy for her! Another simple performance here and Vale is in fine voice. I’d love to think this could do well, but I think San Marino are just so happy to have made the final that they really don’t mind where they finish on the night as they’ve already made Eurovision history!

UNITED KINGDOM

Up last! Finally! It’s my home country! I am not quite sure if this is a good draw or not for us? Time will tell. The postcard consists of Molly with some Red London Buses, Royal Mail Vans, and a bunch of people in blue ponchos as she stands on a crane to take the photo. She is wearing an interesting concoction which looks like something made up of feathers. the backing dancers and drummer are wearing feather shoulder pads. Visually, this is stunning. But there are no pyros – these cost money so they’ll likely be saving them for tonight! In hindsight, I think this is actually a good draw for us! Could we finally do it?

BREAK

Lise thanks Molly and all the other competitors in this year’s contest before plugging the app again! Pilou and Nikolaj talk mention the commentators and they say hi to Graham Norton who is the commentator from the UK! We get a shot of him in his commentator box. Well he’s not there, but I guess he will be tomorrow. He has a job to do!

There’s a slight pause as Nikolaj and Pilou get a little bit affectionate! They tell us this is why it is a dress rehearsal and then we were back with Lise as she runs through thanking Molly and the others again! Pilou and Nikolaj are back again and this time we have a fake Graham Norton!

The boys tell us the voting will open in one minute’s time and then we have shots of the artists in the Green Room and then they open the voting!

INTERVAL ACT

After the recap, Nikolaj introduces the interval act! We are introduced to a trip to the future and welcomed to Eurovision 2075! There is a hologram of Pilou but they mess up the video clip! Every single country in the world is now taking part in the Eurovision showdown. Five nations perform at the same time and these are Australia, Norway, Brazil, France and South Africa! Five people then appear on stage in very elaborate futuristic outfits and all five sing a line of each of their songs. They keep interrupting each other and it gets faster and faster and faster. Hmmm. Not sure about this really. Then again, as I said before, who is actually watching this part? One of the artist then appears on a ladder before the other contestants climb their ladder and they all sing lyrics to “Ode to Joy” by Beethoven.

Up next Lise introduces Gaia Cauchi who won Junior Eurovision in 2013 for Malta! She has a chat with Lise and then Gaia sings a line of her winning song, “The Start”!

Pilou is then back to tell us we have six minutes left to vote and we have our second snabberepris of the evening!

After this, we have a 10 second countdown to the end of the voting by the hosts! Europe, Stop Voting Now!

INTERVAL ACT – PART TWO

Nikolaj introduces a video of the Museum of Eurovision History! WHERE IS THIS? Sadly, it doesn’t actually exist! We see Abba’s costumes, the Eurovision School of Languages and Johnny Logan before Lordi play for bunch of kids who start screaming in terror! Herreys walk past in their golden shoes and the we go to the Eurovision Grand Finale Room where someone is singing Ooh Ahh, Just A Little Bit! She is then wheeled into an ambulance outside the venue.

Nikolaj introduces Lise who is in the Green room with the artists! She speaks to Richard Edwards and the gang from Malta, before chatting to Molly from the United Kingdom who says she loves Malta and The Netherlands. Next she goes to speak to Twin Twin from France and they try on some fake moustaches!

Nikolaj and Pilou are back, speak a bit of Chinese, randomly, and introduce Emmelie de Forest who sings “Only Teardrops” flanked by dancers dressed like trees and a bunch of people drumming on the floor. It’s an abridged version of the song as she then goes into the Official Theme Song of this year, “Rainmaker”. There are more dancers behind her and the drummers are now on little podiums in the water, some of the dancers jump into the river and others lift and carry Emmelie around the stage. There are dancers also climbing the frame behind the stage before there is a flag parade at the end of the song, and all the artists join Emmelie on stage to sing along with Emmelie. This is really nice actually!

Lise is then back sitting next to “The Boss” – Jon Ola Sand who tells us that we have a result! Nikolaj is then in the Green Room and sits next to a piano for some reason.  This then stops, and they cut to a video for a few seconds where it looks like the hosts are singing with Nikolaj playing the piano. But then this stops and we are back in the Green Room where it seems they are not quite ready for the next part!

After a few minutes delay we are back with Nikolaj at the piano but seems they still have a few things to work out as there’s another slight delay but then we get a video of the three hosts singing about the number “Twelve” – i.e. the highest score possible at Eurovision – the press centre is very busy now so it’s a little hard to make out what they are singing about! This video consists of astronauts, someone playing table tennis, it’s all a bit random really.

After this, it’s FINALLY time for the results!

RESULTS TIME

Nikolaj and Pilou are back on stage ready to give the results and they ask if all the voting spokespersons are ready, it seems they will all be shown on the big screen behind them waving! We then see the scoreboard which is projected on the screen behind the presenters on the left hand side, with an image of the commentator to the right. For this year, the scoreboard is a simple blue with white text, we have the country flag and the score is on the far left hand side next to the flag instead of on the right.

After a pause the voting begins and this is done by the same girl, and the voting is in alphabetical order by country ISO code, and it seems like every country gets a 12 points, in order of performance, more or less! We also see a virtual map of Europe in blue with the country highlighted and name in huge white letters.

The actual voting order will not be decided until after the jury final, to make it as exciting as possible!

AND THAT’S IT!

Seems like the voting has stopped partly way through and the dress rehearsal has ended! What a great show! I still have no idea who will win but I think the top 5 will be Sweden, UK, Austria, The Netherlands and Malta! At the moment. Let’s see if it will change! Thanks for following the blog!